Neigh Sayers

Allyn Carman doesn’t make it three steps into the corral in Grass Valley before her “babies”—Flash, Dot-Com, Marty, Jake and Elwood—approach her, en masse, playfully competing for her attention. She goes from one to the other, assuring them with clicking sounds, head pats and kisses. Healthy and strong, it’s difficult for Carman to imagine that just six months ago, these foals were destined for slaughter.

Sixty-five-year-old Helen Sudal may seem like an unlikely activist. The Sacramento resident certainly doesn’t hold animal-rights advocates in particularly high esteem, saying, “When you start talking about not eating chickens … you lose credibility in my eyes. They’re stupid birds.”

But when Sudal was told how the estrogen-replacement drug her doctor had her on to combat symptoms of menopause—Premarin—was made, she says she became enraged. Sudal believes that female horses were tethered in stalls for long periods of time to make the drug. “I took that crap for 16 years and those bastards didn’t tell me,” she says, angrily.

By all accounts, Colorado-based freelance video director Robin Duxbury is fairly brazen when working to document the plight of horses living under abusive conditions. But nothing prepared her for the fear she felt while attempting to shoot footage outside a feedlot operator’s ranch in Manitoba, Canada, two years ago. Duxbury was in Manitoba to record what she says are abuses perpetrated by the industry that provides horse estrogens for the production of Premarin.

Three women.

Three different locales.

Three different personalities.

But all are bound by a common desire to bring to light what they say has been a wholesale lie to women—about menopause, the popular drugs used to treat its symptoms and the way those drugs are produced. That desire has resulted in one woman’s mission to rescue horses, another’s decision to risk personal safety and still another’s to take her message to the streets.

It is a fight, they claim, wherein HMOs and doctors are willing, or at least passive, participants in hawking the drug Premarin which in turn brings pharmaceutical giant Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories some $1.8 billion annually.

_____________________________

The problem that has driven the women to action, as described by a host of animal welfare organizations, as well as individuals, starts with the major ingredient in Premarin—horse estrogens—and ends with the way those estrogens are obtained.

The estrogens are obtained through the collection of pregnant mares’ urine—hence the name of the industry that supplies the estrogens (PMU) and the name of the drug Premarin. What is undisputed by both industry officials and critics is the fact that some 35,000 mares are used annually in this collection process. The mares are kept tethered in individual stalls, fitted with urine collection devices, and made to stand in “pee lines” for six months out of their 11-month pregnancy. Industry officials also confirm that within four days after giving birth, these PMU mares are impregnated again, thus ensuring that the pregnancy cycle is continuous, without rest.

Critics also contend that PMU mares in all but the most modern facilities obtain little or no regular exercise, resulting in both emotional and physical trauma, including a condition known as “stocking up,” where a horse’s legs stiffen and swell due to standing in one place for too many hours at a time.

Industry officials, however, say that all PMU farms are subject to independent monitoring by veterinarian associations.

Animal activists further claim that the roughly 35,000 foals born each year to PMU mares create a glut in the pleasure horse and breeding markets, thereby almost ensuring that the bulk of these foals will be sold to so-called “killer buyers” who purchase them for eventual slaughter to feed the European and Asian desire for young horse flesh.

So far, however, proof to back the critics’ claims has been limited to personal sightings by individual equine activists who have documented such abuses either through video or personal stories. The lack of formal documentation of abuse from either Canadian or American veterinarian associations, however, does not deter critics, who further claim that this same lack of official condemnation of the PMU industry is merely “evidence of collusion” between veterinarians and ranchers, who are dependent on the industry, and Wyeth-Ayerst.

_____________________________

When watching “Look Into Their Eyes”—a 24-minute documentary film commissioned by the Sacramento-based equine advocacy organization, United Animal Nations—it is difficult for the viewer not to have an emotional response.

Disturbing images are shown of PMU foals being crammed into 15-foot by 15-foot holding areas at Canadian auctions where the so-called “killer-buyers”—mostly feedlot operators—purchase the infant horses, many of them not yet weaned, to fatten and then sell for slaughter.

At one auction, several feedlot operators are seen trying to thwart bids placed by undercover animal activists, whom the “regulars” view with suspicion and outright hostility.

