Hurricane's Band

There is Hurricane's band sneaking across their high desert home. Hurricane is the dun. The white mare, Pablina, shares duties as lead mare with the bay, Floriano. The two mares have been together since the 2008 round up. They were with Lightning first, then Rounder....last fall they took up with this young stallion. We call him Hurricane. Before this he was a bachelor stallion. I remember he used to hang out with his buddy Chrome, harrassing the older stallions.

The bay guy with the big blaze is Cabellero. He is a real momma's boy. He was born in 2010.

Lozania is Pablina's yearling filly. She is the youngest horse in this band. Pablina looks a little lean. I wish we could put some hay out for them and get them used to being in a corral.

Dusty is the odd ball here. She is a 3 year old filly from Prince's band who joined these guys last fall (2011). She is an easy keeper and looks good. I am glad she does not look pregnant. Sure wish The HSUS had PZP'd our younger horses while they were out here....

It was really nice to see as these horses as I have not seen them for a long time. This place is VAST.

Willie Nelson Band

Willie Nelson, the spectacular blue roan pinto band stallion. This guy was a bachelor stallion until he fought Solaris for his mares late summer of 2011. Solaris put up quite the battle, but Willie has proven he is dominent.

This is a full brother and sister, Flare (2010 roan filly) and Satin(chestnut yearling colt). Their mom is not shown. She is Willie's grey mare.

 Their sire is most likely the sire, Solaris(bay). Solaris still tags this band. I did not get a photo, but he is hanging back with his grey buddy, Aragon.

There is another youngster in this band, Fancy (yearling bay filly out of Sedona). This band has not had a foal in 2012.

The three bays up front are a mom and her two daughters. The mom is Sedona, she has her 3 yr old filly, Mesa and that 2011 filly I mentioned, Fancy. I have them in the face book albums, but kinda relying on the HSUS for their markings.



Here is the handsome Aragon who has been dogging Willie along with with Solaris. He has not had a mare since the 2008 round up, but you can see he is an older stallion. Some studs are just more submissive. Here he is giving the bird a ride while he is cleaned of ticks.

Frosty, the grey mare, was hanging back, she looked a little thin. This ios one of the worst drought's Northwest Colorado has ever seen.

 Willie has been traveling with Ohitika's band this summer. These horses have an amazing, complex, social structure and it is up to us to make sure it stays some what intact if they are to be "gathered" next September.. The mustangs' survival depends on their ties and bonds with one another. It would be cruel to split up the bands knowing what we know about this herd of Colorado horses.

Cody's Band

I caught a quick glimpse of Cody and band down by Lake Draw water hole. Cody is the big roan in the back.. All of these horses looked in fine shape. Cody has two mature mares (Hope and Cosima), a 2 year old filly (Rosie) and a 2012 filly, Question....

He also has this little 2 year old buckskin out of Tashunka and Kangee, Chikala. Chikala was heavy in foal about a week ago, but I notice right away she has lost it. Maybe that is a good thing. She is so young. Anyway she looks healthy and was just enjoying a rest on this late summer's day.

That's Little Mike crashed out...his band is leaving and he still sleeps! One of Cody's mare's, Hope, has a sniff. He still does not stir!

The mustang huddle. Here you can see the only foal in this band. Her stripe looks like a wrench!

She is a strong, sturdy little filly and leads her band away to find something to eat. It is always a pleasure to see Cody's band.

Beau's Band (sickly foal)

I was excited to see Beau's band. I had heard Tia had a little colt and I knew this bay mare, Mia (Tia's mom) was due to foal.
Mia was acting strangely. She seemed agitated and was circling and stomping a bit. We could tell there was a foal on the ground. It seemed a long time before the band stallion, Beau, nudged him up.
 

A little tiny foal pops up! It has the family star/snip and is, oh, so tiny. Soon we could see something wasn't right about him/her. The foals head was down and seemed thin.

He would come close to his dam, but we never saw him nurse. She would just move on. I know Mia had lost a foal in 2010, but she did successfully raise Tia, her 2009 filly. I don't know if she was given PZP. The HSUS will not release that information until their study ends.

