Agriculture experts say the price for hay is going up, thanks to a bad crop in 2007 and the increasing cost of transportation.

That increase in cost is directly affecting the Trinity Equestrian Center in Eau Claire. The non-profit feeds dozens of hungry horses each and every day, making the high price even harder to swallow.

"It is at a point where you are paying just an incredible amount for hay,” said Program Director, Toni Mattson. "Part of it is because the hay season last year, the hay crop didn't really come in very well anyway and the weather just had such an impact on it."

Mattson says it now takes twice as much to feed her horses, tightening the reins for the struggling non-profit.

"What we paid last year, maybe a $1.90 for, even coming into this year. We're now paying well over $4 a bale,” she said. “We feed out about 16,000 bales a year. And if the hay price goes up $1 a bale, that's an additional $16,000 that we have to come up with. It's gone up $2 a bale. So, we're looking at $32,000 that we have to make up."

Mattson says the recent price hike also has the center getting creative. "What we've actually looked at doing and we're in pursuit of is trying to find hay land that we can hay."

And praying for help. "If we just sit here and we don't do anything and we're not proactive about this, this could be devastating to us,” Mattson said.

If Trinity does purchase some hay fields, Mattson says a local farmer has already offered to help harvest the crops. But, she says the center is also looking for people who could donate hay bales, or sell them at a reasonable price. And, as always, she says monetary donations are welcome.