The video then takes you to another part of the auction—the area where horses go directly from auction to slaughter: PMU foals and mares, obviously frightened, being shoved down a ramp, single-file, to their death, delivered with a sickening thud from a sledgehammer.

The video’s director, Robin Duxbury, saw these scenes and more in her volunteer work with UAN, while shooting part of the documentary.

Her association with the Sacramento organization began as a result of her job with Project Equus—an equine advocacy group in Colorado specializing in the prosecution of abusive horse trainers. Duxbury had already begun researching PMU barns as part of her organization’s decision to look into possible abuses. That’s when she became acquainted with UAN.

As part of her reporting in 1997 and 1998, Duxbury snuck into several PMU barns in Manitoba, shooting as much video as she could. She defends her trespassing, saying that PMU ranchers “won’t let animal rights groups into their operations.” She also shot footage at a public horse auction outside of Winnipeg in 1998. During the course of two years, Duxbury, a court-certified expert on equine abuse, visited Canada four times to document the PMU industry.

Some of the PMU facilities she went in to were high-tech farms and boarding facilities—well-lit and well-ventilated—the kind of barns “you’d have a hard time arguing against in terms of conditions.” Others, Duxbury says, were nothing short of “deplorable.”

“They were Auschwitz for horses,” she says, speaking from her office in Boulder, Colo. “The horses’ feet were a mess. The stalls were dark, dank, unclean and smelled of ammonia [from the urine].”

Upon examining the legs of various horses, Duxbury says she found evidence of “stocking up.” One of the complaints against the PMU industry involves not only the conditions of the stalls, but also the fact that for several months during their pregnancy, PMU mares are tied up in single-horse stalls, strapped in from behind and cannot turn around or take more than two or three steps forward or backward.

Industry proponents deny there is anything inherently wrong with this practice, noting that procedures followed by PMU ranchers are taken from a “code of practice” set forth by the boards of animal health in both Canada and North Dakota. Critics, however, are just as quick to note that these guidelines are voluntary, with no penalties attached for non-compliance.

Duxbury and other animal rights advocates also argue that the industry spawns animal cruelty by its very existence because the market can’t absorb the thousands of PMU foals born each year.

Duxbury says industry officials have told her that “the majority of these horses” are being adopted by families, not slaughtered—a claim she and others find dubious.

“We have no evidence [of homes being found] and they can’t produce any,” Duxbury says. “This claim is bogus and it’s designed to make menopausal women feel good about taking their Premarin.”

Duxbury’s work on the video was part of United Animal Nation’s anti-Premarin Campaign 2000, which reached more than 1.2 million women with its message that “taking Premarin perpetuates animal cruelty,” while providing women with alternatives. With 32,500 members nationwide, including 4,000 trained emergency animal rescue workers in 49 states, UAN focuses much of its efforts on rescuing animals who have been injured or lost as a result of natural disasters, as well as working legislatively to strengthen animal cruelty laws nationwide. UAN President Jeane Westin says the group’s anti-Premarin campaign is a “logical offshoot” of the organization’s rescue mission.

Duxbury points to an assault on herself and her cameraman during a 1998 trip to the Canadian province of Manitoba as proof that organizations like UAN are making a difference.

“No one in this industry [PMU] wants this story out,” Duxbury says. “They’ve got this alert system in place up [in Manitoba] so that when one PMU rancher sees you snooping around, they get on the phone and alert other PMU ranchers and feedlot operators to watch for your car. They wouldn’t do that if we weren’t getting at the truth.”

Duxbury believes this is what happened when she and her cameraman attempted to shoot footage of a specific feedlot operator’s ranch from the highway while in their car. Feedlot operators are vilified by anti-PMU activists because the operators purchase the bulk of the foals sold at auctions for the purpose of fattening them up and then selling the horses for slaughter.

In the UAN video, you can see Duxbury’s car screech to a halt after a large diesel-powered truck comes speeding up behind her, passes and then cuts in front of Duxbury, almost forcing the car off the road.

A burly man runs for Duxbury’s car, lunges his upper body into her open window and begins trying to get Duxbury’s keys out of the ignition. When the cameraman, tape still rolling, tries to intervene, we see the man begin to jab wildly with his right fist, landing a few punches, while still using his left hand to get the keys.

