For the Fall 2004 , Ransom Ranch will not be directly importing any PMU horses. Victoria's schedule has become too hectic for her to feel like she is putting in the right amount of effort to make the rescue run smoothly and up to her standards. However, the Ransom Ranch website will serve as a referral for past adopters whose mares are foaling and would like to place their foals up for adoption, as well as listing information for SOS Rescue - our sister site in Canada.

What is PMU?: PMU stands for Pregnant Mare Urine. The hormone in the urine is used to make hormone replacement therapy drugs for pre-menopausal and menopausal women. Obviously, the only way to get PMU is to have a pregnant mare - that's where the foals come from. The mares are then bred back immediately (they can be rebred 7-9 days after birth). The farmers have no use for the foals, so they are gotten rid of. Apparently, they used to just kill the foals as soon as they were born - that way the mares never had to leave the urine line-up. There was much concern for the welfare of the mares, so the government demanded they have a break from the line-up. The mares are turned out to pasture with their foals for about 4 months - at this point, the pregnancy hormone in their urine is at its highest concentration, so they are returned to the line - and the foals are sent to slaughter, auction, adopters or some of the fillies are kept as future urine producers.