CASPER, Wyo. — The Bureau of Land Management and the Wyoming Honor Farm hosted a wild horse and burro adoption event on Saturday, offering 39 animals gentled by inmate trainers for adoption.
All 39 horses and burros found new homes through the adoption event at the Wyoming Honor Farm, 40 Honor Farm Road in Riverton, according to BLM Wyoming. The adoptions included 26 saddle-started horses, nine halter-started horses and four pack and halter-trained burros.
Saddle-started horses “Wiggy” and “Dex” garnered the highest bids at the adoption at $6,250 each.
“Wiggy is a 3-year-old black gelding from the Antelope Hills Herd Management Area (HMA) southeast of Atlantic City,” BLM Wyoming said. “Dex is a 3-year-old sorrel gelding from the Fifteenmile HMA west of Worland.”
The lowest bid was for $200, BLM Wyoming said. People adopting animals came from California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming.
A family from Cheyenne who came to the event intending to adopt only one horse wound up adopting two saddle-started geldings from the Antelope Hills and Fifteenmile HMAs named “Gaucho” and “Note,” the press release said. The Green family plans to use the horses for ranch work and trail riding and as starter horses for their children, BLM Wyoming said.
Julia Wilmerding of Lander adopted burros named “Black Jack” and “Sophie” for packing trips in the Wind River Range. The animals will also serve as companions for an Honor Farm–trained horse she previously adopted, BLM Wyoming said.
“The burros’ trainer said these two are attached to each other, so I adopted them together,” Wilmerding said.
Two adoption events are held at the Wyoming Honor Farm each year. The next will be held on 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,” the release added.
BLM Wyoming will hold adoption events at its Mantle Adoption Training Facility in Wheatland on Saturday, Sept. 17 and at the Deerwood Ranch near Laramie on Saturday, Sept. 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 wildhorse@blm.gov,” the release said.