“[He] punched Rusty [her cameraman] several times; my face was pinned against the steering wheel,” Duxbury says, reliving the moment. “I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun while talking to hunters before, but I’ve never been in fear for my life like I was that day.”

After successfully wresting away the keys, the feedlot operator returned to his truck and drove away. Duxbury called the Canadian Mounted Police from her cell phone. No sooner had she and her cameraman exited the vehicle, Duxbury said, than the feedlot operator came back. This time, he brought another man with him. Rusty put the video camera in the trunk. As Duxbury tells it, “[The guy] comes for Rusty and tries to get him to fight. I actually thought I might be able to talk sensibly to him, but when I tried, he came over to me and slammed me on the side of the head open handed, so hard I fell against the car.”

The entire incident took about 20 minutes. Duxbury walked away with a ruptured eardrum, an injured right hand and numerous cuts and bruises from her unsuccessful struggle to retain the keys.

“When the [cops] showed up, they just looked at the guy and said, ‘Pat, go home.’ That’s it. They knew this guy.” Duxbury filed charges, however, and a Canadian judge eventually ordered the feedlot operator to pay a $300 fine.

Duxbury says the incident is proof of the lengths that some people in the PMU industry will go to not be exposed.

Vicki Burns, executive director of the Humane Society in Winnipeg, says she became concerned several years ago when PMU ranchers in her province refused to allow her organization access to its farms. Looking for assistance, Burns says she approached the minister of agriculture.

“And he said, ‘I’m not sure … Wyeth-Ayerst is a big company and this is a valuable industry… and besides, you know the public will never accept the idea of baby horses going to slaughter, so why would we ever do anything to bring this information to the public domain?’ ” Burns says in the UAN video. “We were shocked and disappointed, obviously. We thought, surely, the government would want to intervene and ensure that basic animal welfare practices were being adhered to.”

Wyeth-Ayerst has answered these charges, in part, by producing a video of its own. In it, a company spokeswoman speaks on camera with two Canadian PMU ranchers and their families, who are second and third generation horse ranchers. The horses shown in the video are obviously well-cared for, healthy and strong and the ranchers profiled say that their primary mission is breeding and creating prize-winning foals. They add that these foals bring top dollars from buyers around the world who want to strengthen the lineage in their own herds, which counters the charge, these ranchers say, that PMU foals are an unwanted byproduct of the industry.

“Collecting the pregnant mares’ urine is [an added plus],” says one rancher on the video, adding that the money he receives from the production and sale of horse estrogens to Wyeth-Ayerst allows his family to continue the horse ranching tradition.

_____________________________

Menopause is the milestone that marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years. Today, women can expect to live as much as one-third of their lives beyond menopause, according to the National Women’s Health Resource Center in New York. Postmenopausal women today expect to be more active, more vital, than their grandmothers or even their mothers were during their postmenopausal years. To a large degree, the medical community and popular culture reflect this shift in thinking, with messages emphasizing the importance of regular check-ups, exercise and good nutritional practices.

Still, for many women, menopause also brings a decrease in their body’s production of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone. As a result, many women experience uncomfortable to severe side-effects such as night sweats, hot flashes and mood swings.

The 1999 National Women’s Health Report states that in the next decade, more women than ever before—as many as 52 million—will be age 50 or older. In the United States, the average age for the onset of menopause is 51. “Heart disease, osteoporosis, and breast cancer are significant threats for postmenopausal women,” the report states.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which includes both estrogen and progesterone, and estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), which is estrogen alone, have both been shown to reduce the risk of osteoporosis and relieve hot flashes and night sweats. Both therapies may also reduce the risk of heart disease, improve mood and reduce symptoms such as vaginal dryness.

Wyeth-Ayerst, the Philadelphia-based division of American Home Products, introduced ERT in 1942, bringing Premarin to the market. The drug is now prescribed to some 9 million women and is the most-prescribed drug in the United States, according to ABC News research. Wyeth has about 95 percent of the market share for ERTs alone, despite the fact that 11 other synthetic or plant-based ERTs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the last 15 years.

Premarin critics think they know why.

“It’s a known practice in medicine for drug companies to sponsor conferences, lunches, trips—you name it,” says Dr. Samuel L. Jacobs, an OB/GYN and associate professor with the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ.

Wyeth sponsors annual meetings of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, as well as the American Society of Reproductive Medicine’s conferences.

