Is it worth the extra $$

[Cindy in PA]

Many small producers started organic before the big ag companies got into it. I have never bought big ag organic. I can get organic local feed in mash or PA organic or a great organic feed from VT. Most are 50% more. The local mash is less. It's up to you what you feed & you have to know your source. It's up to you what you feed. I have fed conventional, Non GMO & organic. I am not trying to get "organic" eggs, it's just a preference. If you don't want to feed organic, don't, but quit with all the crap about organic.

 

[Ascholten]

I think Organic is just a term to mean they did not use pesticides, or just used natural ones, and no other chemials, so they say. I honestly don't know how it applies to the Chicken / Chicken Feed industries. I deal in coffee, I know how it applies in the Coffee industry and yes, in some aspects they did get way carried away with it and what it takes to be 'certified' organic. Depending on what your end use is, a lot of that is pure hogwash.

For what it's worth, Id strongly suggest supporting your local people if you can. The local feed stores, while NO their stuff may NOT have that actual word 'Organic' on their label, Because they don't want to / or just simply cannot afford to pay the thousands of dollars to the cartels for lack of a better word who control that stuff, for the privilege of putting the big O on the label, probably have stuff that still really IS organic, and just as high quality and may even be better quality, because they are thinking of the chickens more, and not how can they squeeze every teeny penny out of this lot of grain.

Some people see the word organic and will pay whatever they charge, because they see that magic word and think it's the elixir of life. IN other words they bought into a lot of the BS the marketing guys put out there to convince them, that the big O is the only way to go, and why you need to pay double for this, that, and the next thing. I mean they have to do SOME thing to convince you why it's worth the price they are charging right? When you couple that with the fact that people are blindly willing to pay that premium for a magic word, can you blame them for hyping it like they do? One must always remember, these people don't have your health as their number one priority, no matter what BS they put in their advertising, at the end of the day, their number 1 priority is the bottom line on their ledgers.

Is organic Good, Id have to say yes, Is it better, Id have to say it's probably not badder, but whatever side of that coin you are on, you HAVE to remember, you are being fed cherry picked 'data' to drive an agenda. Non Organic, may mean it's simply not 'certified' because the small farmer can't afford 200k of ridiculous equipment you can ONLY buy from this or that place if you want your certification. That small farmer still cares highly for the quality of his goods, in fact possibly even more so, because he's not as penny driven like big corp is.

Research, and don't think that just because something qualifies for a special word to be put in it's label, it's really all that... The cheaper stuff may be just as good. I can fill something full of preservatives and glop, and they are IN - Organic, and still carry the O label. Salt is inorganic. Do you put salt on your eggs at all? Is salt in any of the ingredients you put in your seasonings? If so, then you just violated the 'organic' ivity of your food, and it no longer can be classified organic in some instances because you used inorganic compounds on it.

I am not trying to pick on the people who are into the Organic scene, but just trying to let them know that they are often times being manipulated by marketing, because of their desire to want to live healthy. Living healthy should be EVERYONES top priority, no matter what you believe, but please don't be naive and think that ONLY stuff labeled O is good for you, and if it's not, then it's bad for you.... or your chickens.

I'll stop now on this thread hijack since the OT is about food and prices.

Let's redirect this if possible. Besides for the possible organic component of a products price. is there something else, we need to know, in what drives the price .vs. quality

Again, not trying to pick on people, and apologize for those who didn't want to see all this, but well... here it is.

Thank you for your time.
Aaron

 

[RoosterML]

Simple answer NO
Most quality feeds will run in the $15-$20 per 50lb bag range. Budget feeds will be sub $15 range. Budget feeds likely meet the minimum requirements needed for you birds.
Quality feeds usually have added ingredients along with higher lysine and quality proteins.

 

[Ascholten]

Simple answer NO
Most quality feeds will run in the $15-$20 per 50lb bag range. Budget feeds will be sub $15 range. Budget feeds likely meet the minimum requirements needed for you birds.
Quality feeds usually have added ingredients along with higher lysine and quality proteins.