Tia's healthy colt we call Rio was wanting to play, but the bay guy had no interest.

Rio...this is Tia's robust 2012 colt who was born a few days before the bay.

Here you can see he is thin and just not right.

We leave them in peace, but this was quite upsetting for us to see. We know the foal will most likely not make it. Only the strong survive out here. It is a fine line about when to help them, but I feel here it is best to let nature take its course.

Two days later I return to The Range and see Beaus Band...the little bay foal is gone and the small family band seems to be mourning. So far we have had five 2012 foals perish (that we know about). I am sure this is not unusual.

JimmyDarkSand/Chief Band

This unique band has two bay band stallions, three lovely grey mares a dogging dun and some good looking youngsters. Here you see Jimmy leading the mares. Chief is out of sight but claims the lighter greys, Vermillion and Darcy. Jimmy has the dark, dappled grey, Barbie.

The foal in the middle is Jane. She has really shed out dark. Her newborn fuzz was a tawny color, but no mistaking her distinctive horizontal star. The goofy yellow yearling is Dreamer, he is Jane's full brother out of Darcy and Chief. The HSUS will not tell me which mares they darted with PZP in 2010, but I would suspect these mares got some of the contaceptive.

Actually, the star is a small slit of a moon. She is sturdy and has a good family band to look after her in this brutal environment. Temperatures could go below 40 degrees below 0 in the winter.

Jimmy with the grey mares ...L to R  Barbie, Darcy and Vermillion. Vermillion has a colt that was born late (Nov) of 201, Kanoa. I did not get any good photos of him, but he is a beautiful guy, kinda grulla with a nice conformation. He was hanging out with the satellite stallion, Roper. You can see him in the facebook albums.

Jimmy claims this mare, Barbie, and she seems to adore him.

Vermillion"s three year old filly, Spook.

Roper, the cocky little dun who has been dogging this band for over 2 years. To me he is the essence of a wild horse.

Cosmo's Band

On this day we get lucky and see Cosmo's band at the Lake first thing. Cosmo has bachelors dogging him all summer and the boys look a little run down.

The bachelors all seem to be after the grey three year old filly, Juniper. Kiowa had her at one point last summer and will not accept the fact that she wants to be with her family band. That's Hoot in the middle, Kiowa on the right. Cosmo does not have a lot of fight left in him and seems to allow these stallions to mingle with his band.

That's Tulip...I wanted to show you the nice wind knot that she has grown. She is the dam to the only youngster in the band, Milagro. He is also the only colt. He is a 2011 foal.

There is the little guy, Milagro, on the right. The big grulla is Grace and the grey on the left is her gorgeous 2010 filly, Heidi.

Heidi

Milagro

As you can see the horses are not as fat and plump as they should be this year. The forage is scarce, especially on the southern end of the HMA where Cosmo resides. The sheep were in all last winter and then we never got any rain (or very little) this summer. This is the worst drought year in Northwest Colorado history. In my opinion we should be feeding them and getting them used to bait trapping, but The BLM still is saying they will do a helicopter round up because of cost. There are many people who feel this is inhumane and will fight to see that our wild horses are treated with respect.

Outlaw looked especially thin and a little droopy. It is hard to see. It would not be that hard to drop them some hay. It would be cheaper then rounding them all up and feeding them in pens. Anyway as we drove on further we did not see many skinny horses. Cosmo has been run down all summer due to the dogging bachelors. At least things seem to be calming down. Cosmo's mares are so loyal to him. It is an amazing thing to see!

Beau's Band

The white/grey stallion we call Beau was hanging out today with his beautiful family. His mares are heavy with foal.

Beau is a proud Sand Wash Basin mustang stallion.

The bay, Mia, is the mom to the blacks. We find out the yearling is a little stud colt. We had him ID'd as a filly (Kitty), but it was clear today he is a boy. We put the name Kia on him. The names are for us humans to keep track of them. The other black is Tia, Mia's 2009 filly. Last year they were all with Renegade, so the foals will not be Beau's. I have seen time and time again the wild horses do not inbreed.

Kia

Mia ready to pop any day now!

Beau