MUSTANG Auction ~ These wild horses were gorgeous!

I have a super fun trip planned today to a special auction. I really wanted to bring my trailer with me just in case I found a special horse but these two little babies have been holding it hostage for a couple weeks now. With all of the morning chores done the last thing I have to do is drop Huckleberry off at home and then I'm ready to hit the road. I was super excited when I saw they were having an auction within a day's drive of my house. I haven't been to one of these auctions in a very long time. The sale that I'm heading to today is pretty unique. It is for BLM Mustangs and they will have some burros as well. After a treacherous stop at the rest area I continued my journey and ran into a bit of traffic along the way. I had planned to arrive with about an hour to look at the horses before the auction started but I was running really late. We just have parking around I need to get a bidder number and you do have to meet several requirements before they will approve you for the sale. You do need to be at least 18 years old and you have to agree not to take the animal out of the United States before it has its title. You cannot be convicted of animal cruelty. For these mustangs since they are unhandled there are some pretty stringent rules about the facility that you need to have in order to adopt. Each horse needs a minimum of 400 square feet. A gentled horse can live in a stall but they do need exercise daily. The pens for these horses do need to be substantial and they need to be between four and a half and six feet high depending on the type of animal you want. Typically a good rule of thumb for the shelter on these animals is a three-sided shelter that is a solid material. Transport of a wild unhandled horse can be tricky so they do have a lot of requirements for the type of trailer you need if you're going to adopt a horse at this sale. It has been quite a while since I've been to one of these that was an actual auction so this should be really exciting. I have done a few makeovers and I was a tip trainer for a while so I do have quite a bit of experience with mustangs. Each pen of horses did have the neck tag number, the horse's age, the gender as well as the color. The HMA or herd management area is just where the horse came from and then some of these horses will be sale authority horses. The sales program allows horses that are 10 years old or have been offered three times to have the ownership immediately passed from the government to the new owner with just a bill of sale which is different than an adoption where you would have to wait a whole year to get the horse's title. All right here we go on this man right here take a look here she is I bet here we go all right now here we go five thousand ago. They did have two gentled horses from the Wyoming Honor Farm at this auction that they're going to do first. I couldn't help myself and I picked out a really nice looking colt before I made it over to the auction pen. He really reminded me of Stewie. This little guy was from Roberts Mount in Nevada which I have never seen horses from this HMA before. All of these little guys looked relatively similar but this one just seemed a little bit more outgoing and curious. These horses have been here for a few days before the public was allowed to preview them so they have settled down quite a bit. These guys probably are still a little bit tired from the trailer ride they had to take to get here. Each pen had five or six horses in it. These guys are from the same area but they are a little bit older and it sounds like that one halter broke mustang sold for $1,750. They did have a few pens of burros that look like they're from Arizona maybe. It is really exciting to see so many people show up to get horses from this event. It looks like most of the burros in this pen are only a year old. I did take note of that two-year-old little bay gelding that was 1930. Honestly most of the horses in his pen and the other horses from this area were really nice looking animals. All of these horses were kind of on the boring side as far as color is concerned. Just some plain bays with not a lot of chrome. That really doesn't matter too much to me. I'll take a plain brown pony with nice straight legs over a flashy one any day. All of these horses over here looked like they were pretty even keeled and it does look like many of them were born in the facility so their mamas were probably rounded up and then they fold out in holding. Today most of the younger horses are geldings and then they have some older ones that are going to be mares. They are selling one gelding that is started under saddle and I really wanted to see how much he goes for. It has been quite a few years now since I've had a BLM Mustang in for training. I didn't hear where exactly this little gelding was from but he looked pretty darn broke to me. It sounds like this guy is gonna go for around $3,500 which is a really good deal if you just consider how much training he already has. Today they are going to be selling the Mustangs in groups so they will be selling choice. That just means if you end up with the high bid you're gonna pay whatever your bid is and you get to pick out exactly which horse you want. The last Mustang adoption event I went to was first come first serve. I feel like the auction format has kind of evened the playing field for everyone so in case two people want the same horse they can kind of duke it out. It's also nice because they will move these pens of horses into the auction ring down through an alley so you will get to see them trot around and you can kind of see how they move a little bit. It looks like they're