I attribute the high feed prices to the fact that the feed stores are all owned by the same co-op (skagit farmers) thats prices are high on everything. their prices at their stores on the mainland are the same. There are a couple of independent feed stores but they dont run enough quantity to be able to have lower prices. I get all my regular feed from the local mill now because it is cheaper, fresher and I can get what i need. It was costing me 18 dollars a bag for feed from skagit farmers with a bulk discount. the co-op feed store is very reluctant to do special orders, which i had to do because they started only carrying crumble for awhile and I got sick of getting moldy and stale food from them. from the mill i pay 11.80 for an equivalent feed to what i was buying previously. Nice fresh feed and no hassle about bulk orders. However going straight to the mill didn't work any better for chick starter because the only stuff they had was milled two moths ago as they had not started milling it for spring yet.
to coveacres- from my discussions with other folks who raise poultry kent and king have a lot less fillers than purina. That said their product is not available where I live so before i found a mill to buy directly from I used to feed purina and/nutrena because that was all the feed stores in my area stocked. since switching to the locally produced feed i have noticed improvements in my birds particularly the large fowl, geese and turkeys. My geese did very poorly on the purina and nutrena feeds even the ones that were supposidly for waterfowl or gamebirds. I have noticed much better fleshing on all my larger breeds since switching away from the big brand feed. Did not seem to make much difference in the bantams though.
