HORSES SUFFER TO BOOST LIVETSOCK INDUSTRY PROFITS
By Dr. Michael W. Fox
Most people do not know about pregnant horses being cruelly confined, aborted and bled routinely for the extraction of hormone-rich pregnant mare serum gonadotropin (PMSG) from their blood. This hormone is produced by collecting a substantial volume of blood from early pregnant mares once or twice a week for 11 to 12 wk. The mares are then aborted and re-bred for another collection cycle.
PMSG is a hormone that is widely used to enhance reproductive performance and management of dairy and beef cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs kept under intensive housing systems.( Manteca Vilanova X et al Horse Welfare During Equine Chorionic Gonadotropin (eCG) Production. Animals (Basel). 2019 Dec 1;9(12):1053. doi: 10.3390/ani9121053.
Typically, PMSG is given to young sows to induce early puberty, which in turn triggers a kind of superovulation that results in larger litters. Just after they give birth, sows are then given PMSG to immediately induce estrus — the period of time when a female animal is in heat — so the cycle can start all over again according to a detailed report by Kena Shah, (The Blood of Pregnant Mares Literally Fuels Factory Farming (sentientmedia.org) She notes that “Though it’s difficult to track down exact numbers, the drug is omnipresent in industrial pork production in the U.S. and Canada. In Germany, government records indicate that approximately 2.1 million doses of this hormone are administered each year. According to the Association for Animal Welfare in Iceland, blood farmers in the country make a combined $3.4 million USD in revenue.”
The inherent cruelty to horses, many collapsing and dying from anemia and repeated abortions, to boost the productivity of factory farmed animals for human consumption is an outright international atrocity that is profit driven in every quarter. It will not end until more and more consumers shop with informed compassion, adopt plant-based diets and enjoy the financial and health benefits of vegetarian and vegan meals.
For more details about this fertility hormone PMSG being predominantly used in industrial animal breeding to increase the reproductive performance of sows, but also cattle, sheep, and goats - through synchronizing cycles and increasing the number of offspring produced per year, go to /feeva.fve.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/7.-FEEVA-GA-PMSG-presentation.pdf.
The World Veterinary Association “ supports the development and use of alternatives, such as bioequivalent synthetic biologics and therapeutics, to replace the need for using horse blood, serum, and urine to derive biologics and therapeutics that treat or prevent various conditions in humans and other animals.” (https://worldvet.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/WVA-Position-Statement-on-the-Use-of-Horses-for-Production-of-Biologics-and-Therapeutics.pdf).