A beautiful mare is taken into a foaling stall where after much labor she gives birth to a healthy and strong foal. The foal is allowed to bond to his mother and take his first taste of colostrum. Days later, the mare is quickly removed from her foal and put on a trailer destined for another farm, never to see her own foal again. Her job and only purpose now is to be a nurse mare and surrogate mother to another mare's foal, leaving her own foal an orphan.

Is this just a sad tale? Regretfully, it is a harsh reality.

Nurse mare farms have been in existence for the past 30 years serving the sport horse (i.e., Thoroughbred Racing Horses) breeding industry. The sole purpose of these farms is to breed healthy open mares and turn them into lactating mares through pregnancy and birth. These mothers are called nurse mares or wet mares. After foaling, the mare is made available for lease to a farm that wants a wet mare for their sport prospect foal.

The original use of a nurse mare was primarily by people who tragically lost a mare during birth, leaving a foal motherless. With mare mortality rates dropping due to advances in equine reproduction and parturition, the demand for nurse mares should be decreasing. This is not the case. The demand for nurse mares is increasing with unethical sport horse breeders wanting to relieve their athletic mares of nursing responsibilities, allowing them to return to sport competitions or be quickly bred back for another high priced foal.

It's inhumane enough that the sport horse foals are yanked from their dams unnecessarily, but the real victims of the nurse mare industry are the birth foals of the nurse mares: "The Nurse Mare Foals".

 When the day comes for their mothers to be shipped off to another farm, their fates are sealed. The newly orphaned foals are usually euthanized, auctioned, abandoned or sold to the leather industry to be used as 'pony skin'.

There are even cases where the entire 'crop' of nurse mare foals is put in a corral and left to starve to death! They are thrown away like trash, because they have served their main purpose, and are no longer needed. Some nurse mare farms will occasionally give the foals away, but most sell them discreetly for profit.

With most states lacking in stricter laws on the humane treatment of livestock animals, which horses are usually classified as, nurse mare farms are able to do what they want and are recognized as legitimate livestock operations. We embrace nurse mare farms that provide the legitimate and ethical service of surrogates for orphans, yet the same operation may be producing orphans. It is a profitable business for both the nurse mare farms and the breeders.

This is just another one of America's "Dirty Little Secrets", along with Horse Slaughter and the quiet elimination of our nation's wild mustang population. Rescues across America are working to save Nurse Mare Foals whenever possible. This is a monumental commitment, both financially, physically, and emotionally.

First one has to purchase the baby from the breeding farms; transport the tiny animals to the rescue; and THEN the real work begins! Foaling season for the Thoroughbred industry runs mainly from January through March, so that prospective TB foals will all turn two at around the same time. This means its deep winter for many rescues; so the babies must be kept warm. Milk replacer is expensive, and the person working with the foals must be committed enough to keep the babies fed warm formula along with their other usual needs.

So why bother? Because how can we turn our backs on the smallest victims of mankind's greed?

How can you get involved? Donate Today! Research this online; and start making some noise! We need to get some things changed in this country for the animals...and this is one of those silent horrors that we can no longer overlook. Thank you for your time and concern.

                           be used for   Nurse Mare Foal Rescue.