(Riverton, WY) – The Wyoming Department of Corrections Wyoming Honor Farm and the Bureau of Land Management placed all 46 gentled wild horses and burros that were available for adoption Saturday into new homes.
Almost 250 people attended the adoption from throughout Wyoming and several other states, the BLM said in a press release this week.
The BLM said the high bid of the adoption was $5,000 for saddle-trained, 2-year-old grulla gelding named Walker from the Divide Basin Herd Management Area east of Rock Springs.
Walker has a bright future at the Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, where the BLM said equine instructors in the school’s Horsemanship Program will train him for use in their Introduction to Horsemanship course.
The program has adopted Honor Farm-trained horses in the past, the BLM said, and instructors Lorine Sheehan and Marjorie Papadopoulos attended the preview the day before this weekend’s adoption event to watch the horses and get a sense of which ones would work for their program.
They said Walker was their first choice going into the adoption the next morning.
“Walker was calm, had beautiful transitions, wasn’t pushy, was listening and waiting for instructions, was built well, and had great movement,” said Sheehan, director of the Horsemanship Program.
“We’re excited you guys do this,” Sheehan added. “It’s really good for the wild horses. And horses teach you so much about how to be a good human being.”
Both instructors said they are fans of the Honor Farm training program and mustangs in general, considering them easy keepers with good feet.
“I’ve never had soundness issues with a mustang,” Papadopoulos said, adding, “The fun thing about having them in our Horsemanship Program is that we get to ride them, too.”
Overall, the BLM said the average price for a riding horse on Saturday was $2,147, while the halter-started horses went for an average of $413 and a pack-trained burro went for $669 on average.
Of the eight burros offered, a 6-year-old named Kodak, who had been trained to ride, pack and pull a cart, fetched the winning bid of $800, the BLM said.
Working together over the past 36 years, the Honor Farm and the BLM say they have placed more than 5,000 animals removed from overpopulated herds into good, private homes.
Two adoptions are held at the Honor Farm each year, with the next one scheduled for May 10, 2025 according to the BLM.
The next adoptions in Wyoming/Nebraska are at the Elm Creek Wild Horse and Burro Corrals in Nebraska on September 20, Deerwood Ranch near Laramie on September 28, and Wheatland Off-Range Corral on October 18, the BLM said.
For more information, check the schedule here.
To learn more about the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program and adopting a Wyoming wild horse, click here or contact the national information center at (866) 468-7826 or wildhorse@blm.gov.