Food prices going up?

I had asked pretty much the same question of a friend of mine who is an active farmer, here is his response:

"Meat prices will soar in about 6 months on pork and beef.

Chicken, turkey, duck, and farmed fish, will start going up now until sky high.

The grain to meat conversion on beef is highest which means whopping prices. Even the feeder cattle folks who use mostly grass to raise their product for the feed yards are going to get more $ and every other group that supplies farmers are not going to miss a chance to gouge when they see money.

Your best bet for home production is chickens. Meat and layers can be fed pretty good with table scraps as long as you don't get to many. However, better to get a few extra, if freezer space allows, and supplement them all with some mash to balance their protein levels.

Tell your neighbors to save their scraps for your chickens and you will give them one when processed. All grain elevators have a place where all the cracked grain sifts off. They may or may not charge you, but it's excellent feed for chickens.

Hybrids are the only way to go for meat. Just don't expect them to free range, and breeding requires incubation...way too stupid for both.

Eggs will also go sky high. Layers are a little harder to feed just scraps unless you go with a breed that has the older blood lines. Maybe not as productive, but they will scratch and hunt bugs when allowed to free range.

Good nest boxes where they roost is a must. Closing them in where you want them to lay and roost for a couple weeks is also a must, or else they will roost in trees and lay their eggs here and there.

Keep the layers water in the roost shed and never ever let a layer go without water. No water-no eggs, and many times they shut down for good, unless bred.

Keep roosters away, unless you like blood spots in your eggs. They don't need a rooster to start laying. However, a rooster will help start a hen that shuts down too early. 2 years is about all you will get from layers. You can use them to replace themselves, IF you have the right rooster, and IF they will get broody (set on the nest). Incubation is OK, but baby chick supplier is just as cheap.

Then it's time for the pressure cooker..and trust me, soup meat is all an old layer is good for. Shoot all critters and make sure you have a safe and sound roost for them at night. Don't forget to shut the door EVERY night. Weasels, ferret, mink, raccoon, fox, bobcat, coyote, and tramps, all love, and I mean love, chicken.

And a weasel or ferret will kill every chicken, even if they can only eat one chicken. Once they get a taste, without a doubt they will be back for more. In the tramps case, he will tell his friends."


Hope this helps answer your question.

 

I've always heard rabbits are the best for home meat production. Any thoughts? I have chickens, and have butchered a few, but I still haven't gotten them to lay through the winter. My ducks are better layers.

 

raising rabbits AND chickens is a strategy that I have seen implemented very successfully many times, bugs LOVE rabbit poop & chickens love BUGS, the tiny turds make great fertilizer mixed with the HIGH nitrogen content of chicken manure (especially bug-fed)

high nitrogen content manure comes from high PROTEIN diets

fat: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen

carbohydrates: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen (hence the clever name )

protein: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen

 

General Mills is raising prices 20% across the board at the end of November/beginning of December... Merry [email protected]%^%@ing X-mas everybody :rant:

 

Everyone considering raising any of these animals for meat needs to consider the cost of buying food for them. It's difficult to grow enough for them in a lot of climates, and takes a lot of space. In the south you might be able to free-range chickens or even rabbits in portable cages most of the year, but it most of the U.S. and nearly all of Canada, that's a seasonal option. The price of feed has doubled in the last few years, at least around here.

Quality of the meat (or eggs if we're talking laying hens) doesn't really suffer, but the growth and amount of lbs. of meat on the finished animal is often less if you're free-ranging them. That depends on the breed, too.

As for the price of food going up at the grocery stores, they never had canned pumpkin for a good price this year. Cheapest I saw was $1.50, and most were higher. Usually it's $1 or less and I buy a case of it. This year we're using the squash we grew to make "pumpkin" pies instead.

 

We have been concerned with the price of feed going up, but so far the $ from egg sales has paid for the feed and our new chick orders. The price of everything is going up around here. Especially flour, sugar, coffee and dairy products. I saw the same price for pumpkin you did Gypsysue and I was glad I had some in the freezer. I really haven't felt the price hikes much as I shop the specials on Sr. discount days. However, I did stop by to get 1 gal of milk, 1 loaf of store brand bread and 1 small carton of cream for a special cake I had to bake. I had to work for 1 hour to earn enough to pay for these 3 items. It was hard to believe. Don't know how some are going to make it, if they haven't prepared.