And Jacobs contends that Wyeth’s budget is big enough to also allow it to “constantly bombard doctors with wonderful patient information pamphlets on menopause, which basically say at the end, ‘Your ovaries are starting to fail and you should start taking Premarin.’ Not just estrogen—Premarin. There’s tremendous financial backing.”

Jacobs, whose sub-specialty is reproductive endocrinology (the study of female hormones), is also a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine—a group that promotes preventive medicine and alternatives to animal experimentation, as well as encourages higher ethics and standards in medical research and education.

Jacobs says what he sees in the PMU industry angers him.

“There is absolutely no medical necessity for the PMU industry to be in existence,” he says. “What Wyeth does … isn’t illegal. But it’s unethical … when plant-based and synthetic estrogens are extremely effective.”

Jacobs explains that while the estrogen contained in pregnant mares’ urine is equilin—a hormone not found in the human body—the “one estrogen that women should be taking is estradiol,” a female estrogen.

Since there are synthetic and plant-based ERTs that contain pure estradiol, why do so many doctors reach for Premarin first?

“They’re not thinking,” Jacobs suggests. “It’s simply become second-nature to them. Like when you ask someone to Xerox something for you and you really mean ‘copy.’ Or you offer someone a Kleenex, when what you’re probably reaching for is facial tissue.

“The majority of women in the U.S. who are on estrogen-replacement therapy are on Premarin—hands down. And if they only knew where Premarin came from and how it was derived, I think there would be a tremendous impetus to switch over.”

The only synthetic ERT on the market is CENESTIN, produced by Duramed Pharmaceuticals. Like Premarin, it is composed of conjugated estrogens, meaning it pairs its estrogen with other components to aid its usage in the human body. Unlike Premarin, CENESTIN’s estrogens are derived from soy and yam. Other plant-based, estradiol-containing ERTs include: Estrace, Alora, Climera, Estraderm and FemPatch. Some come in pill form, while others disperse medicine through a patch worn on the skin.

____________________________

Helen Sudal digs through the many boxes of information she has piled throughout her living room and home office in Sacramento, all the while reciting a litany of concerns—make that outrages—she has about the PMU industry and the drug company that fuels it.

When Sudal entered menopause at 48, she, like millions of American women, was prescribed Premarin. “What did I know?” she asks, rhetorically. “I trusted my doctor; I did what I was told.”

In 1999 Sudal was concerned about other health issues and she sought out a holistic practitioner who subsequently took her off Premarin and put her on a plant-based estrogen.

About the same time, while publishing a small newspaper titled “Working Women’s Network” out of her home, readers began writing her with concerns about Premarin, the PMU industry and Wyeth-Ayerst.

“I had no idea,” she says. “I had never heard about any of this.”

But once she started her research, the long-time consumer/community activist never looked back.

“I always think about how every product I buy or take into my body is made. It’s something I’ve done my whole life,” Sudal says. “When I found out about [Premarin] and what they’re doing to these horses, I was so angry. I mean, I took that crap for 16 years and those bastards didn’t tell me!”

Sudal devoted the bulk of the final issue of WWN, published in September, to what she called “The Untold Estrogen Story”—a six-page attack on Wyeth, detailing, from a variety of sources, the plight of PMU mares and their foals, what ERTs do and what alternatives to Premarin exist.

“It’s a domino effect,” she says. “Once women find out about this, most of them see the need to switch. But getting the message out is hard.”

Sudal says that’s because her experience with doctors mirrors what Jacobs described. “I was never given a choice—never told there was a choice. How many other women aren’t?” she asks.

But Sudal and other Premarin critics are quick to note that their anger shouldn’t be interpreted as being “anti-estrogen.”

“We’re not trying to discourage women from taking estrogen replacement therapy,” Sudal says. “For many women, it’s not an option. This is about not taking Premarin.”

To that end, Sudal has fashioned herself into a one-woman protest machine, talking to friends and handing out flyers advertising the United Animal Nations’ “I Switched!” campaign that urges women to switch from Premarin to a synthetic or plant-based ERT. In November, Sudal spent hours as a lone picketer at a local women’s health conference in Fair Oaks to get the message out. In February she plans to picket outside specific chain drug stores that fill Premarin prescriptions.

