U.S. drought fallout . . . might it affect all of our ducks?

[Miss Lydia]

Hush Amiga!!!!! The gods are listening! Be careful what you say! Lol, I agree with you all the way. The wild animals are acting as if it
s November already. The paper wasps built their hives 15' up in the trees. It doesn't bode well that
s for sure.
I just paid $19.00 for one yesterday. The place that sells Blue Seal was closed by the time I came up for air.

19.00 here today too.

 

[Haunted55]

Lydia, per the rep they (purina) will not changing their standards to allow the higher content just because the FDA says it is safe. I am asking a ton of questions beyond that, so will share when i talk to him.

Celtic, please ask how they are testing the corn. If it is with blacklight, it won't work if the corn is already processed at all. find out if they use a computer program that tests on the parts per billion level.

 

[ChristineR]

Please note the past-tense in the above and then note:
This response says a heap about the integrity of this small company. I have been to the mill, met some of the staff and get such a good feeling about how they are doing business.

Also, we should all be pleased and proud that we are making a difference and bringing the problem and our concerns to the attention of some who might not otherwise give it a second thought.

I agree that they were very responsive to your inquiry.

I did note that they were going to test the next load that comes in. I didn't get the sense from that, though, that they were necessarily changing their procedures and would start testing everything that comes in going forward. It does seem like a good company and I like that they buy organic. I'm sure being a smaller operation there will be some growing pains, etc. It just seems like they should have already been testing everything that comes in. I wonder if they are just going to test the corn or are they testing everything that they put into their feeds?

 

[DucksinOR]

Hi,

This is my first post, but I've been visiting backyard chickens for information for over two years when my family got our first ten chickens (we are now up to 18 chickens and 7 ducks). After reading this post I contacted the supplier of our poultry feed supplier, Rogue Quality Feed http://www.grangecoop.com/departments/rogue-quality-feeds. They are a small feed mill located in south-western Oregon that has a wide range of conventional and organic feeds. I received this prompt reply from them.

"In response to your question on alfatoxins in your grains. In an effort to address this issue in a pro-active way – a couple of years ago we purchased a mycotoxin tester that tests for several different mycotoxins, one of which is alfatoxin. Until this year the mycotoxin that we’ve been more concerned about is vomitoxin (a fungus that causes pigs to vomit – hence the name), but with the drought-stressed corn that will soon be available, we will also be testing for alfatoxin as well. We expect to receive the kit for this test sometime this week, well in advance of receiving any new-crop corn mid-November.

"In case you’re interested, the tester / kit that we’re using for vomitoxin can test for levels from 0.1 – 4.0 ppm (parts per million….a pretty darn small amount). 10 ppm is the level that can cause problems in animals and we’ve never tested a sample that even comes close to 4ppm. Most of our samples run less than 0.1ppm – assuring both Grange Co-op and our customers that the corn we’re using is completely safe. We expect to provide the same level of assurance with the alfatoxin testing as well – as any product that we receive that exceeds recommended levels will be refused. We’ve made that clear with all of the farmers / elevators that we do business with."

I was glad to find that that they are careful to prevent mycotoxins entering their feed. The feed is sold in a number of stores in south-western Oregon, but some of its feeds are also available through Azure Standard. http://www.azurestandard.com/. Azure Standard is a co-op that ships natural/healthy/organic type products across the West and Central United States. Here is a list of the states that they ship to https://media.azurestandard.com/pub...lick_for_details_2012-09-18_to_2013-01-01.pdf. I thought this would be an option for those who are having a hard time finding safe feed for their ducks.

I hope this helps.

Matthew

 

[Tivona]

Hi,

This is my first post, but I've been visiting backyard chickens for information for over two years when my family got our first ten chickens (we are now up to 18 chickens and 7 ducks). After reading this post I contacted the supplier of our poultry feed supplier, Rogue Quality Feed http://www.grangecoop.com/departments/rogue-quality-feeds. They are a small feed mill located in south-western Oregon that has a wide range of conventional and organic feeds. I received this prompt reply from them.

"In response to your question on alfatoxins in your grains. In an effort to address this issue in a pro-active way – a couple of years ago we purchased a mycotoxin tester that tests for several different mycotoxins, one of which is alfatoxin. Until this year the mycotoxin that we’ve been more concerned about is vomitoxin (a fungus that causes pigs to vomit – hence the name), but with the drought-stressed corn that will soon be available, we will also be testing for alfatoxin as well. We expect to receive the kit for this test sometime this week, well in advance of receiving any new-crop corn mid-November.

"In case you’re interested, the tester / kit that we’re using for vomitoxin can test for levels from 0.1 – 4.0 ppm (parts per million….a pretty darn small amount). 10 ppm is the level that can cause problems in animals and we’ve never tested a sample that even comes close to 4ppm. Most of our samples run less than 0.1ppm – assuring both Grange Co-op and our customers that the corn we’re using is completely safe. We expect to provide the same level of assurance with the alfatoxin testing as well – as any product that we receive that exceeds recommended levels will be refused. We’ve made that clear with all of the farmers / elevators that we do business with."

