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

[chicmom]

Quote:
Maybe you're right, but I bough feed from the local mill, and I didn't like the looks of it. It was just plain powdery! I don't think my flock liked it as much either.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Study up on supply and demand. That will explain a lot of it.

Ethanol is not causing the prices to rise any higher so much as it is keeping prices higher. The base cost due to ethanol is already in the price, but as part of demand it does have an effect. And it is definitely helping keep the price high.

Transportation price is a good component of it. A big part of that is the cost of the fuel, a real big part, but where it is coming from affects it too. It is cheaper to haul grain from Kansas to Missouri that from the Ukraine to California.

Grain is a world wide commodity. It is not just the weather in the US that matters but weather and other growing conditions worldwide. Floods, fires, or droughts in Australia, Eastern Europe, or much of Asia will affect our grain prices.

Some of the developing world in seeing an increase in their standard of living. Not just China but India and many other places. They demand a different diet now that they can afford it. That puts the demand on certain things higher.

There are a lot of causes and effects I'm not mentioning but maybe this will give a few clues.

The simple answer is that supply is not keeping up with demand and the cost of moving the supply to where the demand is keeps going up.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
Maybe you're right, but I bough feed from the local mill, and I didn't like the looks of it. It was just plain powdery! I don't think my flock liked it as much either.

The only difference is that the "powder" was not "glued" into either pellets or crumbles shape, that is all. Content is the same.

Here is what I do, and you can re-consider. Fill a bucket with the "powder" and give it a shot of water from the outdoor spigot. I give it a quick stir with a stick. Done. It is absolutely indistinguishable from crumbles. Honest!!! The hens love it. Cost? 3-5 bucks a bag less. Worth it to spend just a moment wetting and stirring? Absolutely to me.

 

[featherz]

I went to my local feed mill also and it was just powder for 'grower'. Haven't tried layer, but I have chicks mixed in with adults, so need to keep everyone on grower for now - my chickens won't touch the feed mill stuff. They'll reluctantly eat it if I wet it down, but I throw a handful of commercial bagged food down and they gulp it like they are starving. Guess it's back to $16 flock raiser for me until everyone can eat layer.

ETA: Just saw the previous post. My chickens don't even like the 'wet' feed - they DO like wet commercial food, but the wet powder just isn't the same texture I guess. Still, that's what I am doing until I get get it used up.

 

[zazouse]

You can blame it on our goverment for not stopping oil price hikes in the name of oil shortage, i do not believe for one minuite that there is a shortage,my daughter works for drilling companys and they are non stop drilling and capping wells for future use.

With that being said there is a shortage of all types of grains, grasses,vegies and many other things we grow here in the states beacause of weather and other disasters like fires and flooding so shipping in things from other place cost lots of money driving up the price of everything and it will be much worse before the year ends.

I am culling my flock to downsize and feed my dogs also as i have 100's of older birds that don't produce, i normaly don't cull like this just let them live out there days here till they leave this earth but i can't do that anymore because i am tired of paying the high price of feed and grain.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
Though it has been exceedingly dry in the midwest; our part of the South (generally speaking) had plenty of rain. Record numbers for our corn: most is coming in at 200 Bushels per acre in our county.

If you want to pay less then I'd suggest going to a local mill to get your feed. I'm paying $9/50 lbs of Oats and $10/50 lbs of 16% feed. The local mill still bases corn prices on the Chicago board but you don't have the high cost of shipping that is added at feed stores.

We average 200 on irrigated acres around here.....this year the lowest irrigated yields I've heard are 30 bushels per acre. Ours was luckily better than that but after expenses there's basically no profit. Hopefully this drought and record heat will be a one year event here but it's not looking that way. If it continues I hate to think what it's going to do to the price of a lot of things.

 

[chicmom]

Quote:
I know how you feel. I've downsized quite a bit due to the cost of feed. Even with a flock of just 19, it gets expensive for me, because I'm also raising two teenagers and a stepdaughter who is 20 came home pregnant, and she's due next month. So I have to keep my numbers down so that I don't have to end up buying alot of feed........After all, for me, it's just a lovely hobby....But I still deserve to have something to enjoy, and the chickens are my only vice.....LOL At least they give our family eggs.....

 

[chicmom]

Fred's Hens :

Quote:
Maybe you're right, but I bough feed from the local mill, and I didn't like the looks of it. It was just plain powdery! I don't think my flock liked it as much either.

The only difference is that the "powder" was not "glued" into either pellets or crumbles shape, that is all. Content is the same.

Here is what I do, and you can re-consider. Fill a bucket with the "powder" and give it a shot of water from the outdoor spigot. I give it a quick stir with a stick. Done. It is absolutely indistinguishable from crumbles. Honest!!! The hens love it. Cost? 3-5 bucks a bag less. Worth it to spend just a moment wetting and stirring? Absolutely to me.​

That's something to think about...Thanks for the tip. I usually keep my feeders constantly filled, and I would worry about the food, since it was wet, becoming stale or rotting......

You mean it doesn't clump together?

 

[duckinnut]

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.

What Fred said. Its going to get worse before its gets better. Often times things get better but prices dont. The thing with ethanol it can be made out of other things beside feed crop such as wood pulp and sugar beets. Personally just dont get the fuel mileage with the added ethanol and have to fuel up more often.​

 

[Duramaxgirl]

I just paid $16.50 for 80# of layer pellets at a local grain mill. Its the best food I've ever given the girls. And I've tried lots of different feeds. I try and always buy by the ton.
I think fuel and many things are high from increased demand but let's not forget taxes! Fuel is wayover taxed! If we could get out tax burden lifted, even a little, it would help us afford life!