Week Two With #4915 And #4810 (2020 Online Adoption Mustangs)

Week Two with #4915 and #4810                                                                                                       June 8th-14th, 2020

Marissa’s mustang #4915 (3yr old Red Roan) has made leaps and bounds over the last week! After weeks of trying to decide on a name for #4915 Marissa finally decided to call her “Tahani!” This week Tahani learned many new things.  Marissa put a surcingle on her and Tahani was totally fine with it. She also started walking around with the saddle and saddle pad on and took it like a champ! They continued working on leading and Marissa was able to get her trotting in hand pretty consistently. They also worked on side passing, haunch turns and four hand turns and Tahani is really starting to figure it all out. Other things they are working on are lunging, picking up Tahani’s front feet and she even let Marissa untangled her tail. We unfortunately only got video on day eight but she was getting much better at leading and lunging towards the end of the week. Here is a link to a video>>>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtRXw-1Ezew&t=4s

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Moving on to my mare #4810 (7yr old chestnut). Slow and steady wins the race seems to be the motto for this mare. We have been playing quite a few different round penning games such as, having her keep her face towards me and walking towards me. As for actually touching her she still wants nothing to do with it and is still reactive. I am sure with a little more time and patience this mare will come along wonderfully!

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Week One With #4915 and #4810 (2020 Online Adoption Mustangs)

June 1-7

June 7th concluded our first official week with the Mustang mares. My sister, Marissa decided to train #4915 (the roan) since I fell in love with the #4810 ( the chestnut) from the first time I saw her on the internet adoption. Our goal with these two mares is to see  if we can get them riding in 100 days like you would for a Mustang Makeover.                                                                                                           To start out with lets talk about #4915 ( the 3yr old roan).  She is doing spectacular! When she arrived at home we noticed that her lead rope got wrapped around her neck twice. We did not want to leave her like that all night so I stood on the other side the panel closest to her and used a luge whip and was able to fish the lead rope off from around her neck. She was super calm and just stood there and I was even able to rub all over her face, neck and shoulder! The next day Marissa started working with her and she was absolutely amazing! This little mare is such a sweet heart and is super curious! She was so well behaved that Marissa was able to take her tag off the first day.

At the beginning she didn’t like Marissa on either of her sides but she quickly got over that. Besides learning that people are her friends and that being hand-fed grass is awesome, she has learned how to lead, be brushed, wear a saddle pad and even a saddle!  And if that wasn’t impressive enough she learned the beginning of round penning! She was super calm about all the new things and took everything Marissa threw at her in stride. She was a little suspicious at first of the saddle pad and saddle but quickly warmed up to them.

She also picked up leading pretty fast and was totally fine with being brushed. When round penning her, she likes to get stuck by her friend’s pen but they have been working on it and she is not quite so sticky as she was at first. Marissa was also able to get her dreads in her mane untangled and brushed out (it took her close to an hour). This mare is making amazing progress and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for this special Mustang! Check out her Youtube Video>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Also we were playing around with our camera and got this neat photo of Marissa in her sweatshirt with Stardust’s ( Marissa’s first Mustang) brand on the sleeve and #4915 right after she took the tag off.

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Now onto my mare #4810. On the ride home we could definitely tell that #4810 was the more timid of the two and a little more skittish. On top of that, she some how took her lead rope off in the trailer. This first week we have been working on round penning and approach and retreat. At first she was very reactive but she is slowly starting to settle in and get used to these scary two legged creatures(people). She is getting a pretty good go and stop in the round pen and is even taking multiple steps towards me!! At the end of the week she started taking grass out of my hand but still wants nothing to do with my hand actually being anywhere near her. She is going to take a little more time to warm up to us than the roan but I am sure she is going to come around in no time! Check out her video>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inPm8q2qx9c

Bringing Home #4810 and #4915 (2020 Online Adoption Mustangs)

Back in March we adopted two Mustangs off of the Online Mustang Adoption put on by the BLM (Check out these posts for the full story>> Online Mustang Adoption.& Online Mustang Adoption. We Got Two!!!). When all of the Covid craziness hit we had to postpone picking them up for several months (the waiting was torcher)!!! On May 31st we finally set out for the Oregon Mustang Holding Corrals. My little sisters stayed back with my Mom to take care of the farm while Dad and I made the long trip out to Burns. The 8hr drive there went smoothly and we camped in the back of our horse trailer at the base of a BLM Campground full of  cows.

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Home Sweet Home

The next morning (June 1st) we were up bright and early and arrived at the Holding Corrals at 7:30 and were done and out of there before 8!! Those BLM guys are fast! They got them haltered and loaded into the trailer in about 10 to 20 min!!

 

With the mustangs in tow we headed home! The mares road great all they way home and we arrived at the farm somewhere between 7 and 8pm ( a crash occured on HWY 84 and we had a nearly 3hr delay rerouting through downtown Portland during curfew, ugh). The mares unloaded easily and after getting a good look we realized these Mustangs are in EXCELLENT condition!! They are the perfect weight, have a shine to their coat and their feet are trimmed!!! You would have no idea they were wild mustangs and would assume they are pampered domestic horses if it wasn’t for the fact that they were terrified of everything. The Oregon BLM has done an amazing job taking care of these horses!  Check out our video of  picking up the mustangs>>>Bringing Home #4915 and #4810

Online Mustang Adoption

MARCH 3rd, 2020

Check Out part 2 Online Mustang Adoption. We Got Two!!!

This morning, we found out about an online auction for some of the wild Mustangs in holding and, of course, we HAD to get on the internet to take a quick look.  The “quick look” took a little longer than expected because there were so many beautiful Mustangs up for adoption and we were slowly falling in love with all of them. After over an hour of gazing at the pictures of Mustangs, we decided to go ahead and get in a BLM application, just in cause we wanted to bid.  But we ran into a complication. The BLM has a rule that a person with more than four untitled mustangs has to get further approval. To be titled, you have to own the horse for a year and then have a vet do an inspection before you have complete ownership of the Mustang. My sister and I are planning on competing in the Mustang Yearling Washington Youth 100 day Challenge with hopefully two yearling Mustangs and a burro.  Stardust (Marissa’s Mustang) won’t be titled until a couple weeks after we bring home the competition Mustangs which will put us at four untitled horses. If we brought home another wild Mustang(say from an online auction) that would be 5 untitled Mustangs. After making multiple phone calls, we figured out how many shelters and paddocks we will need and ran outside and set up three new paddocks in the pouring down rain. Once we were finished, we headed inside and applied to have over 4 untitled horses. The online auction ended at 3 p.m. and we were down to the last couple of hours till it was over, so we decided that if we didn’t get approved for 5 either my sister or I would drop either one of our competition Mustangs or the burro.  With an hour and a half left on the clock, we started making low bids on a couple of our favorites but we where quickly out bid. On our favorite Mustang, we bid 20 dollars over the current highest bid and we had the top bid of $70 dollars! But right after we got are bid in, the website started getting super slow and then stoped working all together!! We stared at a loading screen for an hour and a half and we were not able to get back onto the website until after the auction had ended. We were positive we wouldn’t get the Mustang we were bidding on because our last bid was so low, and we were sure we would get out bid! But to our great surprise, we received an email saying we had won!!! We are so excited and can’t believe she is ours!! So without further ado meet #4915 a 3yr old Warm springs Mare from Oregon!!

We haven’t picked her up from the holding corral in Oregon yet but are hoping to soon! We can’t wait to start working with this little mare and see what all she teaches us! To follow her journey checkout her facebook page called “A Wild Journey With #4915” >>>  Click Here