What happened to the price of feed?????

[jamband]

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this is one of the best ways to reduce food, not to mention its more food for you too.........I just a read a book written in 1913 talking about mulberries and persimmon as 2 of the best things you could plant for people and livestock/poultry food as well.

 

[jamband]

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Its def much harder to find mills and finding organic from a mill is basically impossible.........

 

[jamband]

I would have to agree with this all being much bigger than some dry weather in the us. This is global. Do you really think that corn in commercial feed was grown here?? I have seen numbers that somewhere around 90 percent of corn gown in the us is produced for high fructose corn syrup.......similar numbers for the amount of soy that is proudced for hydrogenated soy oils.....

oh not to mention we are depleting all our resources and overpopulating the planet.......but hey we need big suvs if we have 6 kids

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Fred's Hens :

All commodities are being pressured. Supply is NOT keeping up with demand and the US has very few acres left to put into production to increase supply. Ethanol is blamed for much of it, but all commodities are skyrocketing because of the currency crisis. Would you rather have a dollar or Euro or 1000 metric tons of wheat, corn, oats, soybeans or 1000 barrels of oil? Obvious.

The earth's population has reached the point where production of most grains is reaching the pressure point.

Thus, your chicken feed, which is mainly soybean meal and corn, plus the cost of trucking it around with $4 diesel prices, is much higher than 4 years ago. I'm afraid we haven't seen the top called yet.

Perhaps if the federal goverment stopped paying conglomerate farms to NOT farm land there would be a glut of grains

 

[chickened]

Turnips are great for chickens. They eat the tops all during the growing season and when they mature you dig them up and feed them. They will work under a chicken tractor also. My friend runs his CT in a straight line and tills behind it when the weeds and grass are gone plants turnips and then puts the CT back over the same ground all summer.

 

[Katy]

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Perhaps if the federal goverment stopped paying conglomerate farms to NOT farm land there would be a glut of grains

If you're referring to the "set-aside" programs of the past those are pretty much non-existant and haven't been around for many years.

If you're referring to the CRP program...that is for acres that were marginal for farming in the first place and probably should never been broken out of native grass to farm.

I sure wish there was a program to pay us not to farm....would be a lot easier than busting our butts for next to no money and ungrateful consumers.

 

[mikecnorthwest]

My local mill is about an hour drive away and their 16% layer pellet is $14.35 per 50 lb bag. I can get Purina Layena for $15 a bag and it's only a 15 minute drive. Unfortunately I think because I'm in the Portland metro area the feed mill prices are high because they know they're selling to yuppie backyard chicken owners (like me). There's a big market here for organic feeds and which run upwards of $28-30 a bag.

 

[saladin]

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One of my best friends is the feed buyer for all our local turkey barns and hog barns (a LARGE outfit in the Carolinas).

Their feed comes from all over, but mostly from the Carolinas. Don't know where you rec'd your information from on the sources of feed for the commercial fellows and it may be true for some (can't imagine that it is), but it's not for those around my neck of the woods.

 

[seminolewind]

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$11.50? non dusty? Porcine animal protein? Can you send me some?

 

[Fred's Hens]

Our genuine, old fashioned feed/mill elevators are not exactly next door either. There are 3 or 4 of them, but you guessed it, each an hour's drive north, south, east or west.

With the price of gas, it isn't feasible to go and just buy feed. We try very hard to write down our shopping list (the mind's a horrible thing to waste) for groceries, Big Box stores, Home Centers, and anything else we want/need to shop. This is becoming standard practice for us now. We even haul the utility trailer along, for large items. Genuine shopping for us, not even Wal-Mart is next door.

The feed/seed business we patronize is not dirt cheap, but has been in business for almost 100 years, providing good customer service. Price of layer mash is far, far below Purina/DuMor at TSC, which is also in those locations. Since I won't be back for a month, I get a few hundred pounds. If I had to buy feed at Purina prices, I'd be done in the egg business. I enjoy it, but cannot/would not do it at a loss.