Anyone planning to downsize or eliminate their hobby flocks/herds due to drought and feed costs?

[Denninmi]

Unfortunately, I am. I've got chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, quail, chuckar partriges. Close to 100 beaks to feed.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that prices have gone up on feed a LOT over the past few years. I was paying around $9 to $9.50 for a 50 lb bag of basic layer pellets, and about the same for cracked corn, maybe just slightly less for scratch, four or five years ago.

Then came the "global food crisis", the "global economic crisis", the Texas/Oklahoma drought of 2011, and now the megadrought across much of North America.

Seems like every time I go to the feed store or the pet store (when the feed store isn't convenient, their hours are limited) the price has gone up.

I expect feed prices to go up a LOT in the months upcoming.

Straw and hay, also, are rising rapidly. I thought it was bad a few years back to pay $4 to $4.50 for a bale of straw, not its $6.50.

So, alas, this is one hobby I'm pretty much going to get out of. I'll keep a few hens for eggs, and I'm going to keep my geese because they're tame and smart, and can mainly subsist on weeds and grass all summer and be happy about it.

[applegrove]

1. They are talking a lot about doing that in my neck of the woods which is Eastern Ontario.

[mopinko]

2. i am drying a lot of greens.

happy where we are, but you shouldn't feel bad- feed is 2-3 x that in the big city here.
feeding a lot of what we grow to the critters.

[LWolf]

3. My flock has drastically downsized in the last 18 months, without my help.

Some hens died of old age. Usually, I have to give away hens every year (and eat cockerels) to manage the flock size, because I've got a broody hen that hatches out a new bunch every summer. She's the oldest hen I've got, and she hasn't "set" for two summers now. That, and natural attrition, have me down to 3 hens and a rooster. The lower feed costs are a relief, and I plan to leave it that way until they all expire of old age. At that point, if my personal economy is in better shape, I'll start over.