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Ann Delp pets Blue Ridge's Another Chance. The Delps belong
Scotch, |
HUNDERBOLT now has her pick of rolling hills to frolic on and fresh grass to munch.
She has equine friends to play with, human friends to stroke her chestnut brown coat--still covered with baby fuzz--and prosperous orange cats to bask in the sun at her feet.
Her life at Eagle Hill Farm, the Culpeper home of Ann and Steven Delp, is idyllic. But if she had stayed at the farm in Canada where she was born, her fate would have been uncertain.
Nine-month-old Thunderbolt is a PMU foal--a byproduct of the production of the estrogen-replacement drug Premarin.
Usually prescribed for women to treat the hot flashes and night sweats that can accompany menopause, or for women who have had a hysterectomy, Premarin is derived from the urine of pregnant mares (PREgnant MAre uRINe).
Farms, mainly in Canada, harvest the urine from an estimated 60,000 mares, which are kept pregnant, each year. The urine is then exported to Wyeth-Ayerst laboratories in New Jersey, which manufactures the drug, said Kathy George, public relations manager for Another Chance for Horses, during a telephone interview.
Thousands of foals like Thunderbolt are left over to be dealt with, Ann Delp said. Often they are sold to feedlots for slaughter, to be exported to countries such as France and Japan where horse meat is a delicacy.
When she came to Eagle Hill Farm, Thunderbolt was 3 months old and grossly underweight. She's still much thinner than foals her age should be, but she's made up for her scrawniness with feistiness.
"She should never have been separated from her mother," Delp said. "But now she's the leader of the pack."
The Delps' farm is a sanctuary for babies and pregnant mares who have been exported from the Canadian farms. They are part of an organization called Another Chance for Horses, a not-for-profit, volunteer-run outfit that attempts to find homes for the animals.
Another Chance and similar organizations pay the Canadian farmers more money to keep mothers and foals together than they would get for selling the foals to feedlots, Delp explained.
George said this amount depends on the price of horse meat, which can be up to 60 cents a pound.
Delp has loved horses since childhood, when her father was a cavalry officer. A globetrotting life with a military husband prevented her from being able to keep them for many years, but since they've settled in Virginia, she's been able to rekindle her involvement with the animals.
The Delps, who moved to Culpeper from Fairfax a year ago, became involved with Another Chance for Horses after they adopted a PMU mare to be a companion for their gelding. They were so impressed with the horse that they decided to adopt two more PMU babies.
"Two days before they were supposed to come, we got a phone call saying 12 were coming," Delp said. "We found homes for nine of them and ended up keeping three for ourselves."
The number of horses they have available fluctuates often--at the moment there are two pregnant mares, whose babies will be available after they are weaned. Delp is anticipating a bunch of 10-month-olds to arrive in the next few weeks.
The mares are beautiful examples of sporting horses, which resemble thoroughbreds but have more even tempers. Even so, Delp said some of the horses that came from the Canadian farms were skittish and nervous around humans.
"Several of the mares took awhile to get used to me because of I don't know what," she said.
Mares bred to produce Premarin are kept in tiny stalls attached to catheters that collect their urine, Delp said. Delp said they are given little or no water each day so their urine will have the most concentrated amount of estrogens possible.
There is a recommended code of practice for the care and handling of horses in PMU operations, assembled by a committee that includes members of the North American Equine Ranching Information Council, veterinarians and members of other agricultural and equine associations.
The code, available online at naeric.org/reports_faq, recommends a minimum stall width of 3 feet for horses that weigh less than 900 pounds and 5 feet for horses that weigh more than 1,700 pounds.
It recommends that the harness used for collecting the urine be placed so as to not chafe the mare. It also advises an average of 4.5 gallons of water daily for horses less than 900 pounds and 9 gallons for horses more than 1,800 pounds.
According to Doug Petkus, Wyeth-Ayerst spokesperson, the code is updated periodically and the PMU farms are inspected throughout the year without warning by Wyeth representatives, independent veterinarians and government regulators from Canada and the United States.
"The care and welfare of these horses is taken very seriously," Petkus said during a telephone interview.
