As costs soar, value plummets.

Horses left out as fuel prices soar [link]

DEBBIE HALL | July 14, 2008

Some area horses have become victims of soaring fuel prices as their owners try to find ways to cut down on the costs of hay and transportation, according to area horse enthusiasts.

“We’ve got a problem in this area,” Carol Gilbert said. “People are worried about the cost of gas, and it trickles down to the hay.”

A horse enthusiast, Gilbert lives in Martinsville and boards her horses in Horsepasture.

Recently, Gilbert said she adopted a 2-year-old filly to add to her herd because its owner no longer could care for it.

Pat Muncy of the Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue (RVHR) in Hardy, a nonprofit agency that accepts horses from Martinsville and Henry County and other areas, believes fuel costs are to blame.

“The gas prices are affecting everything,” she said, including the price of cutting, raking and baling hay as well as transporting feed.

In 2006, the rescue agency spent $13,000 for hay. Muncy said by 2007, that cost doubled.

“It’s only six months into 2008, and so far this year we’ve spent $28,000” for hay, Muncy said, adding she used to pay $20 each for the round bales but now pays between $55 and $60 each.

The expense of grain also has nearly doubled, from $6 last year to the $11 she recently spent, Muncy said.

Lena Murphy, who works at the Martinsville-Henry County SPCA, recently added a mare and a colt to her group of horses. Both were given to her by someone in North Carolina.

“Several people have been trying to give me horses,” Murphy said. She also attributes the situation to the high cost of fuel “plus the fact that so many people in this area are out of work.”

The SPCA occasionally gets calls from people who no longer can afford to keep horses, but the calls are rare “because most people know we don’t have the facilities to keep horses,” Murphy said.

Adopted horses are the lucky ones. Less lucky are those “being put out in the woods and left to die because people can’t afford to feed them,” Gilbert said.

Muncy said that is not as unlikely as it sounds.

There are 44 horses at the rescue. At least three were added after being abandoned. One was found in the “backwoods” of Botetourt County, and two others were found roaming Jefferson National Forest, Muncy said.

Others may try different methods to get rid of a horse they no longer can feed. For instance, Muncy said she has heard that when horses don’t sell at a livestock auction, some owners may find an empty horse trailer and leave the animal in it before “just driving away.”

Still others may put their unwanted horse in with those in a neighboring pasture, and “you wake up to find an extra horse,” Muncy said.

Either way, more horses are being disposed of, and “we’re getting more and more calls” to help, Muncy said.

The number of horses at the agency has risen, from 30 at this time last year to the current 44, Muncy said.

The RVHR works only with animal control officers because their cases often are the worst. Horses in the Hardy agency are rehabilitated.

“We put weight back on them because most suffer from starvation,” Muncy said. When body weight increases, “we try and adopt them like the SPCA does with dogs and cats.”

The adoption fee for a horse is $300, Muncy said. Adoption fees are kept at or near the going rate a horse would bring at auction, she added.

The agency operates on donations, and so far, no horse has been turned away.

Muncy, Gilbert and Murphy agree the situation is heart-wrenching.

“It’s not that people don’t love or want these horses,” Murphy said. “It’s just that they can’t afford them.”

Dr. Lock Boyce, a Patrick County veterinarian, said he has not heard of any cases of abandoned horses in Patrick County this year.

XP—More evidence that people are resorting to letting their horses loose, a dangerous situation for people and animals.