Feed!

[samanthaoverton]

I buy 50 lb bags of Kalmbach 20% Flock Raiser for about $23. Yes, it has gone up; I think it was about $19 last winter. It's a small, family owned business, and I'm happy to shop there. I can make it "on my way" so I'm not making a special trip. With gas prices what they are, I don't go anywhere for just one thing unless it's an emergency.

I "supplement" my chickens' food with buckets of weeds from the garden and kitchen scraps. They enjoy scratching through the weeds, so it's as much for their entertainment as for the food value. In another month, I'll be feeding them all the Japanese Beetles I can catch. There's some free protein!

Those the pretty green ones? Do you have so many? How does your garden compete with them? I know a lot of questions

 

[samanthaoverton]

Whoah. You have goats or something? I live in an area with gobs of hay fields.. but I of course need straw. 6 bucks for a square bale of straw..sorry your hay has gone up so much.

My advice is to just be glad you aren't buying hay right now!

Here on city water we call the cold spigot the "hot water" in the summer as it often comes out 100+ degrees At first anyway.

A lot of neat tips in this thread. One I haven't heard yet is to choose breeds known to be good foragers.

My other tip is to look at the hay prices, and suddenly feel lucky! Hay is up $7+ a bale for me. Ouch!

 

[Kiki]

15 hens 1 rooster. As pets and eggs, which I give away

How much of a price difference is the 50 bag of feed costing you?
In my area, over the last year, a 50 lb bag has maybe gone up $2.

 

[samanthaoverton]

We have the borer Beatles here too. I'm surrounded by woods and there are quite a few standing dead ash. Hubby burns the standing dead. It really is sad. We bring insects and plants from foreign countries and it destroys the local flora and fauna. I think the colleges have some sorta testing about them they are doing here. Like kudzu! That stuff is evil. Brought over from Japan for erosion. They let people have goats in Knoxville to get rid of it..and you will see a goat on a commercial tract of land. And now they have a pesticide that kills it..what holy hell will that unleash I wonder. I've seen a whole hill that was dead because of the stuff..If it's gonna kill kudzu what will it do to us. The book silent spring opened my eyes and I'm only a hundred pages in. It's only around 300 pgs and I started it a few months ago (still haven't finished and I'm a fast reader) but talk about shocking..ok I rambled off..lol.

I just looked up Emerald Ash Borer for a picture. They aren't as pretty as I thought! There is a MUCH prettier blue-green bug called a tiger beetle, and they are beneficial!

Emerald Ash Borer
View attachment 3139861

Tiger Beetle
View attachment 3139863

And that is today's lesson in entomology.

 

[Brooks_]

How much of a price difference is the 50 bag of feed costing you?

$8.

 

[JessicaRay]

I have a family feed store that sells to me cheaper than the local mill the feed comes from.

Prices ARE up. I paid $12.55/50# for layer, and $16.10/50# for a 24% protein game bird mix on 05/30/22. When I started keeping birds 26 months ago, the layer was around $9.70, and the game bird somewhere in the $11.85 range.

Shop around. If your flock is big enough that it won't go bad, see if theres a 500# discount or a cash discount.

Wow where do you live? That is so cheap. I pay $22. For a 50pound bag of layer pellets. About $25. For chick starter and game bird food. I’m in western Washington.

 

[Weeg]

I pay 32$ a bag for Organic Scratch and Peck at my local feed store. Not to bad. The prices just about skyrocketed in only a week!! It was priced at 47$ a bag! Up about 12$!!
Found an Organic feed at TSC for 30$ a bag, going to have to switch brands.

 

[DatCampG]

I'm not going to complain about the fifty pound bag prices. I play I pay is the way I look at it. However, it is disturbing when the feed store is out of laying pellets or crumbles.

 

[Chickengirl209]

I usually get mine at rural king. We don’t have a co op near here that I know of… TSC is about 3-4 dollars per bag more expensive than rural king, and in the long run it makes a big difference. I bought 3 mo of feed last month… I figure prices will just keep going up.

 

[TXChookstead]

KeeKee, fellow Texan, what brand of feed do you use? I'm eyeing Texas Natural right now. Been feeding Scratch and Peck and Nature's Best, which is getting to be too much $ for the amount of birds we now have (chicken math....).