Some neatly colored mustangs..

that second stud looks amazing for 22!! you'd never have known that!!! wow

The mustangs can come in such cool colours!!

I love that 25yo buckskin boy, I wonder what happens to old ones like that? Bought for meat?

In some ways I hope they either get good homes with lots of turn out or the meat market would be the best place for them.....having run free all those years being in an enclosed area must be torture. :sad:

I agree, I do not think they should even try to home them, as I think they are just palming off their responsibilities. I think they should quietly, and there on site, euthanise.

It seems like it'd be such a waste to just euthanize them and throw them out... Horses are pretty good at the domestication process, right? I remember reading multiple journal articles that suggested that horses were domesticated multiple times and multiple places. I'd take that to mean that feral horses (not wild) would be even easier to domesticate.

Either way, I can see the conundrum. Do we leave groups of wild horses, which hadn't existed in the Americas for a very long time, to breed unchecked? I don't think overpopulation would be very fair to them either. I also don't think it'd fair to move the horses just so farmer Bob can grave his ten million cattle. But then again, it's not fair to force the cattle to live in a feed lot... I don't envy the people who make the decisions in these situations.

Anyway, if we're going to kill them at all we might as well eat them. One of those "you reap what you sow" sort of things.

I totally forgot where I was going with this, but I agree that if the horses cannot have a decent quality of life they may as well be euthanized.

I don't get why they would sell them entire to produce more unwanted horses for some BYB???

The BLM is a joke, I'll try not to get started with a rant about them. But all they care about is pleasing cattle owners, when it comes down to brass tacks they have zero concern for these horses, which btw are not endangering the ranges in any way, shape or form. If the BLM really cared about them and wanted to preserve them but keep populations low they'd do something wise like round them up, geld/give birth control to about half, and turn them back out. But no, that'd be too simple and easy, what else can one expect from our current government situation!

So the BLM is a case of the Peter Principle?

I'm sorry Rusti, I disagree with your blanket judgement of the BLM.

I absolutely *do* think the possibility for mismanagement is there but I am familiar with a person who works closely with the BLM in her area ([i]Eastern Oregon[/i]), a woman who takes in several orphan BLM foals every year, sometimes even into her HOME ([i]kitchen[/i]) to nurse back to health. She recently wrote a book about her BLM and mustang experiences ... which started when she was a child and rode the mustangs her father ([i]grandfather[/i]?) caught/tamed and watched the herd dynamics with him.

The BLM group she is familiar with appears to be doing everything right. They do round up and cull for the health of the ones who run wild and are allowed back out. I can't see a "geld or birth control" method working very well since all it takes is one stallion to impregnate all in-season mares. That would be darn near impossible to achieve ([i]gelding most males and marbleing mares and hoping the marble stays[/i]) in the rough area these horses live in, and then those horses who aren't producing ... are still out there *eating* resources so their numbers need to be managed regardless. Most wildlife numbers are managed by selling licenses for trapping pelts and hunting meat. I do not see those being viable options for the mustang so the BLM roundups appear to be the best thing for population control and herd management.

Maybe the reason why the range, mustangs, wildlife and cattle look so good ... is because they [i]ARE[/i] managed very nicely.

The ranchers who run their cattle on government land are "last on, first off" during any conditions that will threaten native wildlife resources. It is also the ranchers who maintain the watering holes that provide water not only for their cattle, but for the surrounding wildlife, too. Everyone benefits and most ranchers understand their important role in wildlife and land conservation and are very respectful and dedicated to this preservation and their integral and symbiotic role in it.

Want to pull all ranchers off of government grazing? Be prepared for beef prices to skyrocket when the end-purchaser must now pay for the hay and care those cattle require to grow them to butcher age/size. Cattle aren't a high-growth-rate, young-age-butcherable commodity like lamb, pork or chicken ... you're talking at least 2yrs to raise a beef to butchering size. Or I guess we could buy our beef from South America ... where the vaccination procedures, butchering process and safe-handling practices are lax, or nonexistent.
heidi

Thanks Heidi, good to hear a different view. It's a hard one I reckon, we have the same problems with our brumbies, on how to handle over populations etc..

Sorry Heidi. I should have said most of the BLM. I know there are some herd management areas that operate better than others. I guess my beef is with the government since they control the BLM at the end of the day.

I hear ya. I've got a beef with government in general. I'd like for it to stop putting it's hands in my pockets and use the money they've already got in a more responsible fashion. Grrr.

Amen to that Heidi, also in the 70's they had a birth control program for the Mustangs it didnt work so why throw good money on a failure. There are good breeders and bad breeders I dont want my right to breed my horses taken away because there are bad breeders (have lost enough rights in the last 40 years).

OH, don't even get ME started on our government and the loss of our "rights" as citizens.....as much as I try to change the "political wheel" that is dragging us down (by voting in EVERY election), it still seems there are more people who believe the "campaign trail hype" and fall for those old familiar lies... :hammer

So far in the past 10 years, locally many have not only lost the right to keep any exotics (not even a snake), they have limited the number of animals (pets) and breeds a person can keep, and NOW they are even trying to force people to keep dogs indoors except when on a leash...(I mean NO outdoor time except for walks - no pens, play lots, teathers, NOTHING)...oh and now there is a proposal that says you MUST have a minimum of 5 acres to keep a single horse. Can you guys hear me screaming yet? :BH

[quote="critterkeeper"]OH, don't even get ME started on our government and the loss of our "rights" as citizens.....as much as I try to change the "political wheel" that is dragging us down (by voting in EVERY election), it still seems there are more people who believe the "campaign trail hype" and fall for those old familiar lies... :hammer

So far in the past 10 years, locally many have not only lost the right to keep any exotics (not even a snake), they have limited the number of animals (pets) and breeds a person can keep, and NOW they are even trying to force people to keep dogs indoors except when on a leash...(I mean NO outdoor time except for walks - no pens, play lots, teathers, NOTHING)...oh and now there is a proposal that says you MUST have a minimum of 5 acres to keep a single horse. Can you guys hear me screaming yet? :BH[/quote]

Ok this is a little off topic bt CK I can hear you screaming - it's getting ridiculous !!

As far as exotics go I have to say I think the US has gone a little crazy. I cannot see what would be wrong, in an ideal world, with limiting the number of potentially dangerous/lethal animals you can own and expecting you to have a license and to prove you can keep them safely. I also cannot see what is wrong with actually denying someone the right to keep a wild animal as a pet- you may want to keep a wolf on a chain, but is the animal happy? No, of course it isn't and there are about 10 exceptions to that rule, in the history of this silly "craze".
Before we brought in legislation to stop it we had people keeping lions in Hampstead and Harrods selling leopard cubs- CRAZY!
(Incidentally, the Hampstead lion was born in captivity and was raised his first year in an antique shop and then successfully returned to the wild in Africa!)
We had idiots crossing Wolves with Dogs (nice little earner that) now, thankfully, all that is illegal. Every now and again the government does actually wake up and do something that is for our good, as opposed to just to make money to line their pockets.
Someone explain to me again why we have a government?????

[quote="rabbitsfizz"]

Someone explain to me again why we have a government?????[/quote]
I cannot speak for Britain, but in the U.S. we formed a government to protect our unalienable Rights (Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness), that are endowed by our Creator. Someone has lost sight of the goal. :ympray: