Viewing horses as little more than a commodity to be gotten rid of once their perceived usefulness is over is a trend that permeates horse welfare issues.
In this case officials at a Kansas prison are slashing the adoption fees for wild horses used as part of a prison inmate rehabilitation program.
There may be instances where someone will adopt a wild horse who has been tamed for adoption and give him or her a caring home at the reduced fee. However, there now may be instances where some or all of these horses will fall into the hands of a killer buyer, a middleman who purchases horses for slaughterhouses.
The BLM not surprisingly have made the massively reduced adoption fees possible. The prices have been slashed from $600 to $1,000 per horse to as low as the rock bottom price of $125.
The ASSOCIATED PRESS reports:
Some horses being trained by inmates at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility are now available for adoption at the lowest price allowed under Kansas law.
The Hutchinson News (http://bit.ly/QztTVy) reports an expanded partnership between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Mustang Heritage Foundation allows the BLM to offer some horses for $125 apiece.
Between 14 and 18 minimum security inmates participate in the training program at any given time. The correctional center has areas designed to hold 350 horses in multiple enclosures and pens, all built by inmates using donated materials.
The report adds that the facility is also making untrained wild horses available for adoption at the new reduced rate.
Tuesday's Horse 
Reality Troy? The reality is there are less than 75,000 wild horses remaining and 51,000 of them are being held in government facilities already. The BLM controls approximately 250 million acres of public lands. Do you really think there’s not enough grass? After all there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of cattle grazing out there on that same range.
Reality? The reality is our government officials are taking money from lobbyist for the cattle associations, oil & gas, and mining. It wasn’t by accident a few years back the BLM started removing large numbers of wild horses that just happened to live where the Ruby Pipeline is now. It was their home. They lost their families and freedom to save money. Rather than reroute the pipeline the horses paid the price.
Reality? The reality is our government is out of control. They don’t listen to We the People who pay their salaries and give them benefits for the rest of their lives. They don’t give a rat’s a55 for our wildlife. They are barbarians. They are insane. They are a black mark on the American heritage of freedom.
That Troy is reality.
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lets keep in touch with reality also folks. Horses are expensive to care for especially in draught condiions and if something isnt done and the horses continue to run free and not be monitored eventually they will all suffer. There is only so much grass for them to eat. BLM starting adoption fee of $125 has been the norm for years. I have horses and would not consider spending more then that on a wild horse when you can find well trained ones for a few hundred more and even many free horses. As hay and grain prices go up horse prices go down. The market is flooded. A sad fact. Europian markets are supposed to be cracking down on horse meat standards. Who knows what will happen to all the “extra” horses then. We humans messs so much up.
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BLM and “reality” = 1. Needlessly rounding up wild horses & burros and stockpiling them all over the place. 2. They know they can’t adopt them out. 3. More and more are being discovered in kill pens and horse slaughter plants. 4. The BLM’s adoption program is a dismal failure except for highly orchestrated ones like The Cloud Foundation just went through. 5. And these so called emergency roundups because of drought conditions. Funny how there is plenty of everything for the cattle in the very same spots.
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The BLM can’t send the horses to slaughter out in the open so this is their way of sneaking around and doing it. This is one federal agency that needs to disbanded It’s stuffed full of some of the most crooked, useless humans that ever drew a breath.
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I am perplexed as to the true meaning of “Federally Protected”. In the dubious care of BLM, our wild horses haven’t got a chance in hell–of remaining wild,free,in their environment,alive,etc.–it’s all a bunch of lies. These horses have been used as therapy for inmates–and now they can be thrown away–their usefulness has ended. What a sub-human agency to use them in this manner. It’s just more abuse of the innocent. BLM never fails to disgust me.
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awesome program thanx for the info!
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The BLM has once again found a way to turn something good into something bad for the mustangs. I cannot utter the adequate words to express my contempt for this corrupt agency.
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You are so right GreenAcresWV. That’s what we thought too.
What does this sort of thinking teach these inmates. Horses are living, feeling beings; not something to be used up then dumped. Considering these horses are an iconic part of American heritage what sort of respect does this demonstrate?
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