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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] High price of hay hits horse industry
  • Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:48:25 -0600


Sunday, Jul. 13, 2008
High price of hay hits horse industry
By Mary Hopkin, Herald staff writer
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/238061.html

Skyrocketing hay and grain prices, coupled with a struggling economy that's
forcing people to dig deeper into their pockets, are taking a toll on the
horse industry.

More horses are ending up in sale rings, where they often are purchased to be
sold to slaughterhouses in Canada or Mexico. Some people are giving horses
away, just to make sure they get a good home. And some are turning them loose
on public lands or abandoning them at sale yards.

"What was an affordable hobby is no longer is hobby for a lot of people,"
said Dean Jolley, a Kennewick farrier. "I've been in the horse business for
20 years and never seen it like this. I heard one large thoroughbred breeder
had 20 head euthanized."

It's affecting everyone, from the backyard horse owner to breeders and
trainers who depend on the animals for their income, he said.

More than 27,200 horses have been shipped to Mexico for slaughter this year,
10,000 more than at this time last year, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. No numbers are available for Washington.

And although there's no way to know how many horses are being sold or
abandoned by owners who no longer can afford them, many folks within the
horse industry fear it will get worse.

Laurie Tufford, president of the Franklin County Saddle Club, gave away a
3-year-old quarter horse buckskin gelding last week. It was a horse she
bought as a pasture pal for her pregnant mare.

But after spending more than $1,000 to put 45 days of professional training
on him, she still couldn't sell the horse.

"I listed him for six months and had no takers," she said. "And he was a
really nice little horse."

Jeff Wiersma, president of the Toppenish Livestock Commission, said more
horses are showing up at the horse sale each Saturday. And many are low-
quality horses that don't sell.

"Some we can't even get a bid on," he said. "We've gone from getting two to
five a week to 20-25, and 10 to 20 percent of those leave with no bid."

In addition, loose horses found in Yakima County often are taken to the
Toppenish Livestock Commission, which keeps them impounded for 11 days under
state law.

If the owner is found, he or she must pay for the upkeep of the animal. If
not, the horse is sold at auction and the proceeds are used to pay the bill
-- if it brings in enough, said Leslie Alexander, a brand inspector for the
Washington State Department of Agriculture.

So-called "kill" buyers, who buy horses and truck them to slaughterhouses,
will take many, but even that market has changed, he added.

When the U.S. banned horse slaughter for human consumption last year, closing
down three American plants, horses had to be hauled to Canada or Mexico. With
skyrocketing diesel prices, that has become far more expensive.

"When the other plants were open, you could still get $150 for a pretty rough
horse," Wiersma said.

More horses in the livestock rings means more work for Shawna Byington of
Kennewick, who tries to save as many horses as she can from being loaded onto
those trucks.

Byington and a friend, Hillarie Singer, started Save our Slaughterbound
Equines, a Kennewick-based horse rescue early this year. Byington's corrals
are constantly filled. For each horse adopted out, there's several that could
take its place. And buying them, feeding and placing them isn't cheap or easy.

"It's easier to get donations than to find adopters," said Byington.

This week, she has 32 rescue horses on her ranch -- 26 of them still need
homes. There are retired rodeo horses and a few senior horses with deep
swaybacks who approach cautiously and curiously. And in a big corral are more
than a dozen colorful, but thin, small young horses rescued from a feedlot.

"A few of these I was able to look up and found out they had been seized from
a place in Idaho, where they were being abused -- then they end up in a
feedlot less than a year later," she said. "How does that happen?"

Byington also said more and more often, she's seeing good horses bound for
slaughter -- like Cappucino Kid, a racing thoroughbred she discovered at an
auction in March.

The 10-year-old gelding had earned nearly $250,000 in his career, which
included 10 wins, seven second-place and eight third-place finishes out of 44
starts on West Coast tracks that included Golden Gate Fields, Hollywood Park
and Bay Meadows.

In March 2007, he was claimed for $10,000 at Bay Meadows and his last start
was in July 2007 at Grants Pass Downs.

After finding him, Byington adopted the horse out to a racing fan in Maine
for $425. Cappucino Kid later was passed on to an organization called Old
Friends, a thoroughbred retirement facility in Georgetown, Ky.

Lucky, a leggy, curious, 7-week-old sorrel colt, is another of Byington's
success stories. The colt was just five days old when his dam was bought by a
kill buyer.

"He never would have even survived the trip in the trailer -- he would have
been crushed," Byington said.

Now Lucky's small, soft muzzle curiously greets visitors to Byington's
Kennewick horse farm. He even has gone to show-and-tell with her young son.

"Historically, if a horse is in the canner pen, there's been a reason for
it," said Byington. "But that's not the case in today's market at all.
There's just a lot of horses out there that people just can't afford to feed."

Alfalfa acreage has dropped by 11 percent nationwide since 2003 -- and by
about 13 percent in Washington, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.

And much of the hay being grown here is being sent to Asia. Hay supplies were
tight last year in the Mid-Columbia, and this year doesn't look any better. A
cool spring slowed growth, then much of the first cutting got rained on.

Overall, one whole cutting will likely be lost, said Chep Gauntt, a Pasco hay
farmer. And prices are already higher than last year, said Tufford.

"Last year, two tons cost me $320," she said. "I just bought two more tons
for $414."

Stacee Connelly, another Kennewick horse owner, also is feeling the pinch.

"Hay is a huge concern for me -- I only have about 21/2 tons and I'm going to
need about seven," she said.

On top of that, higher gas prices affect the price of shipping horses or
going to shows.

Tufford said participation at the Franklin County Saddle Club's Springtime
Open Horse Show in May was down 20 percent.

"Last year we had 102 entries -- this year there were 78," she said. "I think
people are being more picky about the shows they go to."

Even the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse & Burro Adoption Program is
suffering from the trickle-down effect of the soft horse market.

Adoptions in Washington this year are down by 50 percent, said Rick McComas,
who heads the Spokane office for BLM's Wild Horse & Burro Program.

Nationwide, adoptions in the program have been falling for several years. But
this is the first year, Washington state has seen a drop, he said.

At a recent mustang adoption in Pasco, 11 of the 32 available found homes.

The BLM has nearly 30,000 captured mustangs in long-term holding and many are
unadoptable because of age. The cost of caring for those animals is more than
$26 million this year -- about three-fourths of the $37 million BLM has to
run the program for the year.

And in a single year, transportation and feed costs for the animals increased
by $4 million, according to BLM documents.

Now the BLM is considering selling some of the unadopted animals to any
willing buyer or euthanizing some of the wild horses and burros.

Last week, a haltered horse was discovered in a fenced area of the Hanford
nuclear reservation just off Highway 240 past the Benton City turnoff. It was
captured after a few days and if the owner isn't found within the 11-day
impound, it will be sold at auction, Alexander said.

Byington said dumping domestic horses in open areas like that often results
in them starving to death.

"They don't know how to take care of themselves," said Byington.

Wiersma said he fears he may see a steady number of unwanted horses ending up
at his sale yard.

"This is just the beginning," he said. "I think in the next five years, it's
just going to double."





  • [Livingontheland] High price of hay hits horse industry, Tradingpost, 07/14/2008

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