Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Beekissed]

From what I can see, most of the feeds are around $15-$16 per 50 lbs, minus sales tax. As Fred stated, your local feed mill is going to give you great nutritional feed mixes but they will be light years fresher....and they will cost you around $18-$22 per 100 lbs...and that's after taxes are added.

Do you all try to find out if there is a local feed store near you or do you just go to TSC because you don't care to look for one? Many of you say you live in the country and I have yet to find a rural area that doesn't have a local co-op or feed store where all the big guys go to get their feed.

Just curious....

 

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

From what I can see, most of the feeds are around $15-$16 per 50 lbs, minus sales tax. As Fred stated, your local feed mill is going to give you great nutritional feed mixes but they will be light years fresher....and they will cost you around $18-$22 per 100 lbs...and that's after taxes are added.

Do you all try to find out if there is a local feed store near you or do you just go to TSC because you don't care to look for one? Many of you say you live in the country and I have yet to find a rural area that doesn't have a local co-op or feed store where all the big guys go to get their feed.

Just curious....

We have a feed store, but it's 40 minutes down the road in the middle of nowhere. TSC is about 25 minutes away in the other direction and is definitely in a more convenient setting since every other store we need to visit is right there.

 

[Beekissed]

I see. Have you ever seen fresh milled feed? I bet if you did, you'd make the trip!

I guess it's different for me....where I live everything..and I mean everything, is 45 min. to an hour away from home, so 40 min. is nothing to me. I can go and buy a 100 lbs of feed and not have to make the trip again for another month and half.

Also, for me, going to a bona-fide local feed store is an experience like no other....it has no shiny, gleaming floors or neatly shelved items. It's grungy and smells like feed, dust and old farms..a pleasant mix of manure, animal, and moldy old men. Some of the merchandise/hardware has a layer of feed dust~ or just plain ol' dust~ so thick that you have to wipe it away to read the label or the price. At the point of sale, you don't have some town girl or boy answering your questions and they don't have to "look up" anything...it's all written down on a board behind their heads where you can clearly read the price or the oldster behind the counter shuffles the papers to one side and reads it off the top of the counter where it's taped there...dirty, coffee stained and faded out from too many arms resting upon it.

While you are waiting on the old guy in front of you to stop talking about cattle prices at the stock yard you can read all the colorful flyers, pictures, for sale posters all over the walls and every other surface...some of them for stud horses, cattle dog pups, chickens, and even for tractors. You can buy real equipment for livestock there...not the pet-geared stuff at TSC. You won't find one glossy book for sale in the whole place to tell you how to raise chickens, pigs, horses, goats or cows. The people there expect you to already know how or you wouldn't be buying feed in the first place!

Then, some nice young man hustles your feed out to the truck for you and loads it! I love that part!!!! Remember when bag boys at the grocery store actually loaded the groceries in the vehicle for you? No? I do and it was the best sort of customer service and courtesy....I long for those days and think that too many people forget what true customer service feels like.

Can you hear me sighing as I wax nostalgic for the old feed stores across this land? I LOVE them and you will too if you just try them out. The feed mixed there smells and looks good enough for human consumption and the conversation is good enough too. They know you when you come in and they smile, joke, and ask about those chickens or sheep....you won't find that much at the local TSC. At least, I've never seen the same cashier twice at our TSC and if I did, they sure weren't concerned with MY life or animals.

 

[HappyHenMama]

I see. Have you ever seen fresh milled feed? I bet if you did, you'd make the trip!

I guess it's different for me....where I live everything..and I mean everything, is 45 min. to an hour away from home, so 40 min. is nothing to me. I can go and buy a 100 lbs of feed and not have to make the trip again for another month and half.

Also, for me, going to a bona-fide local feed store is an experience like no other....it has no shiny, gleaming floors or neatly shelved items. It's grungy and smells like feed, dust and old farms..a pleasant mix of manure, animal, and moldy old men. Some of the merchandise/hardware has a layer of feed dust~ or just plain ol' dust~ so thick that you have to wipe it away to read the label or the price. At the point of sale, you don't have some town girl or boy answering your questions and they don't have to "look up" anything...it's all written down on a board behind their heads where you can clearly read the price or the oldster behind the counter shuffles the papers to one side and reads it off the top of the counter where it's taped there...dirty, coffee stained and faded out from too many arms resting upon it.

While you are waiting on the old guy in front of you to stop talking about cattle prices at the stock yard you can read all the colorful flyers, pictures, for sale posters all over the walls and every other surface...some of them for stud horses, cattle dog pups, chickens, and even for tractors. You can buy real equipment for livestock there...not the pet-geared stuff at TSC. You won't find one glossy book for sale in the whole place to tell you how to raise chickens, pigs, horses, goats or cows. The people there expect you to already know how or you wouldn't be buying feed in the first place!

Then, some nice young man hustles your feed out to the truck for you and loads it! I love that part!!!! Remember when bag boys at the grocery store actually loaded the groceries in the vehicle for you? No? I do and it was the best sort of customer service and courtesy....I long for those days and think that too many people forget what true customer service feels like.

Can you hear me sighing as I wax nostalgic for the old feed stores across this land? I LOVE them and you will too if you just try them out. The feed mixed there smells and looks good enough for human consumption and the conversation is good enough too. They know you when you come in and they smile, joke, and ask about those chickens or sheep....you won't find that much at the local TSC. At least, I've never seen the same cashier twice at our TSC and if I did, they sure weren't concerned with MY life or animals.

