mares sent to china

[the galah]

Well i was looking at the latest horses sent to china and it got me thinking again about what is going to happen to them.

And after a bit of study on the internet,i think i have the most likely answers as to why they take only mares and the odd colt/stallion.

Now i have to say,its not just china but what i discovered happens in many countries.

I've discussed some of the following before but have more detail on there many uses this time.

We are after all talking nz harness horses and i think people should at least ask themselves,is that what you want to happen to your horse who you sell to china. I'm guessing those who sell to china are mostly more interested in the $ and the horse is just a commodity to be traded,but some sellers not be aware and i'm sure many would want to remain ignorant,but i think it should be put out there at least.

We know for sure china wants them for some of the below reasons and i think it would be a safe bet that is where many of the NZ horses end up.

 

Its all about pregnant mares.

The key is keeping them pregnant.

So for some uses they get them pregnant then abort the foal and for other uses they get them pregnant and then take the foals off them after a short time and send their foals to slaughter.

In china ,we know that in 2018 the african swine flu decimated pig numbers across much of china and we know one of their main tools to get pig farms and numbers up and running again,they used the hormone taken from pregnant mares to speed up the replacement numbers. 

1)What they do is have these blood farms where they have cycles where they drain 5 litres of blood in cycles where its often done 8 times in a row before they are given time to recover.They are kept in constant cycles of pregnancy then abortion in order to produce the hormone and are often given lower levels of nutrition prior to extraction as somehow that leads to greater levels of the hormone in a pregnant mares blood.

The hormone is used to induce puberty in young sows and triggers a super ovualtion that results in larger litters and then after they have given bith,they are given it again and they are back in heat straight away and so the cycle goes.

China has its own blood farms,but they are elsewhere in the world like south america. While the blood gold is used mostly on pigs its also used on other animals like cattle and sheep. 

2)then you have horse milk.For example in china they consider horse milk to have many health benefits. five years ago a kg of horse milk in inner mongolia sold for about $7 a kg. 

3)then you have pregnant mare urine(pmu) which is another very valuable product.Its called yellow gold and as an example,the extraction was pioneered in canda and is worth $800 million to canada each year.

What they do over there is have these the pharmaceutical companies refine it  into a product which is the gold standard product for treating Postmenopausal women. Called premarin although not sure if it has the same name in nz..Its benefits include preventative treatment for osteoperosis and cardiovascular disease in woman.

In canada the horses are confined to stalls 6 months of the year so urine can be caught in containing devices. They do foal them and the foals are transported some distance to feed lots where they are kept for 3 months and then slaughtered.

The horse farms are such good earners that the pharmaceutical companies have waiting lists over of 1200 canada farms wishing to convert.

Farmers get about $17 per 4.5 litres and each mare produces 455 of usable urine each year.

Its estimated each canadian farm with 100 mares earns $170,000 per year if they have 100 mares,from just the urine.

 

So its quite amazing just how much pregnant mares are worth when they end up on farms designed to get every last cent out of them.

I guess it all depends on which countries around the world as to their animal welfare laws.  

So shouldn't people at least make themselves aware of what type of life they are heading to when they sell them. 

Does anyone actually believe they are going to be used in some type of racing industry in china.I mean,people who say that in reality are just wishful thinking you would think.

Edited March 23 by the galah

[Shad]

A mate thought he had contracted swine flu, so rung the 0800 swine flu hotline, all he got was crackling.

[Brodie]

3 hours ago, the galah said:

Well i was looking at the latest horses sent to china and it got me thinking again about what is going to happen to them.

And after a bit of study on the internet,i think i have the most likely answers as to why they take only mares and the odd colt/stallion.

Now i have to say,its not just china but what i discovered happens in many countries.

I've discussed some of the following before but have more detail on there many uses this time.

We are after all talking nz harness horses and i think people should at least ask themselves,is that what you want to happen to your horse who you sell to china. I'm guessing those who sell to china are mostly more interested in the $ and the horse is just a commodity to be traded,but some sellers not be aware and i'm sure many would want to remain ignorant,but i think it should be put out there at least.

