Tina Pondy knows all too well how the ever-increasing price of hay is affecting horses and their owners.

"A lot of people, they can't afford it, and so the horses are starving," said the owner of Dogwood Trails Equestrian Center in Appling.

Ms. Pondy keeps the horses at her center well fed, but she's had to raise her boarding fee from $175 to $250 to keep up with the extra hay, grain and freight costs.

She said the cost of round bale hay, which feeds about one horse for a month, has increased from about $40-$45 two years ago to $70-$80 today.

The problem last year was a dwindled supply of Coastal Bermuda hay in the midst of a bad drought, according to industry insiders.

But this year's problem isn't supply; it's rising fuel and fertilizer expenses for farmers.

"If it keeps raining, we'll have the product but the price will increase," said Lee Anderson, a Columbia County hay farmer and former county commissioner running for Georgia's District 117 House seat. "Most of us (hay farmers), in the first three months, we've spent as much on fuel as what we used to spend for the whole year."

Mr. Anderson said his fertilizer costs have increased from $350 a ton last year to $500 a ton this year.

In some cases last year, Mr. Anderson said, people were having to sell their cattle and horses because of the high cost of feeding them.

In November, Mr. Anderson estimated he might run out of his Coastal Bermuda supply for livestock owners by early this year. Now, he said, he expects to run out by the end of this month or the start of May.

"We've been fortunate. We've still got a little bit left," he said of the Bermuda, which is the main type of hay grown locally, with its season typically beginning in the summer.

For the first time, Mr. Anderson has seeded his fields with a different type of hay -- oats -- as a backup until the next Bermuda crop gets going. He said the oats are looking good so far.

"We'll start cutting them in about a week," he said. "I'm hoping these oats will hold me over until my (next crop of) Bermuda puts out in June."

He said the next couple months of rainfall should help determine how good his and others' Bermuda crop will be this summer.

"We'll probably have a decent crop, but it'll still be expensive," he said.