Feeding horses is expensive. Ask anyone who owns one.

That includes the federal Bureau of Land Management, which is paying to feed tens of thousands of wild horses in pens across the country. The federal agency cited the expense as the reason it did not renew its contract with the Colorado Department of Corrections to care for and train wild horses and burros at a state prison complex in Cañon City.

The program, which has existed for 30 years and employed incarcerated men as stablehands and trainers, will end Nov. 30.

The BLM’s five-year contract with the state prisons department totaled $23 million, according to a copy of the contract provided to The Colorado Sun. That was up to $4.6 million per year or about $4.45 per horse, per day, from 2020 to 2025.

The contract was set to expire

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