Ok so with that. Lets say a feed says, Layer Feed 14 percent protein.
One bag is 9 dollars
One bag is 16 dollars
One bag is 31 dollars.

If they ALL say 14 percent protein. Is there any rule, law or something saying that's USABLE protein, or nutritional protein they have to be listing and not just total protein?

You say the more expensive stuff will probably have higher quality protein. Can you please explain what higher quality protein is over a lower quality? If it comes from more expensive stuff, but essentially is the same thing, then is it really a better quality?
Ill use salt as an example.
Salt. Sodium Chloride. NaCl.
I can make it in a laboratory
I can get it from sea water
I can get it from other sources.

I can market it with all sorts of lies and spin to make you think MY NaCl, is somehow better, but at the end of the day, it's all, just NaCl and the romantics of the advertisement don't mean a thing.

Let me give an example of more deception. Again lets use Salt.
Sea Salt. People LOVE it for some reason, oh it's more pure, it taste better, bla bla woof, whatever garbage they fed you to buy their salt. People pay good money for their Sea Salt, because in their eyes, it's somehow better NaCl.
Salt is Salt, I don't care what any marketing maroon tries to say.

Studies have shown that people like Sea Salt because it taste better. The reason it taste better is because it has OTHER minerals in it, ie impurities .. that give it the different flavor that people seem to like. The sea salt is more preferable to people because of the impurities in it that make it taste different / better, than plain ole absolutely pure salt.

So now we see 'Pure Sea Salt' being advertised as somehow superior to..... exactly what I don't know.

Pure Sea Salt....
It's definitely NOT pure, it's got all that other flavorful stuff in it. So exactly what ARE they selling, PURE, Impurities??? What impurities are allowed to keep the Impurities pure, versus what impurities would make the impurities impure????

Marketing, they hung the big fat worm, you bit it and ran.. just like a chicken with a June Bug.

Aaron

 

[Kiki]

Ok so with that. Lets say a feed says, Layer Feed 14 percent protein.
One bag is 9 dollars
One bag is 16 dollars
One bag is 31 dollars.

If they ALL say 14 percent protein. Is there any rule, law or something saying that's USABLE protein, or nutritional protein they have to be listing and not just total protein?

You say the more expensive stuff will probably have higher quality protein. Can you please explain what higher quality protein is over a lower quality? If it comes from more expensive stuff, but essentially is the same thing, then is it really a better quality?
Ill use salt as an example.
Salt. Sodium Chloride. NaCl.
I can make it in a laboratory
I can get it from sea water
I can get it from other sources.

I can market it with all sorts of lies and spin to make you think MY NaCl, is somehow better, but at the end of the day, it's all, just NaCl and the romantics of the advertisement don't mean a thing.

Let me give an example of more deception. Again lets use Salt.
Sea Salt. People LOVE it for some reason, oh it's more pure, it taste better, bla bla woof, whatever garbage they fed you to buy their salt. People pay good money for their Sea Salt, because in their eyes, it's somehow better NaCl.
Salt is Salt, I don't care what any marketing maroon tries to say.

Studies have shown that people like Sea Salt because it taste better. The reason it taste better is because it has OTHER minerals in it, ie impurities .. that give it the different flavor that people seem to like. The sea salt is more preferable to people because of the impurities in it that make it taste different / better, than plain ole absolutely pure salt.

So now we see 'Pure Sea Salt' being advertised as somehow superior to..... exactly what I don't know.

Pure Sea Salt....
It's definitely NOT pure, it's got all that other flavorful stuff in it. So exactly what ARE they selling, PURE, Impurities??? What impurities are allowed to keep the Impurities pure, versus what impurities would make the impurities impure????

Marketing, they hung the big fat worm, you bit it and ran.. just like a chicken with a June Bug.

Aaron

I like you.

 

[Kiki]

If anyone's interested in reading...here:

https://www.nap.edu/read/2114/chapter/1


http://www.poultryhub.org/nutrition/feed-ingredients/

 

[electrycmonk]

I like you.

I can dig it!

