Area couple walking fine line with feeding local horses

In May, over the objections of sympathetic residents the Sandoval County Commission passed two rules on feeding what they're calling free-roaming horses. The general public is banned from feeding but non-profits may apply for permits in coordination with the county. The horses we've seen from I-25 near Placitas are scraggly with little forage in that drought-besieged part of the county.

Our place is in Santa Fe County but eleven horses including a pregnant mare adopted us so we buy hay then feed them nearly every day and two colts have been born since they showed up about a year ago. They are free to roam and often pass into bordering Sandoval County in their travels. If we don't feed them they eat the trees, knock over bird baths and tromp through flower beds annoying Our Lady of the Arroyo to her wits' end. 

We have the means, two water sources and a corral with a gate so they've become quite tame and follow their hosts into the enclosure to eat. The fence is down on both ends of the property so when they've had their fill they go wherever they want browsing the cured grasses on several thousand acres of private property and Kewa Pueblo (where they compete for meager pasture with cattle owned by tribal members) in our part of wildfire-prone Santa Fe County.

We haven't seen the hugely pregnant mare for several days but no doubt she'll rejoin the herd as soon as her foal is able.

New Mexico is a fence-out state and domestic horses are considered livestock while wild and feral mustangs are not but those deemed estray is a gray zone. Headquarters has about fifteen acres fenced with horse-safe wire but neither of our properties is fully enclosed. Putting the fence back up, locking them in then feeding full time would be crazy and cruel.

The feeding ban is scheduled to begin September 1 and a meeting to discuss who gets permits is set for August 1 in Placitas.