I was glad to find that that they are careful to prevent mycotoxins entering their feed. The feed is sold in a number of stores in south-western Oregon, but some of its feeds are also available through Azure Standard. http://www.azurestandard.com/. Azure Standard is a co-op that ships natural/healthy/organic type products across the West and Central United States. Here is a list of the states that they ship to https://media.azurestandard.com/pub...lick_for_details_2012-09-18_to_2013-01-01.pdf. I thought this would be an option for those who are having a hard time finding safe feed for their ducks.

I hope this helps.

Matthew

Thanks for that info. Its not a brand I have used but its probably available here and I might check it out. I like the answer they gave. It seems that they covered it pretty well and its nice to know options.

 

[Amiga]

Hey, DucksinOR,

Duck Forum

Glad to have you here.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Hey, DucksinOR,

Duck Forum

Glad to have you here.

X2

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Haunted I do know they do not use a black light for testing, and reject loads of grains for even slight differences when tested. This is from my first phone call with him. I asked for ranges of acceptable limits and for how they will handle the new FDA allowable higher level.

I refuse to use Blue Seal, Kent use to be separate from BS and produced a high quality line of feeds. They are now one in the same marketed under a new name(product name) and the quality has gone down hill from when kent did their own. The testing they brag about is to be competitive with Purina who has had the strictest testing when it comes to large scale commercial feeds. Their testing is why things get caught and you hear of recalls. not because they arent testing at all, but because they do before, during and after and catch things others dont. We easily spend $1000-1200 a month in feed this time of the year (goes up during breeding/hatching season) and I can tell you exactly how the feather condition varies from one feed to another as we have tested different feeds and blending with whole grains.

 

[ChristineR]

Hi,

This is my first post, but I've been visiting backyard chickens for information for over two years when my family got our first ten chickens (we are now up to 18 chickens and 7 ducks). After reading this post I contacted the supplier of our poultry feed supplier, Rogue Quality Feed http://www.grangecoop.com/departments/rogue-quality-feeds. They are a small feed mill located in south-western Oregon that has a wide range of conventional and organic feeds. I received this prompt reply from them.

"In response to your question on alfatoxins in your grains. In an effort to address this issue in a pro-active way – a couple of years ago we purchased a mycotoxin tester that tests for several different mycotoxins, one of which is alfatoxin. Until this year the mycotoxin that we’ve been more concerned about is vomitoxin (a fungus that causes pigs to vomit – hence the name), but with the drought-stressed corn that will soon be available, we will also be testing for alfatoxin as well. We expect to receive the kit for this test sometime this week, well in advance of receiving any new-crop corn mid-November.

"In case you’re interested, the tester / kit that we’re using for vomitoxin can test for levels from 0.1 – 4.0 ppm (parts per million….a pretty darn small amount). 10 ppm is the level that can cause problems in animals and we’ve never tested a sample that even comes close to 4ppm. Most of our samples run less than 0.1ppm – assuring both Grange Co-op and our customers that the corn we’re using is completely safe. We expect to provide the same level of assurance with the alfatoxin testing as well – as any product that we receive that exceeds recommended levels will be refused. We’ve made that clear with all of the farmers / elevators that we do business with."

I was glad to find that that they are careful to prevent mycotoxins entering their feed. The feed is sold in a number of stores in south-western Oregon, but some of its feeds are also available through Azure Standard. http://www.azurestandard.com/. Azure Standard is a co-op that ships natural/healthy/organic type products across the West and Central United States. Here is a list of the states that they ship to https://media.azurestandard.com/pub...lick_for_details_2012-09-18_to_2013-01-01.pdf. I thought this would be an option for those who are having a hard time finding safe feed for their ducks.

I hope this helps.

Matthew

Great info! Thanks for sharing. I ordered a catalog from Azure, but haven't actually ordered anything from them yet. Now might be a good time to try them out.

I refuse to use Blue Seal, Kent use to be separate from BS and produced a high quality line of feeds. They are now one in the same marketed under a new name(product name) and the quality has gone down hill from when kent did their own. The testing they brag about is to be competitive with Purina who has had the strictest testing when it comes to large scale commercial feeds. Their testing is why things get caught and you hear of recalls. not because they arent testing at all, but because they do before, during and after and catch things others dont. We easily spend $1000-1200 a month in feed this time of the year (goes up during breeding/hatching season) and I can tell you exactly how the feather condition varies from one feed to another as we have tested different feeds and blending with whole grains.

Celtic, I've noticed a drop in my ducks' feather quality (particularly the ability to repel water) since I started feeding more of a locally milled feed. I think I'm going to switch back to feeding 75% - 100% Mazuri until I find another feed I like to mix in.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

we had a massive feather quality issue when we went off of mazuri