As unlikely as it sounds, the most widely drug in the United States is made from animal waste. The drug is an estrogen (female sex hormone) substitute and used by millions of women worldwide to ease the symptoms of menopause (permanent cessation of menstruation). The Wyeth-Ayerst (the drugs company) claims that the "secret ingredient" (pregnant mares' urine) sets it apart from other estrogen drugs on the market. But it is contains another ingredient as well: ANIMAL SUFFERING.

Tens of thousands of pregnant mares are confined to tiny stalls for 6-7 months (of their eleven-month pregnancies) at a stretch out of every year, some "lucky" mares receive exercise every few weeks (some luck!), most of them don’t see a daylight for months.

This confined perform For the sake of producing urine to be used for the manufacture of an estrogen replacement therapy called Premarin (which produce in U.S.A. and Canada mainly) Pregnant mares are tethered to the front of stalls measuring just 3˝ to 5 feet wide and 8 feet long. For six months or so, while their bodies are producing the most estrogen, these mares are unable to take more than a step or two in any direction. They cannot turn around or even lie down; as a result, mares are often suffered from lameness. Mares are forced to wear cumbersome rubber urine-collection bags, which chafe their legs and cause sores, 24 hours a day. To collect their urine. Farmers are encouraged to limit the horses' drinking water so that their urine will yield more concentrate oestrogens. Drinking water is the most basic thing for a living creature to do. This act of greed causes mares to suffer from kidney and liver problem. It also causes the mares to struggle and injure themselves during water-distribution times

to get to the water they so desperately crave.

As you can guess, mares are going through Artificial Insemination (AI), Which means that they are regularly RAPED. The mares are all methodically impregnated to be on the same eleven-month gestation cycle. The foals are separated from their mothers by force. The mares got a job to do! All day long, you can hear the heartbreaking sound of separation mothers and babies calling plaintively to one another.

Still in trauma from having their children taken away from them, the mares will be re-raped and re-impregnated; and then tethered in the small wooden stall. This may be enough for the horses to lie down – but so is a coffin for a person. Would you like to live in one? The mares are re-impregnated within days of giving birth. Many go through this harrowing cycle for more than 20 years! This is heinous act; no one can really understand that stressful life.

Sadly, the foals born to these mares are usually worth less than the urine their mothers produce. To the PMU farmers, they are worth more dead than alive. Just as the male calves born to dairy cows are considered a by-product of the dairy industry, the foals of PMU mares are considered nothing more than a living by-product of Premarin.

Their future is almost 100% death. Some foals will die soon after birth; a 65 percent foal mortality rate is in the first week following foaling and 45 percent foal mortality rate during the following week unable to survive the bitterly cold temperatures of the prairies. The principle cause of death is exposure and starvation; the mares are usually turned out in large unsheltered open paddocks, very often in sub-zero temperature, to deliver their foals. The foals are called "by products" by the industry workers. It is not surprising that worker's attitude. Those workers see animals only as materials that provide them the next salary.

A few foals are used to replace worn-out mares on what farmers call 'pee-lines', but most are sent to feedlots where they are fattened and then slaughtered for meat. Some of their remains will be ground up and sold as dog food. (A filly foal has a less than one in 10 chance of not going to slaughter, a colt foal, less than one in 50!) One retired farmer said: "When you have to see a colt being born and then have to destroy it, it's rough because they are just babies".

Most Premarin mares will last about five years. When the mares become old, infertile, or crippled, they are auctioned and sends to slaughtered. Every year one-quarter of the mares are sent to be murdered and replaced by other mares.

At the auctions, PMU foals and worn out mares will join other horses who are "unwanted" or "surplus" – most of whom will be sent to slaughter. The PMU foals are only between two to four months old when they are sent to auction. Too young to be weaned, these tiny foals can be regularly observed trying to nurse each other.

Auction houses facilitate the problem. They provide an "easy out" for irresponsible equine owners, where all they have to do is 'drop off' an animal at an auction facility and wait for a payment. Auctions have been found selling sick, sore, lame, disabled blind and pregnant equines on numerous occasions. For every animal is sold, the auction collect a fee, so, it is in the best interest of the auction's pocket to accept and sell as many animals as possible. Thoroughbreds and standard breeds that are no longer equitable to their owners are sold this way so that the very last nickel possible is squeezed out of them. The entire horse breed industry, regardless of the angle or involvement, is driven by greed and money. The only thing that matters is how many pounds of usable meat will come from the horse.

