Extra Interview

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to have an interview over the phone with Amy Dumas who is the manger of the adoption program for the BLM's holding facility in Litchfield.

1.  My first question is on a daily basis, how much human interaction do the mustangs get?

•  Probably fairly minimal the ones in you mean the ones in our facility. Yes. But they're fed on daily basis. They know that people come out and feed them. You know in tractors and stuff but they are not petted. You know so they're fed there where humans they see humans and people can come out and adopt them come out look at them probably not very much.

2.  So I think the guessing that they don't receive any type of training until after they are adopted?

•  Unless they're in a special program before they're adopted would have a program to do you guys offer to help give them the training. Well we have. We have our volunteers will sometimes halter trained horses. And we have partners groups to train horses such as prisons training horses. And we have. Competitions like the Mustang Make Over Challenge for example which will partner groups and they eventually people train horses and compete with them. Some horses are trained before adoption.

3. How long does it take the horses to settle into the facility after being rounded up?

• I mean every horse is in its own individual but generally. This settle down pretty quickly. I would say. I mean a lot more quickly than you think so probably within a day sometimes within an hour or two you mean. Some are much faster than others.

4.  What signs do the horses give when they have settled in?

•  When they're settling in. So they'll start eating hay and start to just stand there. So they get quiet.

5. After the horses are rounded up do you guys help them settle in or do they just kind of do it on their own?

•  It's kind of on their own I mean we put them in pens and they settle down. I mean we don't like handle them. We leave them alone when they figure things out.

6.  Do you any of the horses like the between different ages and genders do they settle in differently or do they settle in about the same?

•  This stallions seem to settle down faster than mares But that's just my observation. Somebody else might say something differently. 

7.  So once the rounded up, how do you decide what holding facility they go to and do they switch to different facilities so these after they go to one or no?

• Well. We really don't decide what facilities are going to go to. But really they go to whatever one's closest to where they are. But sometimes there's not enough room to do this and some will one and some will go to another. But then once they're in and they're settled down and they're ready for adoption. It is they had all their shots and their freezemark, and the boys are gelded. They may move to a different facility if they're going to go to adoption or something.

Audio:    https://soundcloud.com/kiley-moore/blm-interview