 

Chickens eating eggs???

I have a bunch of chickens and one or more of them has recently started eating the eggs. I do not know which one or ones it is. I recently built them a new coop and they have just started doing it. I noticed a bunch of postings on chickens and wondered if anyone knows how to get them to stop eating the eggs.

 

my guess is that they have a calcium deficiency... for actual info check these guys out

Chicken Keeping Secrets - How To Keep Chickens at Home

http://www.wikihow.com/Keep-Chickens-from-Eating-Their-Own-Eggs

 

Do you have grit out from them? (I would start there.)

Also could be the number of chickens that you have in your coop. (Second thought) ...

Once a chicken starts eating eggs it is hard to get them to stop, just so you know. Check for eggs more often and maybe start giving them some table scraps, just somthing to pick at. (If they are kept in the coop all the time.)

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKJ5oxb8bPg]YouTube - A Glimps into S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010[/ame]

 

In many cases the marked price is close to the same as a few weeks ago. What has changed is the amount of product. Tuna used to come in 6 oz cans. Now they are 5 oz. Very slight size difference that most consumers won't notice.

Willow

 

I have heard that putting a golf ball or some golf balls in the nest box works. My chickens will eat their eggs when they were layed on the ground but not when layed in the nest box. Try the golf balls and also try checking for eggs numerous times per day so all they have to peck on is the golf balls. They will eventually tire of not getting the goods.

 

Golf balls in the nest box will also help if you have a snake problem.

 

price increases

Well today I went to Sam's Club to stock up and did i get a surprise

50# Rice went up 3 dollars from 16 to 19$
25# Sugar went up 2.50 from 14 to 16$
TP went up $2 too

No need to wait until Jan to see price increases they are already here:gaah:

 

Just a question, why do you buy the 25 Lb bags of sugar, $19 for 25Lb = 64 cents per Lb, I buy small 4Lb bags for $1.85 = 46 cents per Lb. Gotta compare prices at wally world, wally plays tricks on us.

 

It's not just wally world that does this. When we go to the grocery store I no longer look at the price that is displayed in large numbers. I look at the price per pound that's underneath it. I've found that a lot of the "sale prices" cost you more per pound than the smaller packages at regular price.

 

Then you are very lucky to be living where you are.
Right now white sugar is $3.79 a pound in our area and that is the cheap one- that breaks down to about .76¢ a pound. But surprisingly enuf I got 25lbs of sugar this summer for $14.70. (Sam's club) that was only .59¢a pound.
Sure you can get the smaller bags on sale cheaper-but not very often.
I am a label reader and price checker beyond compare! (or at least that is what my family all complain about ) My allergies to food additives and pesticides forces me to check darn near everything I buy.:gaah:
Also some of the cheaper sugars are beet sugars and for the past few years they have been making them with GMO beets- well a law passed here this summer that has banned GMO beets in our state so soon I can buy my local Michigan made sugars again.

But on the upside--I just got a bargain a couple days ago! Whoo hoo!
I use Almond extract in my baking quite often and I ran out and had to buy more last December--I was shocked that the small bottle ran from $3.79 to $5.99 depending on which one you bought! I had bought it at Save a lot the year before and it was only .79¢ for the same one oz bottle!
So this year when I stopped at Save-a-lot I saw that they had their brand in again and even tho the price was up to .89¢ I bought up 7 of those little bottles! Now what the heck is up with that? and yes it is all 100% pure almond extract not artificial and all the bottles are the 1oz size. If I had been in Sam's I could have gotten it but they only have the big 10oz size for$8.99 But still the same price as the save a lot brand oz for oz it pays to be a price watching label reading coupon clipper type shopper.

 

Emerald - I visit the local warehouse for my groceries quite often and there, I can buy a 1-litre bottle of vanilla extract (not artificial) for the same price as I can buy a tiny little bottle of the fake-stuff from Safeway. It pays to look around and find the best prices on bulk-items.

For me, having "The Warehouse" (shopping for the average person in restaraunt-sized portions) makes sense. I can break-down the large packages into smaller-sections at home and re-use the jars, cans, containers for other things.

A few weeks ago they had a sale on peanut-butter. 1kg of the good stuff (Kraft smooth!) for 1/2 the price of the 500g anywhere else. Ya - I bought 4kgs of it :2thumb: