First Friday of Lent, no meat.  Scrambled eggs are good, especially if they’re produced by your own flock (see this video).  Other items of interest include meds for the horses, food for the cat and water samples from the well.

Don’t wash free-range eggs until you’re ready to use them.

RELATED: Backyard Chickens – Intro.

New video about the wild horse and burro training program at the state prison in Florence, AZ, which is sponsored by Arizona Correctional Industries, Bureau of Land Management and the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Inmates are taught how to care for the animals and prepare them for adoption, a process known as ‘gentling.’

Programs like this one have been proven to reduce recidivism, a positive result for the inmates and taxpayers.

The Florence Off-Range Corrals, destination for wild horses and burros removed from public lands in the state, are also on prison grounds.

The mustangs remind you that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, no meat.

BLM requested bids today for long-term care of wild horses and burros removed from public lands in the western U.S.  A similar request was posted last June.

Facilities must be located in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas (panhandle only), Utah, Washington or Wyoming.  Contracts will be awarded for 200 to 5,000 animals, with four-year and nine-year renewal options.

Western rangelands can’t support the current number of wild horses and burros in conjunction with ‘other legally mandated uses,’ according to the news release, a euphemism for ‘privately owned livestock.’

What does this say about the 2019 roundup season?  Ten thousand plus?

The forage currently allocated to livestock on public lands managed by the BLM would support 750,000 wild horses and burros, enough to empty all of the off-range corrals and long-term pastures fifteen times over.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?, Economics of Wild Horse Gathers.

UPDATE: See also this report posted today by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Too much rain out west.  Pine tree appeared to be leaning on 03/02/19, a few hours later it was on the ground.  Short video posted to WHW YouTube channel.

Too much rain, too much humidity.  Photo taken 03/03/19.  BLM mustang adopted in 2015, mom and brother in background.

A fire at Paint’d Horse Stables in Monroe, WA destroyed the main barn and arena on 02/28/19, claiming four horses, two tons of hay and some ranch equipment, according to a report posted today by KIRO-7 News in Seattle.

The facility rescues wild horses from the Yakama Indian Reservation that would otherwise go to slaughter.

The report did not indicate if the deceased animals were locked in stalls.

Sixty wild horses will be available for adoption March 15 – 16 at the BLM Rock Springs Wild Horse Holding Facility on Lionkol Road.  They were removed from the Green Mountain and Stewart Creek HMAs last summer as a part of the Red Desert gather.

Refer to this announcement for details.

Memory card reached its limit while filming this on 02/22/19, but you get the idea.

Video of Waipio Valley horses posted to Mustang Monday, 02-25-19.

1. You find rocks and sand in the bottom of your feeders.

2. There’s uneaten hay all over the place.  The horses use it like bedding.

3. When you finish cleaning the corral, there’s more hay in the wheelbarrow than poop.

4. Your poop pile is starting to look like a hay pile.

5. The feed store charges you $17 a bale for this stuff.

Last two months have been very wet and the hills are now velvety green.  The dry season will begin in May with a bumper crop of fuel.

These photos were taken 02/17/19 in the same places as the previous report.  Note the lowest rail in the pipe panels is now pretty much submerged.

The electric company installed these instruments last fall, presumably to monitor wind and humidity, and help them decide if power should be shut off because the risk of fire is too high.

Strong to the finish ’cause they eats their spinach!  Colt on the left, mom in the middle, filly on the right.  Family unit, not locked in stalls.  Adopted 2015.

A BLM news release posted yesterday said wild horses and burros would be offered for adoption and sale February 15 – 17 at the Everett Bowman Rodeo Grounds.

The announcement did not indicate how many animals would be available.

Inmates from the Arizona Department of Corrections will demonstrate the gentling and training process on Friday and Saturday.

If you can’t adopt, tell your U.S. representative that you’d rather see these guys wild and free on western rangelands, not privately owned cattle and sheep.

An organization known as Placitas Wild has been asked to vacate a preserve on which they’ve kept about 70 wild horses for almost four years, according to a story by KRQE News in Albuquerque, NM.

The report did not indicate why the horses were there or what would be done with the land after they are gone.

One of the volunteers told this writer that the preserve has been “operated by several old ladies working only from donations who have been caring for these horses for 15 years or more.  We cannot find the land, the funds, or the younger volunteers needed to continue to operate a free roaming preserve.”

Shots were fired Sunday into a rescue operated by the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, according to a report posted yesterday by FOX-10 in Phoenix.

Personnel with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the incident.

The facility, and the Salt River horses, are west of the Heber WHT, where ten wild horses have been shot in the past three weeks.  No arrests have been made in the case.

My friends, you’re not in California.  Set the dart guns aside and get reacquainted with gas operated, magazine fed, semiautomatic rifles, such as this one.  Note the images at 0:22 and 2:42.  In the forest.  Hint, hint.

RELATED: Shots Fired at Salt River Wild Horse Rescue Facility.

UPDATE: Added video by ABC-15 in Phoenix.

‘Excess’ horses at Palomino Valley Corrals, 20 miles north of Sparks, NV.  The ranchers have friends in government, you see, these guys don’t.

Last day of government shutdown, at least for a while.  Two BLM workers were on site.

Service gate was open but visitor gate was closed.

Some of the corrals that were empty on 12/31/18 had horses, some of the corrals that had horses back then were empty.  Youngsters seen on 12/31 were not there.

Ranchers like these wild horses best—the ones that are off the range—permanently.

No freedom, no family, no foals, no legacy.

RELATED: Palomino Valley Corrals, Day Ten of Government Shutdown.

If you have horses on your property, you can probably have chickens too.  Even in urban areas, you may be able to keep a few hens for personal use.  Check the ordinances.

To get started, you’ll need these items:

• Galvanized tub with screen and lamp
• Coop with covered run
• Wood shavings
• Feeder
• Waterer
• Chicks
• Egg cartons

Feed stores usually have chicks in the spring, some have them year around.  Start with four to six.  They must be kept warm until they have feathers.

Place them in the tub with some bedding, cover it with a metal screen, and set a reflector lamp on top.  Sixty to seventy five watts should be adequate (incandescent bulb).  Add feed (medicated) and water daily.  The chicks will outgrow the tub in three to four weeks but will be ready to go into the coop.

Choose a location that’s level and protected from wind.  Coops are usually built with wood frames and wire cloth.  Chicken wire is not acceptable.  The mesh for the wire cloth should be 1/2 inch or less.  Install it on the floor of the coop to stop rodents from tunneling their way in.

You can build a coop or buy one.  The feed store probably sells them, ready to use.  You can also find them online.  Ideally, the run would be of walk-in height.

You’ll need to access the run daily.  The feeder and waterer can be hung from the wood frame if strong enough to carry the weight.  As with horses, you should provide clean, fresh water every day.  The hen house should also be accessible but if the nesting boxes have separate access (such as the hinged cover on the left in the top photo), you won’t need to open this door very often.

Put some wood shavings in the nesting boxes and on the floor of the hen house.  A ramp extends from the house down into the run.  Two bales of straw can be positioned below the house for additional protection from wind and rain.

A corrugated roof can be added to the run to keep it dry.

The last step is to place the chicks in the cage.  They can go outside when three months old.  If the cage is in a remote area, there is a risk of predation by hawks and coyotes.

Allowing them to go scratch for bugs and seeds (known as free ranging) may improve the quality of the eggs.  Don’t worry about getting them back in the cage at sunset, they will do that by themselves.  Just remember to close the gate!

Be prepared to find little ‘fox holes’ where they have temporarily nested.  They can make a mess of your yard and garden.

At this point you can go back to the feed store and get a few more chicks, repeating the process to build up your flock.  The coop in these photos will handle ten to twelve hens, although it held sixteen at one point.

Eggs will appear in the nesting boxes when the hens are about five months old.  Their feed should be switched to the non-medicated type before this time.  Read and follow the directions on the bag.

Photos above were taken in 2011, when everything was new, except for the last one.

This YouTube video from 2018 shows the ‘halfway house’ that was added a few years after the coop was delivered.  Chicks are moved there after their stay in the tub and are turned in with the older hens when three months old.

Came across some old photos while looking for a long-lost spreadsheet.

The original herd, 02/06/12.  The big guy on the left is just shy of 17 hh.

In stalls, before the corral was built, 02/12/12.

In the arena, 02/26/12.  The buckskin died nine months later, my first horse.  The other three are still around, appearing in this post.

The high horse eats what he wants, when he wants, where he wants.  The others know their rung on the social ladder.  This behavior is not seen in the adopted mustangs, who will eat from the same pile of hay if necessary, probably because they are family (e.g., watch this video).  Filmed on a foggy morning 01/19/19.