We know for sure china wants them for some of the below reasons and i think it would be a safe bet that is where many of the NZ horses end up.

 

Its all about pregnant mares.

The key is keeping them pregnant.

So for some uses they get them pregnant then abort the foal and for other uses they get them pregnant and then take the foals off them after a short time and send their foals to slaughter.

In china ,we know that in 2018 the african swine flu decimated pig numbers across much of china and we know one of their main tools to get pig farms and numbers up and running again,they used the hormone taken from pregnant mares to speed up the replacement numbers. 

1)What they do is have these blood farms where they have cycles where they drain 5 litres of blood in cycles where its often done 8 times in a row before they are given time to recover.They are kept in constant cycles of pregnancy then abortion in order to produce the hormone and are often given lower levels of nutrition prior to extraction as somehow that leads to greater levels of the hormone in a pregnant mares blood.

The hormone is used to induce puberty in young sows and triggers a super ovualtion that results in larger litters and then after they have given bith,they are given it again and they are back in heat straight away and so the cycle goes.

China has its own blood farms,but they are elsewhere in the world like south america. While the blood gold is used mostly on pigs its also used on other animals like cattle and sheep. 

2)then you have horse milk.For example in china they consider horse milk to have many health benefits. five years ago a kg of horse milk in inner mongolia sold for about $7 a kg. 

3)then you have pregnant mare urine(pmu) which is another very valuable product.Its called yellow gold and as an example,the extraction was pioneered in canda and is worth $800 million to canada each year.

What they do over there is have these the pharmaceutical companies refine it  into a product which is the gold standard product for treating Postmenopausal women. Called premarin although not sure if it has the same name in nz..Its benefits include preventative treatment for osteoperosis and cardiovascular disease in woman.

In canada the horses are confined to stalls 6 months of the year so urine can be caught in containing devices. They do foal them and the foals are transported some distance to feed lots where they are kept for 3 months and then slaughtered.

The horse farms are such good earners that the pharmaceutical companies have waiting lists over of 1200 canada farms wishing to convert.

Farmers get about $17 per 4.5 litres and each mare produces 455 of usable urine each year.

Its estimated each canadian farm with 100 mares earns $170,000 per year if they have 100 mares,from just the urine.

 

So its quite amazing just how much pregnant mares are worth when they end up on farms designed to get every last cent out of them.

I guess it all depends on which countries around the world as to their animal welfare laws.  

So shouldn't people at least make themselves aware of what type of life they are heading to when they sell them. 

Does anyone actually believe they are going to be used in some type of racing industry in china.I mean,people who say that in reality are just wishful thinking you would think.

Galah, have read about this  awful behaviour bt the Chinese snd Mongolians previously!

I am sure you are probably correct about what is hsppening!

what would the owners be getting for their mares, it cant be too much or the buyers would just need to buy hacks wouldn't they?

Think people should be more concerned with this  practice than the use of the whip on harness horse?

 

[the galah]

2 hours ago, Brodie said:

Galah, have read about this  awful behaviour bt the Chinese snd Mongolians previously!

I am sure you are probably correct about what is hsppening!

what would the owners be getting for their mares, it cant be too much or the buyers would just need to buy hacks wouldn't they?

Think people should be more concerned with this  practice than the use of the whip on harness horse?

 

I heard from someone that got an offer that they wanted the mare either in foal or to have been served.

I'm not 100% sure what they were getting but i'm guessing around $10,000 for some mares. They aren't paying peanuts,thats why people are selling.

I read last year there was no more inner mongolia horse racing. Lin lang,known as mr wolf,the man behind that,his company was put into liquidation last year.He apparently has vanished into the wind.. He used to buy all sorts of horses in nz and on sell most in china.

They ranged from Kaimanawa ponies to racehorses.That all stopped when covid hit and they couldn't get horses or people to china.Don't think anyonwe would believe the kaimanawa horses are going to be raced,but for some reason many think the harness horses will be treated different,for unknown reasons. 

Apparently he talked a big game but all his money was coming from the bank of china,and they ended up running out of patience. Its hard to believe that the chinese bank would lend to someone wanting to set up racing when gambling wasn't legal. You would think it more likely there was always eventually alternative plans for the horses,that the bank could see a return on and benefitted china,but who really knows.