Sudal also urges women to boycott other products made by Wyeth’s parent company, American Home Products, including Advil, Anbesol, Denorex, Pam and Robitussin.

“We can send a message of our outrage!” screams the bold headline in Sudal’s last WWN, which notes that Wyeth-Ayerst also manufactured Fen-Phen—the once popular diet drug that was pulled off the market after reports surfaced of heart-valve problems in women using the drug.

Sudal feels that Wyeth, HMOs and doctors have waged a “misinformation” campaign and says she feels it is time to “fight back.”

“One person can make a difference. So that’s what I’m trying to do,” she says.

____________________________

Wyeth-Ayerst spokeswoman Audrey Ashby answers a reporter’s questions in a voice that signals she’s heard it all: The charges of equine neglect lobbed at the PMU industry; the allegations of drug company pay-offs to HMOs; the charge that the industry wouldn’t exist if Wyeth would only manufacture a synthetic ERT.

In short, she’s been here before.

To save time, she faxes over a Wyeth-generated press release, eight pages long, outlining the company’s commitment to a “high standard of care” for the horses it uses for its purposes. Included in the release is a copy of the 1997 “Equine veterinarians’ consensus report on the care of horses on PMU ranches.”

The study was conducted in November 1996 by three equine veterinarians representing the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association and the International League for the Protection of Horses.

The veterinarians visited 25 PMU farms out of the 428 total in the industry, according to Norm Luba, executive director of the North American Equine Ranching Information Council (NAERIC)—the Kentucky-based association that represents the 428 PMU ranchers in Canada and North Dakota, to which Ashby referred most of the SN&R’s questions.

In their conclusion, the veterinarians wrote, “The ranchers took pride in their animals, and Wyeth-Ayerst showed a commitment to continuing to improve the standards of equine welfare on the farms. Based on our inspections, the allegations of inhumane treatment of horses involved in PMU ranching are unfounded.”

PMU industry officials also say that in addition to once-per-month inspections by Wyeth company officials, each ranch within the PMU system is subject to inspections by independent veterinarians three times during the urine collection season, which runs from October through March. Officials also maintain that veterinarians are allowed to visit any ranch within the system at any time.

NAERIC’s Luba confirmed that all but 22 of the PMU ranches are located in the Canadian providence’s of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The U.S. farms are located exclusively in North Dakota, and Luba denies charges made by United Animal Nations that the industry is expanding into Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.

“We have taken the allegations [of abuse] very seriously,” Luba said, “and we’ve told reputable veterinary associations to come in and said that if there are improvements that need to be made, we’re all ears. There’s no other segment of horse breeding in North America that has as many checks and balances as [PMU] ranching does.”

When asked if the voluntary code of practice provides ranchers with specific guidelines for the minimum amount of daily exercise needed for pregnant mares, Luba first noted that the code is endorsed by the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies. He added, “Just as there is no standard [exercise] recommendation for pregnant women, the same program exists between the veterinarians and the ranch owners. Every rancher needs to exercise its horse to the specific needs of the horse.”

Luba also denied that PMU mares are given inadequate amounts of water in order to produce urine that is more concentrated with estrogens, saying, “They can drink five times per day, as much water as they want to drink. The [timed] automatic watering system allows the water to stay fresh.”

Luba would neither confirm nor deny charges that the majority of the 35,000 PMU foals born each year are destined for slaughter, saying only that he thought it “unrealistic” to suggest that, with 6.9 million horses in America alone, PMU foals could cause a “glut in the market.”

Like Wyeth’s Ashby, Luba is sensitive to, and tired of, allegations of abuse.

“We accepted the argument that if we only had inspectors from the pharmaceutical company come in once a month, as we do, that they might not be unbiased,” Luba explained. “So we said, ‘OK, let’s go the next step’ and bring in independent veterinarians.

“The criticism has greatly reduced, but there continues to be activists on the fringe. We’re not the first segment of the agricultural industry to be attacked. But rational people who hear about the checks and balances will conclude that the health and welfare of the mares involved … is very good.”

Adds Ashby, “There are no products that are equivalent to Premarin. Period. And no other product that has been the subject of 3,000 studies. It’s also important to note that not all estrogens are the same. Premarin continues to be the number-one dispensed drug on the market in the U.S., since 1992, and we don’t see that stopping.”

