What is your opinion of organic feed?

[sugarbush]

I haven't read the stadards in a few years, but I am pretty sure that genetically altered is not restricted in organics. The whole reason the herbicides and pesticides were developed in the first place was because farmers could not produce a crop without this stuff....it is through genetic engineering of resistant crops that they are now able to do so. Most of the foods we grow in our own gardens are altered and hybrid.

One other thing I would like to point out. Organics from the beginning was about not polluting the environment. Then corperate got a hold of the term and through slanted rhetoric managed to convince people that organics was healthier for them. This is simply not true and there have been countless studies that show that organic certified foods do not provide more nutritional value or less exposure to chemical residue.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organic-food/NU00255

 

[seedcorn]

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depends on definition you are going to use. As most term GMO, it is not allowed but selective breeding is permitted. Using fungicides on seed is not allowed by laws but in practice is. Seed is suppose to come from "organic" fields, again, is not.

I could go on, but bottom line is the people who advocate "organic" say, it is best I can do. They refuse to see that there is no difference unless they control it all the way from growing feed etc. I am not an advocate of GMO products nor an advocate for "organic". I think I see the food chain for what it is.

 

[TechEdFireman]

I'm with AHappychick here in NY I just priced it out and at one feed store its 28 for 50 # and 22.50 at another. When I'm paying 12 for regular layer. It's not cost productive to go with organic feed, plus I am NOT going to go through all the certification to be "organic" nor would I say my eggs were "organic" if I was using organic feed. The extent I will go is to say my eggs are "all natural" and my chickens are free range. I have a business that is willing to buy my eggs, but they want me to feed the chickens organic feed, well nothing else on my property could be considered "organic" so my eggs would not be organic by the current definition of the law.
My feeling is that our eggs are anything far better than you would find in the store, yeah I guess the organic feed would be nice but there is NO way that anything is truely organic since we have used chemical all over the world the ground is contaminated to a certain degree even if you don't think so.

 

[wings]

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That's what we call them: HAPPY HENS!

I completely agree!

If you give them Blue Seal (a local New England product btw, the company headquarters is in NH) your girls will be getting a very high quality feed. Blue Seal does have an organic line, but for what I’ve seen it's about double the price of their regular feed.

I personally think that if you give them regular Blue Seals layer pellets along with a well supplemented diet of fresh greens and plenty of free ranging you will have beautiful, sturdy and delicious eggs. You can't call them organic but you can call them fresh and natural; people will clamor for them.

Phyllis

Yup. We already use Blue Seal!

 

[wings]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

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Actually Blue Seal is owned by a Family Conglomerate based in Muscatine, Iowa.

There must be more than one then. I'm positive about what SewingDiva said.​

 

[sugarbush]

Lazy J is correct... I used to work for blue seal and they are owned by muscatine foods out of Iowa.

 

[SewingDiva]

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Actually Blue Seal is owned by a Family Conglomerate based in Muscatine, Iowa.

There must be more than one then. I'm positive about what SewingDiva said.

Oh they are one and the same, LJ was right - Blue Seal is indeed owned by a large corporation based in Iowa, but they were orginally a stand alone New England company dating back to 1868. At some point on the recent past they were acquired by Muscatine Foods Corporation in Iowa. As a subsidiary they operate as a company owned by a larger coorporation.

Phyllis

 

[annmarie]

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We only raise a few chickens and the eggs are mostly for us, but we do sell any extras to friends. I use organic feed not because I want to be able to charge more or anything like that, but because we always did buy organic eggs prior to getting chickens, because we try to eat organically as much as we can afford to. With that said though, some of the scraps our chickens are fed are not organic. So we tell our friends that buy eggs from us that the chickens primary food source (their grain) is organic, but they do occasionally get non-organic treats. No one has ever raised an eyebrow at that, since that probably pretty much sums up their own diets! We don't charge as much as fully organic eggs are worth. We charge $2.75 for our "pretty much organic" eggs! Basically, my advice is feed your chickens organic if organic practices and foods are important to you, but if not, don't!

 

[wings]

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Thanks for the advice!