A few of the pregnant mares who came to the Delps' farm from Canada are still significantly underweight, despite a liberal feeding regimen and visits from veterinarians. They've all overcome their timidity around humans, however, and are docile and contented.
"And the foals have had no bad experiences," Delp said. "They're just the byproducts."
She envisions a little girl newly indoctrinated to the love of horses adopting one of the foals.
"The advantage to buying foals is they're like puppies," she said. "You can cuddle them and there's that camaraderie."
Another Chance for Horses placed approximately 200 rescued or rehabilitated horses in homes up and down the East Coast in 2003, George said. For 2004, the number is expected to double.
The reason for the dramatic leap in numbers is that Wyeth-Ayerst, Premarin's manufacturer, has canceled its contracts with a third of the Canadian farms, Delp explained. That, compounded with a bad winter that has made hay for the PMU mares more expensive, has led to a larger number of horses being sold.
"There's a desperate push to get rid of these mares," Delp said.
Behind the cancellation of the contracts is the fact that prescriptions for Premarin have declined 33 percent since 2002, according to an article published in the January Journal of the American Medical Association.
This may be due to a recent study of hormone therapy treatments--mainly Premarin--that was conducted by the Women's Health Initiative.
The study was canceled in 2002 when findings linked the drug to a slight increase in the risk of breast cancer, stroke and blood clots, according to Dr. Wulf Utian, a physician at the University Hospital of Cleveland and member of the North American Menopause Society.
"The situation changed quite dramatically," Utian said during a telephone interview from Cleveland. "I think there are probably about 40 percent less sales than there were 18 months ago."
Premarin has been around for 60 years, Utian said, and used to be the fifth-best-selling drug in the nation.
"It's one of the most investigated drugs in human history," he said. "There's no other drug that comes near it."
Delp herself used to be on Premarin, but she quit taking it because of a family history of breast cancer. She knows many women who have also stopped taking it because of the WHI study.
For a long time, she had no idea what the main ingredient of the drug was.
"Fifteen years ago, doctors just gave you the pills and you chugged them," she said. "Now when you start talking about what's actually in it, people stop and go 'What?'"
Despite the politics and issues involved with Premarin, Delp and Another Chance for Horses operate on a simple principle.
"It's just a pure love of horses," she said. "And a lot of hard work."
She and her husband, who commutes to Rosslyn each day for his job at United Defense, care for the horses themselves. They have constructed fences and run-in sheds for the equines and pay for visits from vets.
They've invested significant time and money, but Delp said they've also received lots of support.
Recently, one of the pregnant horses appeared to be going into labor prematurely, but after four hours and a great deal of pain, there was no baby. Concerned that she might be trying to abort the foal, Delp took the horse to Blue Ridge Equine Clinic in Free Union.
The veterinarians found that the mare's uterus had twisted 180 degrees, a condition so rare it's seen only about three times a year, Delp said. She was told the operation to correct it would be extremely expensive.
Without the funds to pay for the complicated surgery, Delp asked the doctors to try to fix the condition manually, or to at least perform a Caesarean section and attempt to save the foal.
But when she called later to check the status of the mare, she found that a group of interns specializing in abnormal medicine had performed the surgery free of cost.
"It just gives me goose bumps," Delp said. "This is not supposed to have happened. It's such an overwhelming bit of generosity, and, in this case, no one is the loser."
The mare is now recuperating at Eagle Hill Farm, and when the baby is born it will be named Blue Ridge Miracle.
Besides adopting one of the horses, there are "a million and one things" people can do to help, Delp said.
"If there are things you find when you clean out your barn that you're not using--old halters or even a bucket sitting in the corner--that would help at crunch time," she said.
Monetary donations will go to purchase a foal or offset the cost of the horses' daily maintenance. People can also donate money to sponsor a foal. The organization will place it in a foster farm, such as the Delps', and when the foal is sold to a new home the money will go to sponsor another baby.
"If someone donated $400, it's saving that foal and six, seven or eight down the line," Delp said. "It just keeps on giving and giving."
She added: "This is my way of paying horses back for all the good things they've brought me."
For pictures of horses up for adoption and to contact the Delps, visit Another Chance for Horses online at anotherchanceforhorses.com.
To reach ADELE UPHAUS: 540/374-5419 auphaus@freelancestar.com
