Anyone noticing major feed price increases recently?

I'm not real familiar with Maryland. Does anyone raise corn there?

My point is, that if I wanted to pay $6.50 for 50# of corn here, I could go to the farm supply stores and do it. By shopping around you can save a ton.

Minnesota is the farthest to export about anythig to anywhere. Plus we have deep wet soils with a good climate for corn & soybeans. So we make a huge over-supply of those crops, and thus are on close to the lowest basis of anyone.

Corn price is set by the Chicago trade. But the price we farmers get is 'adjusted' from that national price by the 'local basis' which is the amount above or below the Chicago price we _actually_ get paid.

Typically here in MN we get about 40-60 cents less than that Chicago price. I hear in places like Texas or Penn. they can get 20-30 cents _more_ than the Chicago price.

It's either harder to grow corn, or the demand is very high in those locations for corn. Here in MN, pretty easy to get a crop, & not much else to do with the land but grow more.

So yes, the raw price of corn can vary by a dollar or so on any given day in different locations of the USA.

Both the Chicago price of corn, and the 'local basis' (price difference) will change every day.

Your local feed stores/ mills need o ask an average price - some days they lose money, some days make money - on their feed.

As well, cracking it, mixing it, and bagging it costs quite a bit in equipment cost & electric costs.

If one can't find corn locally grown, or milo, often times barley is a very equal feed grain to corn, erhaps you can substitute that in your feed if you find a local source of it.

--->Paul

Wow. I was happy to get $1.50 for mixed alflfa early this spring. Good dairy quality alfalfa (mine wasn't, I don't want to mislead you, it went to fill sheep!) rarely gets above $4 here, generally around $3 a small square bale. 'Ditch hay' which is any grass hay goes around a dollar all year long, it's not worth mch to anyone.

--->Paul

16,000 a day how many mink do you have

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Don't complain, just do it

I just got back from the feed store and everything we buy has went up nearly a dollar a bag. They said it's not gonna get better anytime soon, but the farmers around here have taken such a hit the last few years, I really can't complain much. Maybe with prices climbing the subdivisions will taper off. (wishful thinking...)

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Psalms 116:1-2 "I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live."

YEEHAW! I totally and completely forgot that there is a mill in the county seat. I couldn't remember the name, but I found it in the yellow pages. I called them.

Milo: $9.00/100#
Corn: $9.20/100#

I've been paying almost $7 for 50# scratch. ($6.89 or something like that, the cheapest in town. Most feed stores, it's over $7).



It will be only a tiny bit out of the way to go by the mill on Tuesdays when we start home.

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mtnman, 30,000 herd of mink here on the FAT farm. Takes 10 hrs of steady feeding during the growing mnths. Thats all mink do from about 21 days of age to 110 days of age is eat and sh%t. Mink are the fastest growing mammal on the planet. Bout 1/3 of an ounce at birth to 4 ounces at 21 days, that is all off mothers milk. At 21 days we introduce the kits to solid feed at from there they can grow to 8 pounds in about 100 more days. Almost like you can watch them little suckers grow. That kind of growth takes a pile of feed.

Corn is predicted to go to $5 per bushel. Can you say bio-fuels, I think you can.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

YEAH for Ethanol~! Good fof many different reasons.

The price of everything associated with corn will go up now just like the price of everything associated with oil went up. There's no free lunch.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

Ya see! thats my point, shop around and buy as close to the source as you can. I know them big arsed feedlots in TX aint paying $6. a bushel for corn....

I had shopped around, but I had forgotten about that one mill. I hadn't been there in many, many years. It didn't occur to me they might still be there because most mills within a hundred miles of me have gone out of business in the last 20 years.

But someone mentioned it in passing, and that was the first I even remembered it. So I looked in the yellow pages, and there it was.

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We went to the general store to get a couple things, and priced the cost of hog feed yesterday. (Our general store is also the local feed store and post office.) They told us we should get our feed soon because the price in the next two weeks will go up $0.50 per bag.