 

[RoosterML]

Ok so with that. Lets say a feed says, Layer Feed 14 percent protein.
One bag is 9 dollars
One bag is 16 dollars
One bag is 31 dollars.

If they ALL say 14 percent protein. Is there any rule, law or something saying that's USABLE protein, or nutritional protein they have to be listing and not just total protein?

You say the more expensive stuff will probably have higher quality protein. Can you please explain what higher quality protein is over a lower quality? If it comes from more expensive stuff, but essentially is the same thing, then is it really a better quality?
Ill use salt as an example.
Salt. Sodium Chloride. NaCl.
I can make it in a laboratory
I can get it from sea water
I can get it from other sources.

I can market it with all sorts of lies and spin to make you think MY NaCl, is somehow better, but at the end of the day, it's all, just NaCl and the romantics of the advertisement don't mean a thing.

Let me give an example of more deception. Again lets use Salt.
Sea Salt. People LOVE it for some reason, oh it's more pure, it taste better, bla bla woof, whatever garbage they fed you to buy their salt. People pay good money for their Sea Salt, because in their eyes, it's somehow better NaCl.
Salt is Salt, I don't care what any marketing maroon tries to say.

Studies have shown that people like Sea Salt because it taste better. The reason it taste better is because it has OTHER minerals in it, ie impurities .. that give it the different flavor that people seem to like. The sea salt is more preferable to people because of the impurities in it that make it taste different / better, than plain ole absolutely pure salt.

So now we see 'Pure Sea Salt' being advertised as somehow superior to..... exactly what I don't know.

Pure Sea Salt....
It's definitely NOT pure, it's got all that other flavorful stuff in it. So exactly what ARE they selling, PURE, Impurities??? What impurities are allowed to keep the Impurities pure, versus what impurities would make the impurities impure????

Marketing, they hung the big fat worm, you bit it and ran.. just like a chicken with a June Bug.

Aaron

Ok, I did not say a higher quality protein, I said a higher quality feeds likely using additional ingredients. Or something to that effect.
Most cheap feeds protein will be from by products.
quality feeds will like have added pre or probiotic or both. Also likely to have essential oils added to the feed also. Also high quality amino acids.
Here is what is listed on the quality feed bag

you are not likely to find some of that in budget feeds.

 

[Ascholten]

If anyone's interested in reading...here:

https://www.nap.edu/read/2114/chapter/1


http://www.poultryhub.org/nutrition/feed-ingredients/

KiKi, thank you for that link, I gotta sign up with them log in and grab a copy. This is the kind of info I like to see, real science with the numbers to hopefully back it up. Once I digest all this, probably be a few days I got a lot of other stuff to do, Ill try to post something in simple terms, This X is what we should be looking for and Y is important because of Z, without all the techie stuff, if it is possible to do so. That report is almost 30 years old it looks like if I read it correctly. Kind of surprised more studies have not been done since then, especially since we understand more about how it all works now, not to mention how important this actually IS, from both a person who cares for their birds aspect, but also from, I have a huge farm and need to keep them alive but maximize my profits aspect too. Remember when margarine was better for us then butter was? Then we learned more, and now where are we?

I say we outlaw cars and cats, let all our Chickens free range and just grab the eggs where we see them

Aaron

 

[Kiki]

KiKi, thank you for that link, I gotta sign up with them log in and grab a copy. This is the kind of info I like to see, real science with the numbers to hopefully back it up. Once I digest all this, probably be a few days I got a lot of other stuff to do, Ill try to post something in simple terms, This X is what we should be looking for and Y is important because of Z, without all the techie stuff, if it is possible to do so. That report is almost 30 years old it looks like if I read it correctly. Kind of surprised more studies have not been done since then, especially since we understand more about how it all works now, not to mention how important this actually IS, from both a person who cares for their birds aspect, but also from, I have a huge farm and need to keep them alive but maximize my profits aspect too. Remember when margarine was better for us then butter was? Then we learned more, and now where are we?

I say we outlaw cars and cats, let all our Chickens free range and just grab the eggs where we see them

Aaron

No signing up required. Just click the read online link on that page. This first link/book is the book/info feed companies use to formulate feed.