starting off with a I'm really interested to see how much these guys go for. The regular adoption fee for these Mustangs is $125 so that is where the bidding is going to start at. I didn't really get to get a good look at these mayors yet so I guess I'm just gonna have to wait until they go through the ring. I am a huge fan of the Wyoming Mustangs so it was nice to see that they had a at the event today. There are a few different ways you can get one of these Mustangs and they do have internet adoptions as well. Those are run as auctions and the prices can get a little crazy. Some horses do get photographed in the wild so if they are fairly easily recognized they do bring quite a high price. Even if you pay a little bit more than $125 for one of these horses it is definitely worth it. These horses are up to date on all of their vaccines and they have a Coggins test pulled. $325 is a super reasonable price for all of the care that these horses have already had. After the high bidder picks out their horse they will actually re-auction the leftover horses again and then the next highest bidder will get to choose their horse. I was kind of surprised how calm these horses were being because a lot of times these guys have not been exposed to this many people. The horse that has already been bought is this gray horse right in the front. For a bid of $225 the next bidder got to pick their horse. They will keep running the same group of horses until there are no bids or just a bid for $125 which is the lowest amount that you can get these horses for. For the horses that do not get adopted through the auction portion of this event they will be able to be adopted afterwards for the minimum bid which is $125. Unless there was a horse that I really really wanted I would just wait until all of the horses go through and then go back and look at all the available horses. In 2019 they did start a really neat program called the Adoption Incentive Program. This gives the adopter the chance to get a thousand dollars on any untrained animal that they adopt. This is not available on sale authority horses and it is limited to four animals per adopter per year. If you are already adopting mustangs and training them and using them like regular horses it is a really nice bonus. Like most things in life there's always going to be a few bad apples that take advantage of this incentive and do nothing with the horses that they adopt. But for most people it is the little push that they need to maybe pick one of these mustangs over a regular sale horse like the ones I typically get. There is a super cute little seal brown horse in here and I'm curious to see if this group goes higher than the last one. I've gotten a little bit more picky about the mustangs I get and they have to be good movers so it is really nice to be able to see these guys trot around in kind of their natural environment. And it looks like for this group the high bid was $400. I tried to pick out which horse was bought first but I just could not read the neck tags good enough and they kind of all look very similar in this group. Just like the last group they're gonna go ahead and start the auctioning over and they get to the second highest bid of $250. This is a pretty common way to buy horses loose so at the regular auctions I go to they will do it this way sometimes especially if there are lots of reservation horses or something like that. This was a little bit odd because when they went to go auction the horses again the bidding went up to higher than the previous bid which is really kind of odd so the third pick went for $300 so it was more expensive than the second pick. No other adopters wanted a horse after that so there had to be two people that really wanted that one last horse but with so many similar horses I'm sure they're gonna pick out an alternative after the auction's over. These are more geldings from pretty much the same HMA as the last group but these are two-year-olds and my favorite is in this group. He has such a sweet face and a kind eye. He also looks relatively brave going around with the group. You can see he's kind of on the edge and then he's out in front not really worrying too much about being exposed to all the humans that are looking at him. So far I haven't seen any really flighty reactive horses but they are together in a group so they are a little bit more calm than they would be if they were totally by themselves. I know people don't really care for plain bay horses but this horse was just super nice looking. I was really wanting to put my hand up and bring him home. I would just have to get some six foot panels to reinforce the fence that I already have which would take me no time at all and I could bring one of these horses home. As I was calculating in my head what I would have to do to bring that horse home I heard that the high bidder did pick him. I do feel like there was quite a big difference between his temperament and the other horses and an extra $75 to pick him out of that group is definitely worth it. The next high bid was the minimum for $125 and I'm not sure which one they picked maybe the lighter kind of swirl colored one. With my favorite horse out of the running I am gonna take a quick peek at this pen over here. I did notice this super cute little seal brown mayor as I was doing my really quick run through. It seems like they are gonna sell all of the geldings first and then move on to the other side of the alley and sell all of the mayors. A little trivia there's 177 hood management areas in the United States. Horses are currently sitting at just over 80. While the auctioneer was going over some stats about wild horses I snuck a peek at this