His best racehorse ,mongolian khan,winner of the caufield cup. Windsor park bought him then later sold him to a stud in tibet,2000kms from inner mongolia.

They do have a growing equestrian type horse industry in china so maybe thats what hes used for.Some horses from nz are going to china for that reason.But thats a different thing.

Getting the horses from nz was made more alluring for the chinese by the free trade agreement nz and china have.You would think theres got to be a reason why nz,and maybe its about where they can buy thats easiest and without any fuss for them. 

Actually it wasn't that many years ago that nz and the netherlands were where the most number of horses exported to china came from although it was only a couple of thousand.

China for years had the most horses in the world and in 1977 had 11.44 million.mostly used on farms and for transport. but nowdays they only have around 3 million as tractors,trucks,cars motorbikes and decreased agriculture land is available.

Anyway,back to the pregnant mares.

Theres no doubt that theres a good chance many of nz harness mares and the stallions will be used in the industries i have mentioned.

Thats where the money is.

last year i posted on here how just a few years ago, the chinese buying up all the worlds donkeys had lead to a shortage of donkeys.And i talked about what they did with them.

Edited March 23 by the galah

[Brodie]

There was an owner that had a few horses  with Graham and  Paul Court, that had the prefix Mongolian 2 or 3 seasons ago!

They seemed to have disappeared?

Short life of racing in NZ for that owner!

 

[the galah]

7 minutes ago, Brodie said:

There was an owner that had a few horses  with Graham and  Paul Court, that had the prefix Mongolian 2 or 3 seasons ago!

They seemed to have disappeared?

Short life of racing in NZ for that owner!

 

The owner of the court trained horses was the same man i mentioned .Lin lang,aka mr wolf.

And if you look at who has sold quite a few to china and who is again selling,its people associated with the court stable.e.g. T macdonald and pinelea farm. A few terror to loves have gone to china.

 

Edited March 23 by the galah

[Gammalite]

The animal abuse in China is on such a massive scale it makes Japanese whaling look like casual Sunday fisherman. Bears are in cages so tight for 'medicinal ' purposes and all that sort of thing and farming livestock husbandry is atrocious. 

You wouldn't send them a horse for all the tea in China . (Tea is mainly India anyway 😁)

the human rights abuse in China is Staggering. they don't look after themselves properly let alone the animals , and lives are dime a dozen to the 'authorities'.  anyone speaks out about it/anything are detained and sent to Massive internment camps , formed in about 2017 to date and are currently holding millions , for 'Re-Education purposes' as the government listed reason.🙄 when really they are just slave work camps . Appalling on a scale greater than WW2 Germany. 

The horse conditions must be quite bad , and you would/could/should not sell the lovely animals from beautiful NZ into such a strange and bizarre ending that they are meeting in China.

  

[the galah]

1 hour ago, Gammalite said:

The animal abuse in China is on such a massive scale it makes Japanese whaling look like casual Sunday fisherman. Bears are in cages so tight for 'medicinal ' purposes and all that sort of thing and farming livestock husbandry is atrocious. 

You wouldn't send them a horse for all the tea in China . (Tea is mainly India anyway 😁)

the human rights abuse in China is Staggering. they don't look after themselves properly let alone the animals , and lives are dime a dozen to the 'authorities'.  anyone speaks out about it/anything are detained and sent to Massive internment camps , formed in about 2017 to date and are currently holding millions , for 'Re-Education purposes' as the government listed reason.🙄 when really they are just slave work camps . Appalling on a scale greater than WW2 Germany. 

The horse conditions must be quite bad , and you would/could/should not sell the lovely animals from beautiful NZ into such a strange and bizarre ending that they are meeting in China.

  

Its a strange old world and getting stranger these days. 

Our own experiences,backgrounds ,values and personalities shapes how we view things and often it seems so different to others.

When we think about the horses though,most of us who have interacted with them recognise there is something unique and wonderful about them andsome of us treat them like we would a friend or pet.Which is why seeing other horses being sent to other countries without any real knowledge of their fate creates  an uneasy feeling. 

