BEND (AP) - High prices and scarce supply for hay this season are leading to abandoned horses, according to animal-welfare groups.

“This is the first year where people are literally just opening the gate and kicking them (the horses) out,” said Chuck Fisher, ranch manager at Equine Outreach in Bend, which rescues and rehabilitates horses and puts them up for adoption.

Just last week, he said, he'd gotten a call about taking in three tame horses found starving in Ochoco National Forest.

A year ago, he bought hay for $125 per ton. This year, he is paying $200, Fisher told The Bulletin newspaper in Bend.

“Hay, if you can find it, is very high right now,” said Rodger Huffman, program manager of livestock identification at the Oregon Department of Agriculture. “That situation is statewide.”

Tony Aceti, owner of Hay Depot in Bend, said he is selling his premium hay for $200 per ton, and oats-and-alfalfa hay for $140.

“There's people that just can't afford it,” he said. “It's sad.”

Huffman said that cattle are being auctioned off in record numbers this year as a result of hay costs. Hay shortages last winter prompted many ranchers to hoard as much as they could buy and store this summer, which resulted in the large price jump, he said.

Fisher said that between the high cost of feed, fuel and fertilizer, horse owners feel they are just “out of options.”

Aceti said that until recently, it was easy to find local farmers who grew hay and sold it cheaply from their property. But then developers bought up the farmland and built subdivisions, reducing the local hay supply considerably.

He said he can usually count on having sold 20 percent of his inventory by the start of December. But this year, he said, 80 percent of what he bought over the summer is already gone.

Lynn Ouchida, community outreach director for the Humane Society of Central Oregon, said where the farms and ranches once were, ranchettes have sprung up to take their place, many of them bought by people who always dreamed of owning a horse.

Some of them “just don't know what they're getting in to,” Ouchida said. “You can buy an inexpensive horse around here, but it's the maintenance that really costs.”

Fisher said that hay and supplements can run a horse owner at least $60 per month, depending on how large and how active the animal is.

Abandonment of a horse is a misdemeanor, with a maximum fine of $2,500, according to the Deschutes County sheriff's office.