As the economy continues to decline, more and more people are finding themselves unable to care for their horses.

Teresa Paradise, executive director at Live and Let Live Farm in Chichester, a nonprofit rescue center for horses and other animals, said she is receiving a growing number of telephone calls from people who have lost their jobs or are close to losing their homes and can no longer pay to care for their horses.

In several cases, Paradise said she's fielded telephone calls from banking officials who have foreclosed on a home and have arrived to take possession of the property only to find the former homeowner gone but their horses still at the residence.

Julie Lawrence, who co-owns Lakes Region Riding Academy in Gilford, said in recent months she has fielded several dozen phone calls from people asking her to take their horses and use them in her lesson string as they are unable to pay to feed them.

If she had more barn space she said she would happily take the well-trained horses being offered, but said all her stalls are currently full. As grain prices continue to soar, she said, they've recently increased their full boarding costs from $325 to $400 a month and don't have any space left even at that price, she said.

"People are having a hard time buying feed, it's expensive," Commissioner of Agriculture Lorraine Merrill said, adding that on top of high feed costs, horse values have been depressed because of a federal ban on horse slaughter. "It's really a problem. There is no salvage value at the end of the line."

People that have horses with chronic or crippling health problems or uncurbable behavioral issues must now pay to have a horse euthanized and then dispose of the carcass, typically by hiring heavy equipment and burying it. Often those costs are prohibitive.

Congress passed H.R. 503, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, last September. Previously nearly 100,000 American horses were slaughtered annually for foreign palettes.

In the mid-western states the problem is growing, according to Merrill.

Unwanted horses are being left at auction barns, let go in the wild or tied to trees and fences in hopes someone will take them in.

"There is no room at the hotel, so to speak, for many of these horses," said Nat Messer, an equine veterinarian at the University of Missouri in Columbia. "Rescue centers and retirement facilities that usually take in these horses are at capacity."

Messer said his advice to people on controlling the horse population is to euthanize rather than discard, adopt rather than buy, buy rather than breed.

Recently, Paradise recounted she got a telephone call about a couple that was having difficulty feeding their horses and through the New Hampshire Animal Food Bank Paradise went to bring them some hay and grain to tide them over. She arrived to find one horse and a miniature horse in very underweight condition, as the owners had been rationing the pair to just a shared flake of hay morning and night.

Paradise said she was used to paying $3.00 to $3.25 for a bale of hay delivered to the farm for several years. At one point hay hit $7.00 a bale. She has since negotiated a monthly deal where she can buy a tractor-trailer load of hay out of Canada for $5,000.

Meanwhile the cost of "senior" grain they buy to feed their elderly and emaciated horses, a pelleted, easy-to-digest ration, has increased by 50 percent, she said. Similarly the other grain they use has gone up about 35 percent from about $10 a 50-pound bag to $15, she added.

She recounted the farm is now attempting to save a severely emaciated mare whose owner died. The family turned the animal over to a livestock dealer who apparently was not familiar with the care and needs of horses, Paradise recounted.

She said the animal now weighs about 600 to 700 pounds — about half the weight it should — noting its hipbones and ribs are clearly visible even through a shaggy winter coat.

They've dubbed the horse "Judy's Girl," after an ardent volunteer at the farm who recently died of cancer.

"We're hoping Judy's spirit can help bring her around," Paradise said, noting the horses' stomach is so shrunken she can hardly eat a cup of grain before getting full. They are currently feeding her all the hay she can eat.

"I don't know if she's going to make it," she said.

As a result of the economy, Paradise said, some boarding stables are getting stung. People make arrangements to board their horses, don't pay the bill and then abandon them, she explained.

In one instance in Pembroke she said a dairy farmer agreed to allow a horse owner to keep his animals at his barn for $50 a month, as the horse owner said he had no other place to keep them. A short while later the animals were abandoned and Live and Let Live Farm subsequently rescued them.

Merrill said State Veterinarian Dr. Steve Crawford has had one report of a horse being abandoned by its owner at a boarding facility. State law provides for an abandoned animal to be auctioned to recoup costs but in this case, Merrill said, no one wants the animal because it has no value.

"There is no question that, in this economy, caring for a horse or other animal is going to be a challenge for people," she said.

In another case, Paradise said a man and his family who was originally from Australia were forced to leave the country after he lost his job. Here on a green card visa, the family abandoned a house full of furniture and turned two horses over to Paradise before being forced to return to their native country.

While the economy has increased the need for horse rescue, it has also put a damper on donations, Paradise lamented. The farm that has tax-exempt, nonprofit status through the IRS relies on volunteers and donors to operate. They are currently caring for 60 horses, ponies and mules and have had as many as 80 equines at one time, she said.

While they specialize in rescuing horses they also take in other agricultural animals and occasionally even dogs and cats. They currently have 21 dogs and agreed to take an indoor-only cat that promptly delivered six kittens.

Paradise said the stress people feel in dealing with their financial woes rubs off on their horses and in many instances the animals have either not been handled, become withdrawn, or have even been abused by owners who suddenly have short-tempers in the wake of losing their home or job.

She said many people have been hanging on for a year of two and once they finally make the decision to relinquish their horses the animals have lost weight and in many instances have not had their hooves properly cared for.

While it was once easy to get sawdust or shavings to use as bedding material for horses, Paradise said, the price of that has shot up as well as many sawmills and woodworking shops have gone out of business.

In the Concord area it currently costs an average of about $600 a month for full board for a horse, she added.