Why is chicken scratch more expensive than chicken feed?

[Happy hen lover]

Think something got left out there? When I was buying our upright frost free freezer, the salesman told us that meat would not last as long in the frost free freezer compared to a regular chest freezer that was not frost free. I think he told us to plan of eating the meat within about 6 months in the upright freezer.

Yes that's what I meant sorry for confusion.
We have 2 uprights 1 frost free and brand new one not frost free. I think our old chest was frost free as well . I agree with your salesman; same theory better wording .
Just letting everyone know that both options are still available.

 

[gtaus]

I went into town today and picked up a 50# bag of layer crumbles. I noticed that the chicken scratch went down a bit in price, and is now 49 cents cheaper than the crumble. That is not saying much because our feed prices have gone up almost $3 per bag. My memory might not be too good, but I always thought I paid a couple bucks less for a bag of scratch.

BTW, has anyone seen any good sales on feed since the COVID pandemic situation hit? Prior to the pandemic, I remember buying bags of layer feed for less than $10 per 50# bag on sale.

Nowadays, you have to get really creative to save money. The retail price of 50# layer feed for me is $14.49 at the store. But they had a Friends and Family 10% off sale today. That brought down the price to $13.04. I bought some gift cards for the Fleet store around Christmas and got 10% off on that initial purchase. So I used my 10% off gift card on the feed which drops the price down to $11.74 per bag. But wait, I used my Rewards Credit Card and got 1.5% back for the purchase of the gift cards. That brought down the price of the feed to $11.56. I saved $2.93, just over 20%, for the bag of feed.

I know some people could care less, but I do track my chicken expenses along with my egg production. I won't ever get my cost of backyards eggs for less than what I can buy at WalMart, but I do try to save money wherever I can.

 

[Happy hen lover]

I had a sale 2 weeks ago on scratch @ tcs of 4$ off
Good job on all the discounts!

 

[gtaus]

I had a sale 2 weeks ago on scratch @ tcs of 4$ off
Good job on all the discounts!

Thanks, but no TSC where I live. Our local Fleet store used to have those $3-$4 off per bag sales prior to COVID. I would stock up and buy as many as 5-6 bags on a sale like that. Now I only see $1.00 off per bag, or like today it was 10% off. Nothing great, but better than paying full retail price.

 

[jsr5]

If it was just inflation, then the commercial feed would have also gone up in price and still be higher than scratch. This is the first time I can think of ever seeing chicken scratch costing more than chicken feed.

I might just make up my own chicken scratch as the individual grain prices are much lower than the combined chicken scratch mix. I am lucky in that we have a local grain mill that will sell me the grain and I can mix it myself. In the past, there was really no money to be saved by mixing my own scratch, but there sure is now.

When prices started getting crazy I switched to mixing a fermented wholegrain mix with soy bean meal as one part to 6 parts of grain to make up the protein and a half part of kelp meal to make up the trace minerals. And I also mix my own scratch when it makes sense to do so. You will find anything that is a good source of protein like millet barley and I cant remember the others are significantly more expensive than plain old corn or wheat My girls love corn for scratch and the Bantam flock really likes Milo so a mix of corn and milo is my scratch. The grains in the ferment currently are two parts wheat two parts Corn and two parts Millet (millet is the grain protein source) The corn and wheat are like 8 bucks a bag and the millet is 28 dollars a bag. a 6 day ferment seems to be optimal. They love it. You can look up a excellent article on here for fermenting your grains thats where I got most of my info. It does take time and extra steps so if convienience is a priority you;ll have to pay for the pellets.

 

[gtaus]

You can look up a excellent article on here for fermenting your grains thats where I got most of my info.

I will have to check that out. Here in northern Minnesota, I don't have the ability to feed my chickens anything wet/moist in the winter. It just freezes too fast in the coop. Even the fodder I fed the chickens has to be dried out the last few days so it does not freeze before the chickens can eat it.

 

[jsr5]

I will have to check that out. Here in northern Minnesota, I don't have the ability to feed my chickens anything wet/moist in the winter. It just freezes too fast in the coop. Even the fodder I fed the chickens has to be dried out the last few days so it does not freeze before the chickens can eat it.

I was having that problem to so I drain better and add a "part" or two of dry cracked corn. I mix with a cordless drill with a bulb planting auger. So mix the dry stuff in and it keeps the mix dry enough they can eat it all. even on the breezy single digit mornings. They can stand the extra corn on those days anyway. I would suppose you could or I could start the draining the night before just to drain a little better but I don't know how long it takes for the bad bacteria to get started and I don't risk it. corn is cheap or at least it's still only 8 dollars a bag here. I'd supposed whatever is cheapest like a cracked wheat would work but up there I"d think corn would be plentiful and cheap.

 

[gtaus]

I mix with a cordless drill with a bulb planting auger.

I use a cordless drill with a mud mixer extension.

Works really good in a 5 gallon bucket. I typcially mix up 5 gallons of chicken scratch in a bucket, and then dump it into a larger plastic garbage can for storage if I want more. Best thing about my mud mixer is that was free, after rebate, at our local Menards. I bought a couple of them. Who knows, I am actually need one for mixing drywall mud one day!

 

[jsr5]

That is what I was wanting but none of the places I went had that style they had some paddle things that would have been too much drag and throw grain everywhere. The But I got the 30 inch bulb auger and that works really well and hardly even have to stoop. I guess anything that does the job is better than hand mixing.

 

[Al Gerhart]

I won't argue against that. Back in the day, my dad used to buy meat on sale and fill up our chest freezer out at the lake. He probably saved as much as $200.00 buying all that meat on sale. It cost us about $15.00 per month to run the chest freezer for the summer. So, he always came out ahead on that deal. Oh yeah, I bought the chest freezer used from a family friend for only $50.00. That turned out to be a great buy.

Of course, the real reason we have any freezers is for our convenience. Dear Wife is from the Philippines and a few times a year she goes to St. Cloud with her friends to the Asian store there. She stocks up on Asian food, fish, vegetable, etc... that we cannot get in our local town. That shopping run is about 300 miles round trip, so the girls pack up their ice coolers and insulated bags with as much stuff as they can put in the freezers back home. But it means a lot to them to have a taste of home (Asia) in the freezer.

So tell me, how does she pronounce the words "bed sheets"? I laugh everytime mine tries to pronounce those words.