Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1908-11-13
VALUE OF WHEAT.
Good Profit May Be Made by Feeding
to Poultry at High Prices.
by James Dryden. Poultryman. Oregon Agricul-
tural College. Corvallis.


By James Dryden, Poultryman. Oregon Agricul-
tural College. Corvallis.
The prices of poultry and eggs fol-
low closely the trend of wheat prices
and of corn prices, the two staple poul-
try foods in the United States The
tendency is for poultry keepers to cur
tail the flock of poultry when prices
of food are high, and to increase the
flock when the prices of food are low.
When the grain prices rise more poul-
try are sent to market, and later on
there is a scarcity of both poultry and
eggs.
The question for the poultryman and
the farmer to consider in this connec-
tlon IS, at what prices of grain does
1t pay the farmer to market the grain
rather than feed it to the poultry, for
the business of the farmer is to get the
most out of the soil, whether it be in
raw or concentrated products. 1t is a
fine point to determine just where the
profit in feeding poultry as well as
other livestock disappears in the up
ward tendency of the price of grain;
in other words, at what point is there
a parting of the ways between a profit
and loss?
The general tendency among farmers
is to sell the grain, rather than feed
it, long before the parting of the ways
has been reached, and it is a knowledge
of this fact that assures the skillful
and persistent feeder of a profit. The
parting of the ways comes very soon
to the majority. of feeders. One man
may be telling the exact truth when
he saws that he can make no profit in
feeding seventy-fve- cent wheat, and
another may be equally truthful when
he says he can make a profit in feed
ing one-dollar wheat. The difference
in the two men is difference in skill
in feeding. With good stock and good
care the skillful feeder will make a
profit in feeding high-priced grain, but
no one can make a profit with poor
stock and poor care at any price for
grain.
The price of wheat is higher now
than it has been for probably ten or
fifteen years, and it is frequently said
that it is too high to feed to chickens,
Two or three things should be con-
sidered in this connection. First, the
prices of poultry and eggs will rise if
many chickens are marketed, and the
farmer who keeps his chickens will
make as much profit as he did when
the price of wheat was low. That is,
the price of poultry products will ad
just itself to the prices of grain. Sec
ond, how much does it really cost to
feed hen for year7 Does any one
know?
In experiments made by the writer,
covering several years, in which every
ounce of food was weighed, six pens
of Leghorn hens consumed during the
year 564 pounds wheat, 296 pounds
corn, 2O3 pounds oats, 112 pounds bran
and shorts and 235 pounds skim milk,
in addition to some animal food. The
cost of the total food per fowl for the
year varied in different pens from 81
cents to rs cents, and averaged &C
cents. The wheat was charged at l
cent pound, corn at IA cents, oats
at cent, skim milk at a fifth of a
cent and bran and shorts at three
fifths of a cent. The animal food cost
from to 6 cents per fowl. The wheat
constituted nearly half of the total
cost.
The hens laid an average of IA eggs
per fowl, valued at $1.6S at local y ices
for eggs. The prices were from 10
cents to 25 cents per dozen, much
lower than the prices are in Oregon
at the present time. If wheat had been
worth, say, 80 cents and had been
charged for at that rate, and bran at
l cent a pound, the cost per fowl
would have been about 16 cents more,
or 80 cents instead of &c cents. But
eggs are also higher in price than they
were then.
Taking the monthly egg yield of the
six pens of Leghorns and computing
the value of the eggs laid each month
at the average wholesale prices of eggs
in Portland during the past two years,
the results would be as follows: