ARTICLE LINKS
Eastern States Fostering Volunteer Program
Connecting with America's Future
Eastern States Fostering Volunteer Program |
 |
Eastern States has a new program using fostering volunteers to gentle and place yearlings directly from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) facilities. Jane Loughmiller lives in Indiana, and has placed 23 yearlings for the BLM in fiscal year 2006, that ended September 30, 2006.
The requirement for being a fostering volunteer in Eastern States is that you must be a past adopter who is skilled in handling wild horses and has experience in gentling and training techniques. In addition, all fostering volunteers must be familiar with BLM adoption requirements. Fostering volunteers must have all adopted animals in their possession titled, if eligible. All fostering volunteers are selected by Wild Horse and Burro Specialists in the area covering Eastern States. All past adopters may not necessarily qualify to be a foster volunteer.
Pre-approved fostering volunteers may pick up unadopted yearlings at the termination of a temporary adoption location, where the animal has not been adopted, or may drive to the Ewing, IL Holding Facility to pick up a yearling wild horse.
Fostering volunteers must make sure that all adoption applications and Private Care and Maintenance Agreements are completed accurately and appropriately and sent in a timely manner to the appropriate BLM office for approval.
Fostering volunteers may also act as mentors to new adopters. Since January 2006, Eastern States has enlisted the assistance of 30 volunteers in 12 states and found homes for 153 wild horses through their volunteer program. For more information about the Eastern States Wild Horse and Burro Program, please visit http://www.es.blm.gov/whb/.
By Jane Loughmiller, Eastern States Fostering Volunteer in Brazil, IN
Wow…what a fantastic spring and summer it has been for fostering the mustangs! We have adopted 23 mustangs so far this year! Some have been boarded here temporarily at the Spirit of Freedom Farm. We know what we are doing and can help first time adopters through the gentling process of their newly adopted wild horses. All the babies are doing GREAT!
Here are the procedures we use:
When the mustang yearlings arrive, we unload them into the corrals. Once they are settled we separate them…2 in each corral. We feed only grass hay for the first few days and let them get used to seeing us bring them food. Then we introduce oats, begin petting them, and take off the neck tags for those who have been adopted. By the way, we do have a waiting list of adopters.
When the horses are more comfortable with humans, we begin to let them out into the adjoining round pens when they need to be worked with or exercised. We feed them, begin petting, and then work toward getting the halter on. Once we can get their halter on we attach the lead rope. When that process is accomplished we let the yearlings drag the rope around to get used to it. After the yearlings are used to the rope, we begin the process of training them to lead. When they are leading well, we put them in a “transition” pasture next to the round pen, and work more on being caught and led into a different area.
After we can catch and lead them in the round pen and transitional pastures, we begin to lead them out into the adjacent area that is fenced on 3 sides. When they do well with this, they are put into either the “little boys pasture”, or the “little girls pasture”. Halters are left on when they are moved, until they can be caught & haltered easily in the pastures. Only one horse now has a halter on, all others are begging to be caught, haltered and loved on! Once the horses are leading well enough to be out in the pastures, we bring them in daily to be fed in the barn. We are having fantastic results with this system! We are hoping to soon add 2 more corrals in order to help meet the demand for mustang babies, and help more find good homes.