Owners who can't afford to care for their horses are abandoning them in southern Missouri, hoping the tame horses will join Missouri's only wild horse herd. But it's not that easy.

Bill Smith, of the Missouri Wild Horse League, which keeps an eye on the wild herd, told The Kansas City Star that the wild horses don't mix with the more domesticated animals. Stallions will run off, even rise up and fight the old pets and saddle horses.

Wild horses also have to forage for food, and know how to dig through snow to find grass and acorns in the thousands of public acres along the Current and Jacks Forks rivers.

The league tries to find the orphaned horses. But lately there have been too many.

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