Feed and food prices are supposed to skyrocket again

[Bettacreek]

Thanks to the heat wave, food and animal feed are supposed to skyrocket. Chicken, beef and dairy products are supposed to be the first to soar of course. So, if you can, lay in your feed stocks as soon as possible. I'm hoping to figure out how to store enough to keep around several hundred pounds of grains and mash.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I wanted to go to the river and buy my grain, whole from a contact I have but he only had corn and was hoping to have wheat and possibly other grains by Wednesday (tomorrow), so I'm hoping I can fill my bins. My chick sales have been horrible this year, so the incubator is off.....just got to sell whatever I'm not keeping and raise a couple of things to slaughter.....then I"m downsizing to tend to my family only.
Unless I get a tractor and plant my animals their own garden, I can't depend on being able to have affordable feed for them. Amen.

 

[Hinotori]

We've been trying to get a collection of steel trash cans together slowly. I keep chicken food and scratch in there. Just filled two with scratch yesterday that will last me the next 6-8 months. Have one half full of grower for the chicks and another 2/3 full of layer. I need to go get more layer since it's on sale this month. Another couple cans and a load of food. It takes me 2-3 bags of layer to get through a month. I have 6 new brahma chicks, though, so that will go up a little. They don't eat anymore than the small easter eggers because they forage more efficiently.

After last years heat fun, and this year being like it has been, I figured prices would be going up.

 

[Bettacreek]

I'm going to be hurting... Right now we have about seventy mouths to feed. 100lbs lasts me about two weeks, but as they grow, it will probably go down to 100lbs per week! I just threw $50 down on 200lbs and they're already starting to put a dent in the trash can. I'm going to be looking for another large can and start looking for folks selling grain. I figure if I feed mash at night and let them free-range during the day and use scratch grain for breakfast and lunch it might help. They do get a good bit of feed through forage, but even with free-range all day, they're still really eating like the dickens. HOPEFULLY I can get about 100lbs of various grains for about ten bucks. At this point, I don't even care if a bulk of it is corn, since they get so much from forage.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Tell you what......things get bad enough, I'll just sell my laying flock, keep my araucana projects and use my coop to house guineas, which can go almost without food and keep my garden free of bugs......that can happen.

 

[Denim Deb]

I'll be going to the store on Friday, but don't know how much I'll actually be getting.

 

[terri9630]

I just spent $235 at walmart and only had 5 bags of groceries. There were a few pricey things, 2 $15 movies, metamucil for the horses. I got to check out and was shocked. When I got home and looked the price of everything but the movies had gone up. I noticed the prices when I grabbed the stuff but didn't think it went up that much at the time. Tod hubby I'm going to start mixing some mesquite beans in with his coffee.

 

[Bettacreek]

Coffee was actually supposed to be going down... Depending on brand/blend. Folgers and Maxwell House are two that were supposed to go down (using more of the cheaper beans) and Chock Full O' Nuts was supposed to go up. There were other brands listed, such as Starbucks, but I cannot remember which way those brands were supposed to be going. The reason for the rise or fall is because the Arabica bean prices were going up, so some brands were going to be reformulating and adding some more of the cheaper beans and thus giving customers the discount, while others were supposed to be keeping their formulas and raising the prices to reflect the rise in Arabica beans. That was about a month or so ago that I read about that.

For now, I'm just hoping to stash as much money as I can into some decent feed for the birds and hope that it pays off. I'll be one happy camper to butcher off the cornish cross and the one extra drake. Since I have more pekin hens than I expected, I might sell one or two. A fully feathered pekin hen goes for about $20 around here. That would ALMOST pay for a 100lb bag of mash. I just need to find grain around here for a decent price. The feed mill wants $19/100lbs of corn!!! There's no fn way I'm paying that much for a bag of corn. I'm putting the word out that I need to find cheap whole grains. If I can afford them now, they'll store over winter and into next year if I can afford that much. I'm on the fence with the birds... I'm trying to keep a good balance between getting my birds to a decent weight quickly and saving as much money on feed as possible. I wish the Ameraucana roos weren't feathers and bone, because I'd butcher their asses out as "cornish game hens" just to eliminate about nine extra mouths to feed. Honestly though, I'd probably be lucky to get two ounces of meat off of those brats.

One half decent thing about the feed increase... Tomorrow I'm going to look at about 20 chickens. Many are a year old, but there are some that are 4 months of age. The person is getting rid of their entire flock... For free. I'm hoping that they will deliver them tomorrow so I can get them adjusted and out there free-ranging with everyone else. I know it's a lot of extra mouths to feed, but I'm sick of feeding about 70 birds and getting nothing in return. I know that meat is coming, but I'm not that patient of a person... I'm TIRED of buying eggs from the store while feeding all of these mouths. At least I'd soon be getting decent eggs. It's sickening that I can't afford to buy decent meat anymore because I'm feeding the animals. When ground beef is at $3+/lb for the garbage meat (75/25) and around $5.50/lb for decent ground beef (90ish/10ish) with prices supposed to be rising even further, it just makes me about half sick. I don't know why, because honestly, we haven't been eating much beef, so it shouldn't affect me much, but still, I LIKE beef and would rather see prices come closer to my affordability, not further away. I'll have to bank on getting venison this year if we want red meat.

 

[DianeS]

I stopped in the grocery store today for some spaghetti sauce and saw that Huntz has gone from 86 cents per can to $1.36 per can. I bought a bunch of the 86 cent ones just three weeks ago! That's an insanely high increase in price. Sheesh.

 

[HandledWithCare]

Well I go through about 50 pounds a week poultry feed--game starter mixed with poultry conditioner, sunflower seeds--and then about 50-75 pounds rabbit feed. In the heat the rabbits eat less which isn't good but it causes us to use less feed up. The birds do seem to eat less the more protein feed has. I may stick with the formula we have. As for butchering, in my whole flock all I have extra so far is one little quail boy. Not exactly a meal!