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.
That stuff is not just bad for just chainsaws, but pretty much all small engines. A family friend owns a lawn care equipment store here he told us that half the weed eaters, mowers, etc brought in need rebuilt due to the gasoline. He says that boat motors are having the same issue.
We have a couple stations here that claim to sell Ethanol free gasoline: They put up big banners and are always very busy.
As to the feed prices, I've heard from friends on a couple of Facebook poultry pages that their prices jumped by about the same amounts where they are located (TN, and PA). I really wish their was a local grain mill closer: They are usually a bit more reasonable since you are cutting out the middle man.
I don't imagine their will be any source of truly affordable feed the rest of the year though. The lady that runs the feed store where I buy most of my feed is worried. She's had people tell her if prices get too high, they'll just sell or cull their animals, which would cut her business way down.
Sadly, this year I lost most of my grain sorghum, millet, and sunflower crops to the persistent rain and severe thunderstorms. Last summer we couldn't get a drop of rain to save our lives and this year I am getting 10 inches a week. So, that leaves me without enough supplements, other than winter squash, pumpkins, and meal worms to help cut the feed bill.
We are going to disc one of the pastures our waterfowl use and plant it with chufa: I hear they love the stuff. I am also going to plant winter wheat and oats this fall: Anything to help cut the feed bill. We can grow annual rye grass here all winter, so the geese will still have pasture.
I know a couple local fellas that have been growing tons of southern peas, boiling them, mashing them, drying the mash, crumbling it, and cutting his feed with that.
I have also read that duck weed is very nutritious and very easy to grow, so we are going to give that a shot too. I mean geesh, it doubles itself every 16 hours and all I need is water from the duck pond and some 55 gallon barrels, which I have. The stuff grows in roadside ditches here, but I am going to buy my seed plants from an aquatic supply store online: Duckweed absorbs pollutants from water, so I want aquarium grown stuff I know isn't toxic to start with. I read a paper in which they used it to feed livestock and it worked very well. It is high in protein, so I bet would be good for gamebirds.
