Looks like I need to find a new supplier of grain :(

Well, I am in Michigan...with 12+ goats and 4 Jersey steers. I have been getting Tractor supply 12% sweet feed for under $7 a 50 lb. bag. And then a ton of corn (screned for the corn stove and diverted in part to the critters) is $190 in barrels delivered. I have no pasture, they are all on a dry lot. We are eating a three year old wether (pet, poor thing) and have sold off two dairy goats. I also have available 800 lbs. round grass hay bales for both the cows and goats. Tell me about costs.....went to the mill today and was told that their price on goat chow went up over $1 a bag...and they aren't the ones getting the extra dollar. Things are tight all over.

Well it was told to me by my grain supplier.....

at any rate yes, demand is up for fuel.

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Nicole-crunchy mama to six sprouts, A persuer of all things womanly, cooking, cleaning, gardening sewing, and of course light construction

I was talking to the Local feed dealer today, They said grain is going up, Again. I then said I had read Wheat was really shooting up. Just think bread at $2.00 A loaf for the junk White bread! The whole wheat will be higher yet!

I checked his prices and he wants $22.00 for a 35KG of 18% dairy goat ration. One breeder who has been in it for 31 years said his prices have never gone up, only down.

I work for my brother who owns a feed store in Missouri (just west of St. Louis), so luckily, I am able to buy my grain at cost. But within the last month, even my cost on the barley has jumped over $5 a bag. When it came in today, I even called the distributor, thinking they had certainly made a mistake! She told me they had just been discussing the prices and to get ready, because things would be going up all over!

Fauna

I read an article about the Gulf of Mexico being impacted by the increase of grain production in the U.S., but it wasn't the grain being dumped. It's increased run-off of nitrogen rich fertilizer flowing down the Mississippi and creating an oxygen depleted dead zone in the Gulf. As the polluted water drifts, all the critters who come in contact with it die.

Here's an interesting page:
http://www.smm.org/deadzone/top.html

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus