Cost of Feed

Darkly_Dreaming_Dex

Darkly_Dreaming_Dex

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Has anyone else noticed how expensive feed has become this winter- i do understand why - wet summer, global price of wheat, horrifically expensive diesel etc - but does it affect what brands you buy and what do you pay for a sack of feed for eg a sack of Alfa a oil just cost me £10.90! D&H Country Cubes were £7.75
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Alfa Oil is expensive!!
Mine is out 24/7 on 8 acres of cut hay field, unworked and slightly fat. Won't have hay, only gets fed so she can have her balancer! Best way IMO! I'd hate to have a skinny horse and be pumping it full of food all winter
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Our feed merchant have a big sign up warning that the suppliers have all hiked their prices up. It's going to be an expensive winter, may have to start looking at other feeds?
 
Yes it does! My feed chappie says everything from everyone has gone up at least £1 a bag, even more so this week I'm changing onto my feed merchant's own brand cubes/mix as OH feeds in the morning and wouldn't dream of mixing straights, so that will be breakfast, with a handful at night along with oats, sugar beet, Bailey's Stud Balancer and Alfa A Oil. Going to try that and see how we go! Knowing me, I'll probably be back to Baileys but I won't know unless I try.
 
Feeding micronised barley used to be a fairly cheap way of adding calories to my horses feed but it is nearly twice as much per sack this year to what it was last year!
 
Blimey, I'm a feed merchant and most of our big name feeds have gone up by about 25p!!!! Spillers seem to have increased the prices most of all, but I haven't increased any Dengie prices for months.

Our cheapest hard feed is Hilight (used to be Clarke & Butcher) cubes and cool mix. The Mix is £6.30 and the cubes £5.70.
 
God I dreadto think what my feedbil is, aAlfaOil, Topspec Balancer, Topspec condition cubes, linseed oil...eek! I think I must spend about £80 a month on Beau LOL!
 
everytime i go buy feed - especially dengie 'good doer' it has gone up another 25 - 50p since beginning of summer. its about 9 quid for a bag of chopped straw - crazy!!!!!!!!!!

Glad i have a VERY good doer and dont need to feed much!
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I've just started working at a tack/feed shop and can't believe how expensive all the feed is! Luckily Chex takes over 6 months to get through a bag of chaff so its not a big expense for me, but I feel sorry for those with poor-doers!
 
Lucybruckner. 25p a bag! tell me your secret! Between the rising haulage cost and soaring grain prices (although wheat is beginning to level out now, thank god) our price per tonne is through the roof ATM. How are you managing to keep your prices down? Do you not have very many staff? we are a reasonable sized Merchant in Scotland and therefore employ 12 members of staff in the animal feeds side to the buisness (we have another buisness running alongside although totally seperate).
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sounds strange to me too!! i work in a merchants and prices have gone up by as much as £30 per tonne....our cheapest mix is £5.99 and cubes £4.99 so imo not too bad, will have to put up a sighn though, as i am getting fed up of being accused of ripping people off
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sorry but look, diesel has gone up so have raw materials such as wheat barley oats etc, if we sell at less than we buy we will go out of business and you will have nowhere to buy feed!
 
Totally agree Lilym! I had someone going daft about the price of Organic Mixed Corn today and i had to ask him if he had been abroad all summer ( he was not chuffed, but why should i stand for that rubbish??) He wants cheap grain prices AND organic!! that is just not going to happen.
 
Talking to various reps, it does seem as if some places are taking the mick with prices. The big feed supplier in this part of the country is selling cut maize at over £10 a bag, I sell it at £7.55! I'm not undercutting, we make the 'normal' amount of profit per bag on all of our feeds, and the straights we buy from a local farm have gone up by about £1.50 per sack since the summer.

FYI organic mixed corn is £10.10 and Badminton mixed corn £6.50, lays pellets also £6.50.

We aren't a big place! It's generally just me running it (that's the shop and the store, including loading feeds for people etc) husband out on deliveries four days a week, and we have a couple of local ladies who help for a few hours each week. Oh to have Mole Valleys turnover for just one hour!!!!
 
its a joke, bought some barley plus 10 days ago at £6.75, went to get some yesterday it was £8.25, that was mole valley. Every sack has gone up at least £1.50 per bag
 
depends on the company...allen and page have whopped theirs up by upto 80p a bag but dodson and horrell have only gone up by 20 -30p a bag, and alfa a oil has come DOWN by 50p - work that one out!!
as for organic, well, i feel that is a rip off, over £3 a bag dearer than "regular" but if they want it they have to pay!! we actaully sell alot of organic stuff......
 
More and more people are asking for organic.

Our whole wheat is still £6 something a bag (can't remember the pence part of it, possibly 25p). And we deliver free to your home, workplace etc!

We are slap in the middle of Mole Valley and Mole Avon, we work on the theory that our personal service keeps our customers coming back - and I do price check too, just to make sure I'm not loads different from the bog boys.
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My horse used to be on Baileys feed, his last owner was richer than me! My local feed merchant do their own brand mix and cubes. I decided to look at the ingredients list on the cubes and it was practically identical to the Baileys cubes! The own brand cubes are about £4.50 a bag about half the price of the branded ones. Maybe you could see if your local feed store has similar? Just a thought!!
 
Dengie seem to be doing funny things with their prices. We have an offer on at the minute on Dengie Alfa - a, Hi-Fi and Hi-Fi Lite its buy 2 for £15 for Alfa - A or 2 for £13 on the other two, I think!

I shall return to this post when i have my price list in front of me and i can quote correctly.
 
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