______________________________

On Allyn Carman’s sprawling 35-acre ranch in Grass Valley, horses, working dogs and a seemingly endless number of well-fed and happy cats co-mingle. On a November day, with the trees dressed in fall colors, Carman begins a tour for visitors with a walk to the side pasture.

Two Clydesdales poke their majestic heads over the fence railing at the first sign of Carman approaching them. Two-year old brothers, Hoss and Hank were Carman’s first PMU “rescues,” purchased at a Canadian auction and brought to Grass Valley in November 1999. Truly magnificent beasts, who, but for the help of the United Pegasus Foundation, would have been, quite literally, horse meat.

United Pegasus is only one equine advocacy organization to join the anti-PMU fight. Since 1998, the Hemet, Calif.-based group has purchased and found adopted families for more than 200 PMU foals.

Although a long-time Pegasus member, Carman comes to the anti-PMU crusade from a different perspective than many activists. For one thing, she’s only been doing rescues and adoptions for one year. Secondly, she’s not exactly on-line with groups like PETA; she and her husband of 15 years are cattle ranchers.

“I’m not tremendously emotional about this,” says Carman. “You’ve got an industry that’s questionable, at best. You’ve got animal rights people who are emotionally charged. And somewhere in the [middle] is the truth.”

A rancher herself, Carman doesn’t demonize the PMU ranchers, saying that “They’re not evil people. They take their kids to 4-H meetings just like we do. They work hard to make a living. They’re farm people—they’re just doing something that’s questionable. But many of them are doing it because their fathers were PMU ranchers.”

Of the 16 foals currently waiting for adoption at Carman’s ranch, Flash and Marty are clearly the leaders and rival each other in their attempts to vie for the lion’s share of attention from both Carman and visitors. Quick and funny-acting, Flash nuzzles and butts his way through the crowd, leading the herd in a full-frontal approach on a photographer. Not to be outdone, Marty pushes past Carman and, as if to get the attention back on him, swiftly, but without malice, nips at a reporter’s arm. A swift reprimand from Carman, however, sends Flash and his buddies galloping away from the scene so as not to invoke guilt by association.

“In my family, we call it the ‘birth defect,’ ” she says, laughing, as she watches the scene. “I was born a horseman; I have a genetic drive to have horses. So I’m helping with the baby horses because that’s what I do.”

Yet, she is philosophical about PMU foals going to slaughter.

“If a foal goes to a feedlot, he’s part of a herd—which is what he wants. He’s got all the food and water he wants; his needs are met. From the horse’s standpoint, it’s not like he knows his days are numbered.

“I don’t see the foals going to slaughter as an atrocity; I think it’s a stupid waste.”

Her admitted ambivalence about the ethics of the PMU industry, however, also makes her active involvement in horse rescuing over the last year all the more compelling, somehow.

“My gut feeling is that this industry is wrong and it should go away. But I don’t have all the facts to support [the feeling]. My gut feeling is that [the foals] should never have been born in the first place—to make this product that doesn’t need to be made. There are [ERTs] that are made from soy and plants that are non-controversial. So why do we have this controversial industry if it wasn’t for the money?”

She ruminates some more about the arguments she hears from both the industry and the activists and says, “You’ve got to figure that some of those mares are being taken care of extraordinarily well, and others probably live in frighteningly dismal conditions. My problem with this is that I haven’t personally seen the inside of a PMU barn … my instincts tell me it’s not good, but I’m not 100 percent sure.”

There’s no doubt in her mind, however, that being tethered in a barn stall for six months at a time isn’t good horse husbandry. And industry denials aside, as a rancher herself, she finds it difficult to believe that PMU farmers could afford to spend the time exercising the mares for hours a day.

“The industry says they are, but that’s got to be so cotton-pickin’ labor-intensive, you’ve got to wonder if they’re really doing that,” she says.

As Carman watches her “foster children,” she sighs, shakes her head and says, “It’s just a terrible, terrible waste. These little guys are so delightful, so funny, so happy … to think that so many are killed … I have to get away from the political side of it and just do what I can here.”

While Hoss and Hank live out fulfilling lives, frolicking in the back pastures, playing with their friends and working the Carman cattle, thousands of their soon-to-be-born counterparts will be going to auction next fall.