And So The Feed Price Increase Begins.....

Certainly.  As you know, grain prices are traded on the commodity exchanges daily.  The price your feed mill pays had likely already jumped a month ago.  A rising tide lifts all boats, so all grains will rise as producers buy up alternatives such as oats, wheat, barley, milo, etc.  

Of course, shipping, fuel, handling, packaging, labor all figure into the cost, not just the grain costs. 

Feeding only productive and essential birds and culling by selling or butchering, is always part of our autumnal flock agenda.  Perhaps this has accelerated a bit this year.

Chicken food prices were very high for months here in SA. It came down by about 20%, as it usually does when the grain crops come in, but after about 3 weeks instead of dropping more, like it usually does, it shot back up by 20%  And they say it's going to get worse...

yup, went to my feed store today and my bag of layer pellet had jumped from $13.50 two weeks ago to $15.00....

John

Purina Flock Raiser went up a dollar since last week. Up to $17.99 now. Yikes!

Yeah you can expect prices to go even higher, Extreme drought conditions have almost crippled the corn industry. This means higher gas prices(corn is used to make ethanol required in gasoline and diesel). Also if you live on the west coast then you should be aware that a few days ago a major oil refinery burnded down. Gas prices on the west coast are likely to exceed $4 per gallon with no reduction in that price in possibly the next 2-3 years. That refinery produced 16% of the gasoline/diesel the US uses. This results in an overall cost in commodities. Sadly chick starter and the like are corn based, so things like alfalfa, wheat, ect might end up being your cheaper foods.
 

  OH and Purina Chick start went up $3 here in Graham WA.

Gee, and if they'd quit with the stupid ethanol in gasoline that gunks up the engines, maybe we could concentrate on keeping the corn for feed/food. Just bought a cadillac of chainsaws for our land clearing and we searched all over for ethanol-free gas for it. Was that ever hard to find! But, putting ethanol (high fructose gasoline, as my DH calls it) in that new chainsaw is the worst thing for it.
 

Sure the drought is hurting a lot of grain farmers. Ranchers and everyone else are culling or reducing their herd and flocks but what I can't understand this big disconnect we have.

the disconnect is that grain farmers planted the most amount of land in like 80 years some 90 million acres (what I was told) and that because of breeding program, the corn and soybeans are super plant capable of withstanding most drought. So even with this severe drought and heat we are having, they are expecting to have 8th LARGEST harvest ever. Thanks to the scare media, my feed price is gonna go through the roof in few month. It's like do I cull my flock now and stock up on feed and hope it doesn't go moldy... Do I stock up on my meat into the deep freezer so that I can afford meat come next spring/summer?

This is such a crock but I can't do a darn thing about it.  I think its not too late to plant buckwheat. I've been thinking about it. It's a real good feed and you can eat it too. Then plant some winter wheat.

In Maine ours have already gone up close to $2 a bag for some grain Items. Thank God my horse doesnt need much for grain.  Need to cut back on chickens though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sumi 

Chicken food prices were very high for months here in SA. 

Where?