Its the lack of transperency around where they end up that is the issue.

HRNZ make people update records of where their horses end up so they can satisfy animal welfare groups,yet don't seem togive a second thought about the chinese exports.I've never heard them issue any statement around that in recent times.Just shows that that side of things is all about perception from hrnz and the reality is they only care when it is reflected back on them.

And its not just china. It happens all over the world.

Canada seems to treat the horses like they are a farm animal. A commodity to be used to achieve every last $ and then to be discarded when no longer monetarily useful.They have a market where they buy horses for slaughter and send them to japan ,where they are fattened. I wrote about that once and from memory i think they were worth  about $8000 in japan when slaughtered there.

MInd you,personally i think the nz dairy industry is just as bad. 

Every day i drive past hundreds of cows. Each one most likely put in calf to keep  the milk production going,knowing that most often they will have their calfs taken from them after a few days. A bit like they do to the horses in the canadian horse urine farms.

No one seems to care much in nz about the emotional damage it does to the cows to have the baby they carry taken forcefully from them just after birth.Personally i just don't understand why we don't care about that. 

I know they have to wait till they are 4 days old before they can be sent to slaughter and i have previously spoken to someone who worked at a local freezing works here who's job it was to force them towards the start of the chain. I always used to think he had been f'd up a bit by his job,but he said he had to pay the bills somehow.He hadn't leart to zone out like most.

Anyway,its a strange old world ,but harness authorities should take some sort of action to ensure nz horses aren't exploited,wherever they end up.

Edited March 23 by the galah

[Spatchcock]

There is both thoroughbred and standardbred racing in China. There is no gambling. The standardbreds compete in saddle paces.
You can see them briefly at about 1min 47 sec mark of this clip below.

If you peruse the recent NZB yearling sales, there were multiple Chinese buyers of about 7 colts... for a spend of $230,000 including an $80,000 colt.
 

 

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, the galah said:

Every day i drive past hundreds of cows. Each one most likely put in calf to keep  the milk production going,knowing that most often they will have their calfs taken from them after a few days. A bit like they do to the horses in the canadian horse urine farms.

No one seems to care much in nz about the emotional damage it does to the cows to have the baby they carry taken forcefully from them just after birth.Personally i just don't understand why we don't care about that. 

Emotional damage to a dairy cow?  You're kidding us?  It doesn't seem to worry the calves after a few days - all they care about is getting fed and playing with their mates in a paddock.  

As for the mother cow - I assure you they quickly get over it and get back into their familar routine of eating grass and queuing up at the right time to be milked.  Next you will be telling us that they are missing out on sexual satisfaction by being artificially inseminated (like nearly all Standarbreds).

[the galah]

2 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Emotional damage to a dairy cow?  You're kidding us?  It doesn't seem to worry the calves after a few days - all they care about is getting fed and playing with their mates in a paddock.  

As for the mother cow - I assure you they quickly get over it and get back into their familar routine of eating grass and queuing up at the right time to be milked.  Next you will be telling us that they are missing out on sexual satisfaction by being artificially inseminated (like nearly all Standarbreds).

Can't agree with you there chief about the cows not being emotionally effected. i guess you say that because you come from a darirying background.

I once bought a broodmare and bred a foal from her. After about 3 months the foal didn't look like it was doing as well as the other foal we had so i had a vet come out and look at him. The vet decided to give the foal a worm and gave it some other treatment.A person with the vet actually aqueezed the mares teets and said they thought the problem could be with the mare not producing much milk.Anyway the foal went from running around the paddock one day to dieing the next. I'm not sure if it had some type of reaction to its treatment or most probably wasn't quite healthy enough to handle it,but it died.

Well the mare went from acting like a very happy horse,always full of beans and friendly to being totally depressed. She stopped eating,lost condition and was clearly depressed. At the time i wasn't aware she had previously lost foals when they were young,as i didn't have a stud book and the previous owner never told me,but i found that later she had.

It was so obvious that the mare was badly impacted mentally by the trauma of losing her foal.