mayor and she is from one of my favorite HMAs which is Saltwells Creek. The very first Mustang that I ever rode was from Saltwells Creek and then the last tip horse that I had was from that area as well. I have found that they are a little bit more even keeled and very smart. I'm trying really hard not to buy any more mayors because it will be difficult for me to put all of my horses in one herd when we move but this seal brown mayor is gorgeous. Unfortunately I do see that she does have an old scar on the back of her leg. Typically at these kinds of adoption events they will not send lame horses so she's probably sound and it's probably just an old scar that's healed but of course it could show up later in her training and might be a problem for her down the road. This is another group of geldings they are between five and seven years old and there is one in this group that I really really want but I'm not going to tell you guys which one. For the horses that do not get adopted today or tomorrow some of them will probably go to the Hamilton facility and then maybe the Honor Farm will take some but I did hear that some of them will be going back to holding in Wyoming and they'll be available for adoption again. I am going to keep my lips sealed in case fall time rolls around and we have bought a house. Of course it would be great if all of these horses got adopted today but selfishly I'm hoping the one that I want doesn't and it looks like only one horse from this group got adopted which is a little bit surprising. I just love the looks of this tiny little burro. I think it's a yearling. It would be so cool if Nigel would accept a burro as a companion but I have a feeling that they would really fight. This little girl was so cute and I was certain she was going to be the high seller out of all of the burros. It was really surprising that the high bid was only $250. If a burro like that went through the typical auction that I go to it probably would have sold for eight to twelve hundred dollars. The high bidder picked out this little yearling burro. I thought this bigger burro with the softest sweetest face was super nice. Naturally as soon as I thought I might want to be taking this one home he got picked by the second choice bidder. What's really nice about adopting a burro as opposed to one of these mustangs is the fence requirement is a lot lower. So for a burro you only need a fence that's four and a half feet tall. A lot of you guys do give me flack about keeping Scarlett in my round pen but she would definitely jump over a fence that is just regular panels. Some people think the six foot requirement is ridiculous but I've seen lots of horses jump out of a five foot fence. Even some of the domestic horses that I get unhandled will try and test the fencing. So it is extremely important to have a secure fence if you're going to adopt any of these animals. This little guy is just breaking my heart. He is so curious and sweet and the other burros are kind of beating up on him a little bit. There's one burro that's quite kicky and I really can't blame these guys. A lot of them have traveled pretty far to be here. Being in a new place and the stress of travel can make these animals extra cranky. Like any auction animal they can change dramatically when they get home and rested and are being fed. When it was all said and done they got all of the burros from this pen adopted. Even the kicky little bugger. I am really interested to see if this little mare with the scar on her leg is sound when she trots around. With all of this stuff that I've been through with Skeletor this last year I don't know that I could mentally handle another horse with a tendon or ligament injury right now. This girl is just breathtaking. She is a near perfect body condition. Maybe a little bit out of shape but other than that her conformation is really really nice. I am searching for something to falter on and maybe she doesn't have as prominent of withers as you would like. But that's really just being nitpicky. She is overall a very balanced horse and is probably going to be super nice to get going under saddle. The guy that was running the mustangs in and out I think he was getting freaked out that I was filming all of the mustangs. There can be some real crazies out there that just hate that these horses are rounded up and adopted out. I think that maybe he thought I was one of them because I hadn't been on a horse yet. The BLM has an extremely hard job of managing these horses and dealing with a lot of nonsense. Everyone that I've ever met that has worked for the wild horse and burro program has been extremely nice. Instead of focusing my energy on stirring up drama around the situation I would much rather educate potential adopters on how great these horses can be so we can get more of them out of holding and into private homes. It looks like that really pretty steel brown mare did not get adopted so I'm gonna take a closer look at her when she's back in her pen. I don't think that scar on her leg is currently bothering her at all so that is really nice. These mares in here now are probably the flashiest group of horses that I've seen all day. There is a really pretty buckskin kind of pinto colored horse. I am guessing that that one is going to be the high seller and go first. This group of mares is also a little bit more calm than the last one I think. I'm really surprised the bid was the minimum which was 125 and the high bidder did pick the buckskin horse. I typically don't like gray horses but this one was really nice she was super curious. I think just the one horse was adopted out of this group which is kind of a surprise. I did hear someone mention that