(Riverton, WY) – Happy adopters will head into fall with wild horses and burros won at last weekend’s Bureau of Land Management/Wyoming Honor Farm wild horse and burro adoption. All 39 animals gentled by inmate trainers found new homes.
The two high bids of the adoption were $6,250 for saddle-started horses Wiggy and Dex. Wiggy is a 3-year-old black gelding from the Antelope Hills Herd Management Area (HMA) southeast of Atlantic City. Dex is a 3-year-old sorrel gelding from the Fifteenmile HMA west of Worland.
In total, 26 saddle-started horses, nine halter-started horses and four pack/halter-trained burros were adopted, with winning bids ranging from $200 to $6,250. Adopters came from California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming.
Adopted horses and burros will be used for a variety of purposes including ranch work, backcountry packing and trail riding.
The Green family from Cheyenne intended to adopt only one horse but left with both Gaucho and Note, 3-year-old saddle-started geldings from the Antelope Hills and Fifteenmile HMAs.
“We’ve heard nothing but good things about this program and, after seeing the quality of horses offered, we decided to get two,” they said. “We recommend this program 100 percent to others.”
The Greens will use Gaucho and Note for ranch work and trail riding, and eventually as starter horses for their three children.
Julia Wilmerding of Lander came for the trained burros. She adopted both Black Jack and Sophie to accompany her on packing trips in the Wind River Range and to serve as companion animals for her Honor Farm-trained mare already at home.
“The burros’ trainer said these two are attached to each other, so I adopted them together,” said Wilmerding.
Two adoptions are held at the Honor Farm each year⸺the next one is scheduled for May 13, 2023. Working together over the past 34 years, the Honor Farm and the BLM have placed about 5,000 animals removed from overpopulated herds into good, private homes.
BLM Wyoming’s next adoptions are at the Mantle Adoption and Training Facility in Wheatland on September 17 and at the Deerwood Ranch near Laramie on September 24.
To learn more about the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program and adopting a Wyoming wild horse, visit BLM.GOV/WHB or contact the national information center at 866-468-7826 or at [email protected].