Oh Bee, your taking me down the trail to the "good ol days". I'm not an OT, but I grew up going to Auction with my Great Uncle to bid on sheep or cattle or to sell what he had raised and then we would make a stop at the ol feed store to pick up feed and supply's. I remember being out on the land with him working the sheep along with our trusty ol sheep dog "Robin". We'd take the truck out to the watering hole and the feeders, check the fencing along the way. I remember the smell of manure and grass and weeds and the air and oh how I took it all for granted not realizing as a youngster that those days would someday be a thing of the past and (well talk about waxing nostalgic).

We have two feed stores out here where I live and I love going there just like you. They are a little more of a drive for me than TSC, but I think the feed is fresher and the people there have their own livestock and so they know a thing or two. There was a time when I longed to go live in the city, and so I did for most of my adult life and now at the age of 50 I find myself back in a country setting with my chickens, my husbands horses and my dogs and I absolutely love it! What I wouldn't give to have my Great Uncle around to give me some pointers on raising livestock, sitting in his old recliner smoking his pipe and falling asleep with his cowboy hat still on. Those were the days.

I'll leave this nostalgic look at the past with saying the biggest impression that was left on me was how my Uncle would wave at everyone we passed while we were on the road and I asked him one day, "Gosh Uncle Lee, you sure do know a lot of people"! He laughed and said "That's just plain ol country courtesy". Wow...what more can I say?

 

[Beekissed]

We call that the two finger howdy!

You know when you are driving and you raise your index and middle finger slightly off the wheel in that subtle country salute to the oncoming driver? I know of which you speak....that whole farm life and all the natural components of it are a dying thing in America. Used to, everyone knew someone or had family that was farming but now it's getting more scarce. Now we have city folk moving out to the country, buying a piece of the old home place and calling it farming when they have a few chickens and 6 tomato plants.

Pretty soon those old feed stores will be like the telephone booth....can't find one now.

 

[stonykill]

I see. Have you ever seen fresh milled feed? I bet if you did, you'd make the trip!

I guess it's different for me....where I live everything..and I mean everything, is 45 min. to an hour away from home, so 40 min. is nothing to me. I can go and buy a 100 lbs of feed and not have to make the trip again for another month and half.

Also, for me, going to a bona-fide local feed store is an experience like no other....it has no shiny, gleaming floors or neatly shelved items. It's grungy and smells like feed, dust and old farms..a pleasant mix of manure, animal, and moldy old men. Some of the merchandise/hardware has a layer of feed dust~ or just plain ol' dust~ so thick that you have to wipe it away to read the label or the price. At the point of sale, you don't have some town girl or boy answering your questions and they don't have to "look up" anything...it's all written down on a board behind their heads where you can clearly read the price or the oldster behind the counter shuffles the papers to one side and reads it off the top of the counter where it's taped there...dirty, coffee stained and faded out from too many arms resting upon it.

While you are waiting on the old guy in front of you to stop talking about cattle prices at the stock yard you can read all the colorful flyers, pictures, for sale posters all over the walls and every other surface...some of them for stud horses, cattle dog pups, chickens, and even for tractors. You can buy real equipment for livestock there...not the pet-geared stuff at TSC. You won't find one glossy book for sale in the whole place to tell you how to raise chickens, pigs, horses, goats or cows. The people there expect you to already know how or you wouldn't be buying feed in the first place!

Then, some nice young man hustles your feed out to the truck for you and loads it! I love that part!!!! Remember when bag boys at the grocery store actually loaded the groceries in the vehicle for you? No? I do and it was the best sort of customer service and courtesy....I long for those days and think that too many people forget what true customer service feels like.

Can you hear me sighing as I wax nostalgic for the old feed stores across this land? I LOVE them and you will too if you just try them out. The feed mixed there smells and looks good enough for human consumption and the conversation is good enough too. They know you when you come in and they smile, joke, and ask about those chickens or sheep....you won't find that much at the local TSC. At least, I've never seen the same cashier twice at our TSC and if I did, they sure weren't concerned with MY life or animals.

that closed around here about 10 years ago. It is just a bag store now. Still better feed, better prices and better service than TSC.

 

[Clay Mudd]

Do you all try to find out if there is a local feed store near you or do you just go to TSC because you don't care to look for one? Many of you say you live in the country and I have yet to find a rural area that doesn't have a local co-op or feed store where all the big guys go to get their feed.

Just curious....

I have, within reasonable driving distance, three feed stores about like you describe. That's not counting the hardware store about within walking distance that sells feed.

Alas, no true feed mill anywhere near, though.

 

[stonykill]

We call that the two finger howdy!

You know when you are driving and you raise your index and middle finger slightly off the wheel in that subtle country salute to the oncoming driver? I know of which you speak....that whole farm life and all the natural components of it are a dying thing in America. Used to, everyone knew someone or had family that was farming but now it's getting more scarce. Now we have city folk moving out to the country, buying a piece of the old home place and calling it farming when they have a few chickens and 6 tomato plants.

Pretty soon those old feed stores will be like the telephone booth....can't find one now.

along with a slight head nod.

citiots.... don't get me started.....

 

[therapydoglady]

You said it Beekissed! An old feed store is my favorite place to shop for feed. And like you, I have to drive 45 minutes in any direction to buy anything...luckily, there is a feed store at any of the locations that are 45 minutes away! My favorite thing is the smell. I always have to take in a deep breath when I walk in. It's good for the soul.

Speaking of "just plain ol country courtesy," HappyHenMama," back in the '70's a man from England that my father had befriended during WWII, came to Texas for a visit. He was so enthralled by everone waving when they met on the highway. He declared Texas as the "friendliest place on earth!"
Out here in West Texas, it is so far between towns, people have always waved, and in the days before cell phones, if you broke down on the side of the road, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone would stop and offer assistance. My how things have changed!

 

[jazzy519]

I have a question for everyone. Should I take my rooster out from my hens till he mature some.He's are chasing my hens so much they wont come out of the hen house?