A group of West Coast horses are headed back home after spending several months in Michigan.
Nine horses, including one foal born in Michigan, were loaded on transport vans Friday, September 9, 2011, to begin a journey of over 2,000 miles to Dreamcatcher Horse Santurary. Their journey ends a few miles from where they were originally removed from their home near Twin Peaks, California, by the Bureau of Land Management.
An Allegan County resident purchased 29 horses at a price of $25 each in February, from a BLM adoption. The federal governmental agency paid shipping costs to send the horses from California to Michigan.
Not long after the horses arrived, the purchaser realized she couldn’t afford to care for the animals. She had a plan to adopt many of them to paying customers, but when many of the arrangements fell through, she was stuck with too many horses and not enough money to feed them.
The plans to return the horses to California were set in motion after a visit from the Michigan Horse Welfare Coalition, who stopped by the ranch when the new owner requested assistance in purchasing hay. The coalition noted underfed horses and asked the Allegan County Sheriff’s Department to seize the animals so they could be properly taken care of, according to coalition member Jodi Louth.
When the Sheriff’s department wouldn’t help, the coalition looked for other options.
The coalition contacted adopters who had received horses and asked them to do what’s best for the horses and sell them to the coalition to be sent back to California. Most of the adopters agreed, though four horses will remain with their adopters.
Last week the coalition took nine horses to a holding facility for testing and to be certified by a veterinarian — a legal requirement for out-of-state travel. Louth said drawing blood and doing other tests has been a challenge with the wild horses because they don’t like to be touched.
The veterinarian helping with testing has requested to remain anonymous. The location of the holding facility is anonymous as well.
The horses will be brought to Dreamcatcher Horse Sanctuary, a sprawling compound of 2,000 acres about 20 miles from Twin Peaks.
Dreamcatcher Director Barbara Clarke said the nonprofit sanctuary is paying about $10,500, most of which was acquired from donors, to have the horses carried by professional horse transporters using vans
At the sanctuary, the horses will be given plenty of space to run on a large range. Because of the location, she said the horses will think they’re back home.
“Everything will look and smell and taste like where they’ve lived their whole lives,” she said.
The sanctuary supplements feeding of hay in the winter and horses are looked at by a veterinarian if they get sick or injured, she said. They are separated by sex to avoid foaling and overpopulation and the sanctuary is surrounded by a perimeter fence. But Clarke said Dreamcatcher tries to make it feel like a natural range, and other horses have reverted back to their wild ways right away.
“In the spring and summer, we’re lucky if we can get within 100 feet of them once they revert,” she said.
The Allegan horses will join 240 other horses, most from the Pryor Mountains, McCullough Peaks and Red Desert areas of Wyoming, Clarke said.