there were only 20 approved bidders at the start of the auction. This group coming in now does have some really really nice looking horses. I think that if these guys were geldings that they would all get adopted out. The high bid for this group was also the minimum of 125. I really like that darker gray mare so I wrote her number down just to keep an eye on her. And of course as soon as I put her down somebody else decided that they wanted her as well. She was a really nice looking horse so I can't really blame them. This is another group of older mares and there are some real lookers in this group as well. One of the mustangs that I had for a makeover looked exactly like this black horse. I actually think they're from the same HMA. She seemed pretty outgoing and was really curious about all of the people standing on the edge of the railing. She kind of reminds me of Scarlet a little bit. Brave but not too scared and she is quite a tall horse. I'm wondering if she's one of the ones that is six years old. I made sure to take note of her number and write it down so I could check her out after the auction if she was still available. This is another group of mares from the Wyoming area that are three and four years old. I believe these horses just get fed straight alfalfa and they look gorgeous. I was sure the high bidder was going to take one of these taller chestnuts but they took that kind of bald faced one in the back I think. These girls were a lot braver than some of the other groups of horses. They were calm enough to come pretty close to the fence and eat a little bit of hay that was left on the ground. This horse is really gorgeous and I think I'm going to put her on my list as well and see what HMA she's from. When the last pen of horses came in the ring I actually had to cross off three of the ones on my list because they were sold. Again thank you everyone for coming out today. Appreciate you taking a horse two, three or even a burrow home. This is the very last group of horses that they're going to be auctioning today and this pen does look like it's a little bit more apprehensive about going in the sale ring. This little bay one had some real cutting horse moves kind of spooking around up front there. This mare all the way on the right is gorgeous. I think she came up almost as pretty on film as she did in real life. This mare looked like she was maybe a little bit higher up on the totem pole. She's kind of keeping an eye out for the other girls. It was kind of nice to have someone from the facility there because those guys that work there every day they do know the horses pretty well. You can get a lot of interesting tidbits from them when the horses are in the ring. They are wrapping up the sale with another pen of older burrows and they had a few in here with broken little ears. Since these are wild animals they are going to have lumps and bumps and maybe a crooked ear from it being bitten. It looks like there's another one in here with the tip of his ear missing as well. All of these burrows are coming from out of Arizona and are a little bit on the older side. I was having a really hard time telling apart all these burrows and then I saw the cutest shaggy one in the front here. As everybody picked out which burrow they wanted to take home there was some confusion about the numbers. They were really hard to see and all these burrows are very much alike. I have always really wanted a burrow but it just doesn't make sense for me to get one right now. This little shaggy one was really pulling on my heartstrings. He was so cute and he was really curious. This was an extremely difficult exercise and restraint for me because I really wanted to take this guy home. I did write down his number so I wouldn't forget which one he was. I'm not sure if these burrows are going back to the holding facility in Wyoming. As the auction portion of the adoption event came to an end I went back to take a second look at all of the horses that were still available that were on my list. The more I looked at these two mayors the more I realized they look very similar to Scarlet. These two girls are four years old. They have the same kind of wild sorrel color that Scarlet is. As I went back through all of the horses I had this realization that I really do not need or have time for another horse at this point in time. I really do want to focus all of my energy on finding our own place so I can hopefully expand what I'm doing. I did write down the number of this horse just so I can keep track of her. I am going to send her to a friend too that was looking for a sale authority horse. I snapped a few pictures to send them along to entice her to adopt this one. Judging by the body condition of these horses the facility in Wyoming is doing an excellent job of taking care of these horses. With my final list in tow I go back to see what geldings are left. A lot of times the really plain brown ones get overlooked like this guy. This guy seemed like he was a little bit on the shy side and this is the kind of horse that I really like working with. It can take a little bit of extra time for them to come out of their shell and trust you but once they do they make really nice horses. Even when he got a little scared he didn't do too much right there. I'm not sure how old this guy is but he is on the smaller side. I did check in on that little fluffy burrow and it looks like he's a five-year-old gelding that's not sale authority. He would have to be adopted. He was really staring me down but I know I just cannot take him home with me today. This sweet guy is definitely gonna go on my list and I will try and keep track of him. He could certainly get adopted tomorrow