I just went to buy some chicken feed, both for us and for our allotment colleague Salvador, whose birds we’re temporarily looking after. Well, that’s the first slap round the face from 2013. The new year price rises are serious.
Five bags of feed? That’ll be 66 quid to you, sir.
To be fair, that does include a bag of Garvo quail feed. This is a miracle product, consisting of a mixture of seeds and tiny pellets. To say the quail love it is an understatement. They hoover it up! But a 20kg bag which cost £20.50 before Christmas now sets us back £23.50.
Looking back, the Allen & Page layers pellets that we favour have risen from £9.20 when we started in August 2011 to £10.20 now. Even the cheaper Farmgate brand mash and pellets are now £9.40 a bag, up from £8.20 a year or so ago. A 20kg bag of mixed corn has gone up from £6.80 to £7.80 in the same period. If even the amateur poultry keeper starts to raise an eyebrow, how desperate must it be for commercial farmers whose profit margins are being wiped out?
John Norman's Blog 