BEND, Ore. — Tiffany Ostrander made one of the most difficult phone calls of her life to a horse rescue organization, asking if it might have room for her beloved 8-year-old quarterhorse, Montana, or her 13-year-old pony, Trudy.
The 37-year-old Bend woman doesn’t want to give up her animals, but with hay selling for more than $200 per ton, fuel and living expenses on the rise and her husband out of work, she said she’s run out of options.
And according to local horse organizations and law enforcement officials, she’s not alone.
Around Central Oregon, where hay is selling for higher and higher prices in an otherwise sluggish economy, more people are trying to sell their horses or give them away to rescue organizations and animal shelters. With so many horses coming in to the few local facilities equipped to handle large animals, some say the situation is reaching a crisis point.
Diane Davis, the owner of Hooves and Halos Animal Rescue in Redmond, said when she opened five years ago, she’d get a call or two a week from people who could no longer afford to care for their horses. Now, those calls are a daily occurrence.
“I hear two, three times a day from people saying they can’t afford them, they can’t afford them, they can’t afford them,” she said. “I get calls and e-mails, and there are horses up (for sale) on Craigslist. And they’re not just all broken down, old horses — they’re just horses they really can’t afford because the price of hay is already up to $230 a ton, and it’s really scary.”
Hay prices began to rise more than a year ago, along with prices for other crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, said Mylen Bohle, an Oregon State University Extension agronomist. And after a particularly cold, rainy spring, Bohle said, this year’s hay crop is behind schedule and smaller than in years past, which has pushed prices even higher.
Premium orchard grass hay in central Oregon sold for about $175 last year, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report.
For many, the higher cost of the 3 to 6 tons of hay required to feed a horse each year is simply too much, said Joan Steelhammer, the president and founder of Equine Outreach, a Bend nonprofit horse rescue group. Steelhammer said she’s currently caring for more than 70 horses — more than the 35 she initially set as her maximum capacity.
Like Davis, Steelhammer said she’s been getting more calls from people looking to offload their horses and has to turn most of them away.
“It’s horrific in that these are just gut-wrenching stories, and with the economy the way it is, it’s not just hay; it’s everything,” she said. “I had a woman show up in tears with a 29-year-old pony that she’d had all of her life, but she was on Social Security, and she and her husband couldn’t afford to feed (the pony.)”
All of Steelhammer’s horses, however, do not come from people who can’t afford to pay for their care. Equine Outreach and other local nonprofit rescue agencies get some of their animals after they’ve been seized from owners or from owners who voluntarily turn over their horses for other reasons. The groups adopt out the animals after they’ve been rescued.
Local law enforcement officials said they frequently get calls about possible animal neglect, though many cases turn out to be unfounded.
“I don’t have exact numbers, but I can tell you that we’ve seen an increase in livestock-related issues like that,” said Crook County Undersheriff Jim Hensley. “We get at least one a week where we go out and check on the animals.”
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