Meet Mike and Nina Archer | Founder of Freedom Acres Mustang Sanctuary

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mike and Nina Archer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mike and Nina, what habits do you feel play an important role in your life?
In life my husband and I both have always been adventurous growing up which is what brought us together. loving and meeting New challenges has always been something that we have enjoyed and seemed to accomplish well together. When starting a new business from scratch that is always a new challenge with unknown outcomes. Starting a wild mustang sanctuary was definitely a Different challenge with many unknown obstacles we had to met when we created the Sanctuary together..

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Our sanctuary was first inspired by two drafts that we rescued from abuse and rehabilitated that opened up the idea to rescuing more. When we heard about all of the Wild Mustang round ups and How their freedom was taken away we decided to make a leap and rescue an entire herd of old, injured and neglected mustangs including 4 that were pregnant from possibly being loaded into a slaughter truck. What sets us apart is we rescued an entire herd not just one or two and have helped the forest service log beetle kill trees that we cut into fence posts and installed over 1,000 ourselves and built them a natural environment to live out their lives peacefully and have no plans to break them or train them unless they choose to interact with us. It has been exciting because a lot of them have chosen to interact with us and allowed us to love on them. We have learned so much from them and enjoyed watching the babies grow. It was definitely not an easy venture but together with perseverance and determination we overcame a lot of challenges and will need to continue to meet challenges in order for the sanctuary to continue to be successful. There are over 60,000 wild mustangs in holding facilities that have lost their freedom that need homes that can offer you a lifetime of Love and commitment and give you a sense of peace and healing that cannot be explained.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well I would say that taking them to our wild mustang sanctuary and seeing wild mustangs roaming and be able to actually pet some of them would be a pretty incredible first stop the first day with the barbecue dinner on the property that night. A Trip to the Rocky Mountains that is a must see in Colorado. Depending on the season a picnic at Endo Valley then right on up to fall River Road to the very top to the highest store in United States. Possibly coming down and camping at Moraine Park with a campfire and a barbecue. A couple of days in Rocky Mountain national Park and hiking the trails around Bear lake up to Emerald lake with lunch or dinner at a small family owned restaurant Molly B‘s in Estes rounding out the day with a caramel apple.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Well my husband will be the first one that I would like to say thank you too he’s been the best partner in all of this and I would not be able to have done it without him. But running a successful animal sanctuary is definitely a team effort from a lot of family, friends, donors and foundations. But other than my husband if I had to just pick one it would be Kisa Kavass designs who has volunteered her time and has taken beautiful portraits of our mustangs for us to share on the social media platforms.