[Huntseat]

I'm working on a presentation for my English class and I'm trying to find as much info as possible on PMU mares. While the sites I'm finding online are helpful, they are nothing like talking to someone who has firsthand experience. If any of you have been to a PMU farm, have adopted a PMU mare or foal, or have worked in one of these places, PLEASE PM or post here! Your help is greatly appreciated.

[Blistering Winds]

Here is a tidbit on US based PMU farms.

Several farms have contracts with Reiners, cutters, and other areas of the horse world that have embraced the idea of Embryo Transfer. The PMU mares carry the foal to term, nurse, and the foal is then given back to the origional breeder.

PMU farm gets the benefit of having the pregnant mare pregnant, the industry does not put out "unknown" foals, ET people get their surrogent mares at a lower cost due to the relationship needed, everyone wins!!!!

I'll see if I can get the names of the farms that participate in these type of agreements.

But it is definitely the BEST way to have a PMU type business in my opinion!

The ET people are going to put those horses out, with or without PMU industry, this way there is less of a "drain" on the industry with adding more grade, lower quality, possibly unwanted horses into circulation.

Many of these foals were worth 10 grand before ever hitting the ground!!!

[Huntseat]

Thank you! That is great information, I'm interested to see what else you can find.

[AMD]

Our 4-H club just adopted a PMU foal. Hes a great little guy, are there any questions you have? I don't really know anything about the industry, but I know a lot about the process of adoption. We got ours from THE ANIMALI FARM Check it out, they might be able to help some.

[Huntseat]

Thank you. I was just looking at that website before I saw your post! I'll let you know when I figure out exactally what aspect my presentation will cover.

[Commanderkins]

PM cowgurly02, or I am sure she will post on this thread, she has ALOT of first hand experience with PMU farms, I believe one of her relatives had a farm, but has been fazed out (I believe) since the mass shut downs.

[cowgurly02]

NAERIC - North American Equine Ranching Council

Takes you on a virtual tour of barns, has personal web sites of PMU farms, etc...

I've talked about this a ton so I'm just copying and pasting from another thread I wrote on LOL

PMU farms only have 7,000 foals born/year. That's less than 0.01% of the population. VERY few of the horses end up at slaughter, in fact I have never heard of foals going there and there used to be 15 barns within an hour's or less drive from my house. Most are sold at PRIVATE sales on the farm, meat buyers are not even in attendance. MANY farms are people who breed and show performance horses, and they were breeding mares anyways so PMU is just "on the side".

My aunt and uncle bred bucking stock out of their barn. They are lucky, their operation was small and they kept all their mares when the barns were all shut down in Alberta. They still breed bucking stock with them. They breed their mares to Grated Cocunut, an NFR bronc. Stud fee is NOT cheap LOL Their foals are worth a lot of $$.

[cowgurly02]

Okay! I do ask you to visit NAERIC - North American Equine Ranching Council and the rest of the site. You'll get a ton of great information. The "about" page has the regulations and vet inspections (which are done 15 times/year to each barn), etc....

Okay I will go through a day at work with you I just worked weekends since it was my high school job, but every day was the same. They had another 2 hired for during the week and my friend and I did weekends during the winter. From March-October the horses are turned out into pastures in a herd environment so they did not hire anybody for those months.

The barn is set up into 4 rows of stalls. Every day one of the rows (about 20-25 horses per row, not all the stalls are filled usually) gets turned out for 5 hours. So the horses got turned out about twice/week providing the weather co-operated. Winters here are very cold, and inside the mares don't grow much of a coat so if it was -20 C (-4 F) or colder the mares didn't go out. The farmers HAVE to turn the horses out at least once/week, however Wyeth pays them more $$ if they turn them out more often so most do. We had to keep a log book of every horse and how often they were turned out.

Anyways! The first thing we'd do is walk down every row with the log book and write down ANY type of injury we saw, no matter how small. The tiniest scratch had to be logged. Each mare is branded with a # so you can keep track of each mare easily. We would also check their "boots" at this time (the rubber urine catcher in their tails) to make sure it wasn't plugged. When we got to the row were turning out we would take the boots off the horses as well. Then we would open the door that lead to the pasture, go up into the manger and untie every horse in the row being turned out. They'd go and walk out of the barn themselves. Then we'd close the door and gate, and we'd usually watch them run around and roll in the snow Just because it was fun to watch LOL

Then we go up into the mangers and fork hay in front of all the horses. A big round bale is rolled down the manger (the stalls face eacother and there is a wide manger between them, you drive a bob cat down this manger to feed them hay and oats) at night and usually lasts about 2 days between the horses, but sometimes they push it away so you have to fork it to them 3 times/day.

Then we would give the mares their salt and mineral, walk down the manger with a scoop and bucket and give them each one small scoop of the mixture.

Next was the not so fun part....washing boots and cleaning stalls LOL!!! You have to wash the boots of the row that gets turned out, so between 20-25 boots/day get washed. You have to unhook them and bring them to this big tub and clean with them a pressure washer and scrub them. Since they sit under the horse's tail they need to get cleand twice/week because they get quite dirty and it's not sanitary. Also, poop will get stuck down there and clog them off so you have clean out the inside and the filter as well. It's not that fun LOL

One person would do that (it takes like 2-3 hours) and the other would clean stalls. The stalls get cleaned twice/day. You scrape everything out into the aisles and then drive a bob cat down them to clean it out of the barn. Anyways, you don't take the horses out of their stalls or anything, you just go in there and clean them. Most of them are used to it and just stand there, but you have to be careful around new horses who may not be used to being around people. After you clean the stalls you go get shavings with the bob cat and fill every stall with shavings. You have to put lots in, the inspectors actually measure how much is in there LOL

[cowgurly02]

After lunch we re-hook all the boots up that we washed, they should be dry by then. Rubber dries quick.

At about 1:30 we'd start bringing horses back inside. They are out by 8:30 am so they do get a good turn out. We open the gate into the chute area and the horses usually run themselves in, they are usually waiting by the gate by the time we get out there. Then we open the chute and the horses actually load themselves into it, they wait outside it until we opened it and they walked in by themselves. Then we'd clip a lead rope their halter and open the chute and lead them back inside to their stall. Most are halter broke, but sometimes a new one is hardly halter broke.

Anyways after they are all brought back in we re-boot them. By that time it's time to feed for evening. We put on the other bob cat bucket for oats and fill it with the auger and drive the bucket down the manger and give each horse a scoop of oats. After that we clean their stalls again. Then we fork them hay and clean and sweep the barn, then "fork up" again (fork them hay) and every second day you roll a new bale down the manger for them.

That's the usual. Of course there are vet days, hoof trimming days, etc...in March the mares are turned outside for foaling and they are brought back in the barn in October after the foals are weaned.

We also get to halter break foals in the fall before the sale. That was one of my favorite parts!

OH! And at the end of the day we had to check boots again to make sure they weren't clogged or hooked up wrong. And we had to turn on the pipe system at lunch to drain all the urine into the big tank in the pee room (that room STANK).

My aunt and uncle's barn was run the same way, we did chores for them when they were away. My dad was a farrier and did horses at about 10 of the barns in the area and they all had the same set up, all owned by every nice families we were friends with. Most of the ones in our area raised registered QH's. A few were well known trainers and competitors in reining/cutting as well, PMU was just a side project since they were breeding anyways. Some only had 20-30 mares total in their barns. Actually there were a lot like that.

[cowgurly02]

Oh and some pics...old but anyways this one is my sister and my cousins on weaning day in September. The foals are born April/May, and are not allowed to be weaned by regulations until after Sept.1st.



Anyhow, somebody asked before...NO the horses are not kept in those pens all summer. They are out on acres and acres of pasture, but they are run in for weaning in September and separated. It's done in the same fashion calves are weaned from their mothers. Then the mares are ran back out to pasture until the end of October/beginning of November when they are brought back into the barn. The foals are put into another pasture. Since my aunt and uncles' were bred for bucking stock, they weren't sold until they were older and had been bucked a few times as 3 or 4 year olds. At the farm I worked at, the colts stayed up to be halter broke and worked with before their sale.

This is a pic of my cousin's with an orphaned foal they had...LOL I love this pic!