Found out something suppriseing about feed costs

[FarmboyBill]

I bought a ton of shelled corn for $211. bulk. They poured it in the back of my pickup and I took it home and scooped it in my grain bin. Today I called a store to ask what they got for a 50# bag of shelled orn. It was $7.35 BEFORE taxes. My $211 was WITH taxes. I figured I saved at least $84.00 That is enough to buy 10 bags of corn at the $7.35 price. Scooping was rough, at age 62. Im allergic as heck to the dust. Ended up feeling like I had smoked for all my life. BUT, the scooping was a whole lot easier than lifting 40 50# bags of corn, which is what makes up a ton. If theres any of you who can buy in bulk by the ton, you might want to look into the saveings,

[FL.Boy]

I buy in 100 lbs bags but we don't pay taxes on livestock feed here.

[Fae]

DD owns a feed store here in Alabama and they don't charge tax on feed and it is 4% on farm products like gates,posts and fences and such.

[Oldcountryboy]

Farmboy, have you checked to see what it would cost to have a ton delivered to your grain bin? It might be worth it to not have to do all that shoveling and coughing.

[rambler]

And I sell the stuff wholesale, I'm tickled pink to get $4 per 56lb bushel.

Corn is in poor condition this fall, terribly wet, low test weight, some has mold on it. Widespread this fall - all over the midwest.

Watch your feed quality.

Got about 1/3 left to harvest. This is the worst fall harvest I've ever been through. Pretty good yield, but terrible conditions and very very late.

--->Paul

[texican]

Like others have mentioned, you shouldn't have to pay any taxes... that alone would save ~9%.

The only negative with bulk feed is you have to have the infrastructure to handle it. My farming uncle has silo's that'll hold a tractor trailer load. All I have is a room full of barrels.

Also, you have to be savvy enough to recognize bad corn... said uncle got a graduate level education, after getting a trailerload of 'hot' corn... it was delivered while we were 1100 miles away, hunting in CO. He had to leave early and go home and deal with it... unload the bin, throw the corn away, and buy more... also worries with aflotoxin... especially if you get a 'bargain'.

[Ken Scharabok]

Local farmers' co-op will put a one-ton pallet on your truck, with a per ton discount.

I also am having difficulty in luging around 50-lb bags. What I do is, from the pickup, empty the bags into two 5-gallon plastic buckets and then handle them. 50-lbs is roughly one and one-half 5-gallon buckets.

[chewie]

i am planning to buy bulk grain for my goats--storing it in an unworking large chest freezer.
its way easier than bags, plus, here they charge you $1 per bag 'bagging fee', and some places charge another dollar to buy the bag itself. then i wind up with 40 bags to burn. i use some in other ways, but can only use so many. bulk is best if you can.

[Ross]

Is shell corn really over $200/ton? Wow! I havn't even looked at prices yet.

[farmmom]

I buy most of my feed in bulk grains as well. I throw my 55gal barrels in the bed of my truck and run around the corner. Here's what I get.
300lb corn $35
300lb wheat $32
300lb oats $40
100lb soy bean meal $35
I have a small grist mill, so I grind all my own poultry feed and use the cracked corn and other grains whole to mix feed for my other livestock. I figured I'm saving about $200 a month in feed doing it this way. The only thing I haven't found in bulk yet is alfalfa, but my feed store says their supplier is supposed to get it soon.

[sammyd]

our mill charges 30 cent a bag but we can bring in the old ones till they wear out.

We save quite a bit when I compare the cost of our feed to similar stuff in 50 lb bags at Fleet Farm.

[Caitedid]

I buy shell corn by the ton for the sheep, and had been getting chicken feed at the Theisen's here at $13/40#. Have a friend who has started doing custom feed, he sold me 100#/$20 for exactly what I wanted. It's definitely worth asking around for people who do their own milling if you don't need it by the semi.

[ET1 SS]

I buy 40 50-pound bags of each grain, bring them home and put the grain into 55-gallon drums for storage.

We have found that here grains will rot if left in the bags. Inside the drums we put desiccant, and it dries them out and keeps the grains from rotting.

We do not pay tax on grain.

There is a discount if you buy a one ton bag. But I have no method of handling a single 1-ton bag, so I buy the 50-pound bags.

We get barley, oats and corn; and mix them at home [with salt and molasses].

[FarmboyBill]

I am supprised at how many people dont pay taxzes on feed. BUT, this is Okla, and money is TIGHT here, to say the least. They dont deliver feed, They have a large farm, and keep there help farming it, makeing repairs, and running the egg part, and selling feed. Im sure they also have a herd of cows also..

[highlands]

In the hog magazines there has been lot of discussion about mold infecting a lot of the corn this year and causing major problems feeding livestock. They are strongly advising testing of the corn. A bargain may be no deal.

[Farmerwilly2]

I bought corn this morning, $5.5/50# works to about $222/ton.

[Shygal]

I would suggest buying a box of medical face masks, rather than breathe in ANY dust like that. They run 10-15 dollars for a box of 50, I think there are also masks like that for sanding and painting, etc but I believe the medical ones would be cheaper.

[65284]

In October I bought 3 tons of corn, ground, delivered and unloaded into my bulk bin for $389.60

[FarmboyBill]

One reason corn here in Okieland is higher than in Mos, is that nobody much grows it in any quanity here, so all mostly of Fishers corn is trucked in from the McClelland Canal, and it is brought up to Tulsa from who knows where, But alla that shipping has to cost.

[DaleK]

Originally Posted by Ross

Is shell corn really over $200/ton? Wow! I havn't even looked at prices yet.

Most of the mills here seem to have set $200 as their base price now. It was $200 when they were paying $180 and the price was going down. When they were paying $140, they were still selling it (smaller scale sales anyway) for $200. Now that the elevators are paying about $158 (yesterday), they're charging $200. Probably once they start paying over $160 they'll start raising the price again.

Put 180 tons of HM corn through a roller mill into the silo yesterday and today, already delivered almost 500 tons dry, probably got another 600 tons to sell. Wish I woulda had more than 450 tons contracted, probably hold most of what's left for a couple of months at least. I can sell March 2010 now for $176, contract a bit and with $2/month storage I'm still $10 ahead so sell some March corn now and hold the rest and see what happens.

Ontario's pretty bad too Paul. There's a lot of corn east of us that's still 35-40% moisture. One big hog farm here that needs 1500 acres of corn for feed had 800 chopped for silage last week because it wasn't going to make it. We only had a few acres so far with a bit of mold on it but not much, some corn down in the SW of the province being destroyed because of mold.