Horses bound for slaughter are shipped, frequently for long distances, in a manner that fails to accommodate their unique temperament. They usually not rested, fed, or watered during travel. This considered as waste to the shipper. Economics considerations dictate the conditions including crowding as many horses into trucks as possible. Terrified horses are crammed and transported to slaughter in double-deck trucks, which are too small for their bodies.
The truck ceilings are so low that the horses are not able to hold their heads in a normal, balanced position. The flooring of the trailer becomes increasingly slippery and slimy with manure and urine. Exhausted horses, desperately trying to maintain their footing, as the trailer careens along Interstate highways, will trample the inevitable downed horses, who lost their footing hours – and miles – earlier. The small once are crushed to death when a larger horse has fallen on them. And maybe the worst case is of pregnant mares which give birth to foals on the trailers – while they're en route – with the helpless newborns getting trampled to death underfoot.

By the time the trailers arrives the slaughterhouse, the very long and harrowing trip has taken its toll. The horses who have managed to survive the trip are completely exhausted, starving, dying from thirst, in pain, and frightened. Many of them will have sustained injuries – such as broken limbs or gouged out eyes. Some of them didn't survive the trip, then, a rope or a chain is used to drug the dead and downed – yet still alive – horses out of the trailer.

Once inside the building more callous workers, standing high on the railing that lined the stalls, beat the horses on the nose, forehead, neck, back, or hindquarters to get them to move. This continued until they entered the kill chute.

"Two egregious acts of cruelty took place right in front of me"; Said an eyewitness. "Running across the floor of the barn was a great-covered drain about three feet deep. A section of the grate was missing in one of the stalls through which horses were being forced. Because they were crammed into a space and panicking, each horse fell into the open hole, unable to get out since the floor was wet and slippery. Workers continued to beat the horses until they were able to throw their bodies out of this hole. Due to the overcrowding and panic, a large male got his leg hooked over one of the upper rails. Again, workers proceeded to beat him continually until the horse lunged forward gouging his leg open on the solid metal fence, which force his leg free of the rail. Federal law requires the presence of inspector during slaughter, but an inspector was nowhere to be found". This is sadly but not surprising what this eyewitness tells. Humans are known for their disgraceful attitude to non-human animals. This is not something new nor exception. Moreover, this will not going to stop.

According to a federal law, horses must be rendered unconscious prior to slaughter, usually with a captive bolt pistol, which shoots a metal rod into the horse's brain. But it is cost for some slaughterhouses. In places like these, horses are bashed in the head, sometimes repeatedly, in order to stun them so that they will fall down and lie still for the 'process' (even with the bolt pistol, they remain conscious). The stun is not intended to kill them, and it does not, unfortunately. Once down, the horses are caught by the hind leg and hoisted into the air, where they are dangled down a line to an individual who slits their throat causing them to bleed to death. Tens of thousands are murdered this way every year.

As many as 75,000 foals will be taken away from their mothers and killed before their first birthday to produce a hormone replacement therapy, which is one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world – Premarin – thereby the drugs companies earns billions of dollars a year.
Premarin is the single most prescribed drug in the U.S. (and the third most prescribed in Canada), holds 85% of the estrogen supplement market worldwide, and is Canada's most lucrative pharmaceutical export to date. Premarin ranks at number eight in Medicaid subsidized prescription drugs. Yes the taxpayer, you and I, are paying for that cruelty.

The Canada's leading horsemeat exporter says the pregnant mares' urine industry is his biggest source of supply. The mares live on Premarin 'farms' are doomed to life of deprivation and suffering on the 'pee-line' because Wyeth-Ayerst thinks horse urine is "good" for women's health. More likely, it is profitable so-called medicine!

It is estimated that there are more horses today (used for equestrian events, PMU farms, horseracing and as currency) than there were in the days of the horse-drawn carriage. No horse wants to end up on someone's plate. Every year, more than 10 billion farmed animals are tortured and killed for food. Those cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks, gees, fish… no more willingly gave up their lives to end up on someone's plate than these horses do. Whatever the species, ALL animals experience immense suffering and unimaginable horror at the factory farms as well as on the slaughterhouses, at the auctions and during transport.