No Increase in PMU Mares At Slaughter Plants

Thousands of horses from shut-down PMU (pregnant mare urine) farms in Canada and North Dakota are finding new homes in the United States, but few are winding up at slaughter houses at this time, according to slaughter plant managers.

Dick Koehler, general manager of the Beltex plant in Fort Worth, Texas, said that his firm is never in the market for PMU horses because many of them are

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Thousands of horses from shut-down PMU (pregnant mare urine) farms in Canada and North Dakota are finding new homes in the United States, but few are winding up at slaughter houses at this time, according to slaughter plant managers.

Dick Koehler, general manager of the Beltex plant in Fort Worth, Texas, said that his firm is never in the market for PMU horses because many of them are draft types that do not fit the plant’s needs. He said that no PMU horses had wound up at Beltex since the Canada and North Dakota cutbacks. Beltex slaughters about 600 head of horses per week and has been operating on a normal schedule.

A contact at Dallas Crown, located in nearby Kaufman, Texas, said that “a few PMU horses” arrived at the plant some time back, but that they were the only ones. Those horses, the person said, had been purchased in Canada by a buyer. Dallas Crown slaughters about 250 head of horses per week and has been operating at normal levels.

The chief slaughter plant in Canada is Bouvry Exports Calgary Ltd. Claude Bouvry, president, said that his plant is not interested in the thousands of PMU mares which went on the market because they are late in their pregnancies and the plant does not slaughter mares in that condition. He said that virtually no PMU horses had been sold to Bouvry of late. Bouvry slaughters between 240 and 260 horses daily and is operating on a normal schedule

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Les Sellnow was a prolific freelance writer based near Riverton, Wyoming. He specialized in articles on equine research, and operated a ranch where he raised horses and livestock. He authored several fiction and nonfiction books, including Understanding Equine Lameness and Understanding The Young Horse. He died in 2023.

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