1922 horses were gathered off the Calico Range last winter under quite a bit of controversy. But the story didn’t end there, as a matter of fact, the BLM wanted to show off its brand new facility in Fallon where these horses no reside.

Its called the Indian Lakes Facility privately owned and operated the B-L-M has contracted it as a short term-holding facility.
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The 320 acre facility helps doctor horses as they are pushed through a chute to get their vaccinations, blood tests and deworming.

“Eliminate any injuries that they could possibly do. The chute area has rounded corners in it, to initiate good flow of animals. So they don’t get stuck in areas where they can get scared and injuries do happen,” says John Neill with Indian Lakes.

The veterinarian here along with the facility manager and wrangler administer shots, blood tests, deworming and finally a freeze brand on the necks of the horses which help identify them individually–and then, let them go.

Each of the pens holds about 100 horses safely. The mares and babies are separated from the other horses. Mares and geldings are put in separate pens as well. The horses’ ages are also documented. That’s because most won’t stay here. Many older horses will go to other holding facilities in the midwest or east. Other horses will go to adoption facilities in Colorado and Texas.

Deniz Bolbol from “In Defense of Animals” was in her car for nearly two hours waiting for us to exit the facility. She along with others in her group says facilities like these are too expensive to maintain. In her opinion the B-L-M needs to scrap its current methods of maintaining wild herds and start over. Bolbol wanted to make sure we weren’t swayed by what she calls the P.R. spin.

“Range Improvement, fertility control, there are a whole host of options for the BLM. Sadly they ignore all of them and really just fall back on this roundup and removal,” says Bolbol

But these horses are off the range and the next step is to get as many of them as successfully adopted as possible.

The B-L-M says two to four years olds are the most desirable age when it comes to adoptions. And the adoption of some of these horses from the Calico Complex will take place late this spring at Palomino Valley.

If you would like to tour the Indian Lakes facility to get updates on the horses there, you can contact the BLM by going to: www.blm.gov/nv/.

Read the entire article here.

Posted: 10:24 PM Mar 9, 2010
Reporter: Terri Russell