Now you can tell me chief that a cow isn't effected either,but i don't believe that to be true.I believe theres a natural progression in nature with any species and their young and if you break the natural cycle you  must have some negative psychological effects.

i've just given you an example.

 

Edited March 24 by the galah

[the galah]

3 hours ago, Spatchcock said:

There is both thoroughbred and standardbred racing in China. There is no gambling. The standardbreds compete in saddle paces.
You can see them briefly at about 1min 47 sec mark of this clip below.

If you peruse the recent NZB yearling sales, there were multiple Chinese buyers of about 7 colts... for a spend of $230,000 including an $80,000 colt.
 

 

Yes but theres a difference between chinese buying horses at the yearling sales to buying broodmares past their racing days,and preferred in foal.

You've put up a clip of a horse festival at Tongliao city,inner mongolia. For 3 months of the year the average temperature in that city is below freezing point and sometimes as low as -19.The average for the year is 7.9 although it has 2 or 3 months where it averages over 20.It doesn't get much rain either.

Surely thats not a great place for a nz harness broodmare to end up,not that i think many will. 

The point is,no one has any idea what happens to the broodmares once they leave NZ and given pregnant broodmares are so valuable $ wise in relation to the topic i have discussed,then its obvious you can't discount the probablity of many ending up not having a good life at one of those factories.

Just look at what happened to all the donkeys china bought last decade. You could put up a picture of a donkey running around somewhere in inner mongolia or tibet,but its just window dressing.

Edited March 24 by the galah

[Chief Stipe]

8 hours ago, the galah said:

Can't agree with you there chief about the cows not being emotionally effected. i guess you say that because you come from a darirying background.

So you don't have pets at all @the galah?

[Chief Stipe]

8 hours ago, the galah said:

Now you can tell me chief that a cow isn't effected either,but i don't believe that to be true.I believe theres a natural progression in nature with any species and their young and if you break the natural cycle you  must have some negative psychological effects.

i've just given you an example.

So what?

You and @Freda can eat mung beans and drink coconut milk if you wish but to attest that a cow is mentally traumatised every year to whatever extent is cookie bear land.

How do you explain that the most fertile time for a mare or a cow is immediately after giving birth?  

If you don't like it don't drink milk, eat yoghurt, icecream or cheese!

I suppose you  both find it OK to "break-in" young horses and take them away from the herd?  Of course you'd be happy if those young fillies were left in the herd to get in foal at two or those young colts to be banished from the herd.

@the galah and @Freda why both having any interest in horse racing at all?

Oh and back to cows have you seem what the mother does to the calf when she decides to ween it so she can focus on feeding the next one inside her?

[the galah]

9 hours ago, the galah said:

I believe theres a natural progression in nature with any species and their young and if you break the natural cycle you  must have some negative psychological effects.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

 

 

Oh and back to cows have you seem what the mother does to the calf when she decides to ween it so she can focus on feeding the next one inside her?

I don't know chief.

Its not for me to tell a dairy farmer how nature works,but since your playing silly buggers i will.

Had you left the calf on the mother,you would see her wean the female calf about 9 months and the male calf about 11 months.

So there,thats nature,not 4 days like you prefer,you silly bugger.Left to nature,theres a natural progression before they get to the point of self weaning.

Further,they have done studies on this very subject. Maybe you should read what they say.

But just in case you don't,the studies have proven weaning causes a stress response in cows,which is especially strong in early weaning management,as the bond between cow and calf is still strong.

You know,i really don't know why your arguing against something thats so very obvious. 

And i will point out another obvious point. The same would apply to horses who have their foals taken away days after they have foaled,just so a farmer can make lots of money.

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

So you don't have pets at all @the galah?

Just a hedgehog. We left a banana,some left over cooked fish,2 weetbixs and a bit of bread out for him or her tonight. He or she has eaten the lot already. Their favorite is a bit of cooked salmon but i've told the wife shes got to keep that for me.They also like a bit of cheese. 

Edited March 24 by the galah

[Chief Stipe]

Ok @the galah why don't you start organising a mental health support group for cows.

[Gammalite]

31 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Ok @the galah why don't you start organising a mental health support group for cows.