because they don't have very many geldings that are ready to be ridden but with him being a little bit on the smaller side he might get passed over. Most people are looking for a horse that's at least 15 hands which is probably about the size of the horse all the way on the right. I don't really have a height requirement even though I'm so tall. I do still like riding horses that are a little bit on the shorter side. I hadn't heard of the Roberts Mountain HMA before today so I'm gonna do some investigating when I get home. I did see that they are setting up to load out some of the horses and I did want to show you guys that before I leave today. When these mustangs go off to their new home the owner can elect to have a halter put on them. Some leave a drag rope on, some don't. The mustangs are run into a chute to do this and it is fairly easy even if the horses are particularly wild. This horse was being super curious. He was nibbling on the halter and just kind of taking in his surroundings. This can be a really low stress way to get a halter on the horse for the first time. It's just really a matter of preference. I did a whole series on how I got a halter on Scarlet my reservation horse which is basically the same as a BLM mustang. I will link that in the description below if anybody's interested in it because it is just a different way of handling these guys if you don't want to put a halter on them right away. I will say that it can take a lot longer if you do have a very fractious horse. Once the horse is ready to be loaded onto the trailer they open a few gates and give it some encouragement and most of them just hop right on. When you transport a completely unhandled wild horse you really need an open stock trailer which is one of the requirements for adoption. I'm hoping to see them load up a few more just so you guys can see the process again. One horse really caught my eye this Sorrel six-year-old mare from Divide Basin. I have a mustang friend that I know will absolutely love this horse so I'm gonna take down her information and get some pictures so that I can send them to her. I think coming down the alley now is this super cute gray horse that I really liked. It's a little bit hard to tell them apart when they are in a chute as opposed to running around. This girl looks a little bit more nervous than the last one that was in the chute. I did notice at this event that they were cutting the neck ropes off some of the horses which I haven't seen them do before. The owners may have asked to have them removed before they get home just so they don't get snagged on anything. I am a really big fan of neck collars especially on unhandled horses just in case they escape. My reservation horse Scarlett wears a neck rope 24-7 that has a quick release just in case she jumps out of her pen. These mustangs do have a freeze brand on their neck so they are easy to identify just in case they get out. One of the conditions of adopting one of these horses is that the government actually owns it for a whole entire year until they give you the paperwork for it. This little mare is being really sensible about getting her halter put on. These horses do get handled in a chute very similar like this to get their vaccinations and to be freeze branded and dewormed. But other than that these horses have not been trained in any way. They've never had a halter on before so this is a completely new experience for them. This little girl did a little bit of squirming along. It looks like she is getting left with a drag rope on and that is probably what gave her a tiny scare. When she's ready to go they open up the gates and she will hop right on the trailer. Everybody running the chutes today knew exactly what they were doing so all of the horses were handled very calmly and quietly and they all got out on their way pretty efficiently. Before I left for the day I went to the office with my list to see which horses were still available. I really couldn't get this little guy out of my head and I'm hoping that he doesn't get adopted and maybe he'll be available at a later date for me. I enjoy working with most horses but this little brown one is definitely my type. He is a short little meatball that is a little bit apprehensive and I think I would get along great with him. I had a serious internal battle with myself about just taking him home and adopting him but before I got any crazy ideas I hightailed it back to the truck so I could head home before I made any rash decisions. One really cool thing that happened while I was at the auction today is I did get spotted by one of you guys. If you ever see me out and about in public just know that I spook pretty easily and I'm a little bit awkward around people I don't know. Nonetheless it was really cool to meet someone who watches my channel and they did adopt some mustangs so that was also cool to see too. When I finally made it back to the barn I noticed one of the horses was out and I was really feeling thankful that I didn't have to deal with another new horse at the moment. I was convinced that it was Stewie because he's been extra sneaky lately but to my surprise it was Big Gus. So in addition to all of the chores I have to do tonight I will be fixing the fence so he can't get out again. It was super fun to get out and see a lot of nice really healthy good looking mustangs. I do have a few more auction adventures planned for the summer so if you're not subscribed already go ahead and subscribe so you don't miss those. I am also going to link some information about the wild horse and burrow program in case you're thinking about adopting yourself. Thank you so much for watching and stay tuned for the next video.