37 wild horses and burros find homes at Honor Farm adoption
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RIVERTON, Wyo. – Thirty-seven wild horses and burros gentled by inmate trainers found new homes during the Bureau of Land Management/Wyoming Honor Farm fall adoption in Riverton. The BLM and the Honor Farm share a commitment to place excess wild horses and burros into private care in order to maintain healthy animals on sustainable, working public rangelands.
The animals adopted included all 24 saddle-started horses that were offered, seven halter-started yearling horses and six pack saddle-trained burros. The high bid of the day was $2,400 for Buckshot, a 3-year-old bay gelding from the Salt Wells Creek Wild Horse Herd Management Area (HMA) south of Rock Springs. All adopted horses went to Wyoming homes.
Eleven-year old Sienna Kassens from Riverton attended with her family to find a horse of her own to adopt. She was thrilled to take home Johnny Ringo, a 2-year-old bay she plans to spend a lot of time riding. Down the road, she’d even like to compete with him at Wyoming Mustang Days at the Wyoming State Fair.
“She used her fair winnings from showing a lamb to get this horse,” said Sienna’s mom, Sara, proudly.
Brian and Danielle Welch, who adopted a yearling in May at the Wind River Ranch near Lander, adopted a burro for the first time.
“We got her to hang out with our yearling and we plan to take her packing when she’s bigger,” said Danielle. At only 1½-years-old, Mary Jane was the smallest burro. All of the burros came to the Honor Farm from herd management areas in Arizona, and several were even trained to pull a cart.
Two adoptions are held at the Honor Farm each year⸺the next one is May 16, 2020. BLM Wyoming’s final adoptions in 2019 are at the Wind River Ranch near Lander, September 20–21, and at the Deerwood Ranch near Laramie, September 27–28. For a full schedule of adoption events, or to learn more about the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, visit BLM.GOV/WHB or contact the national information center at 866-468-7826 or wildhorse@blm.gov.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.