Coffee anyone ?

[SageHill]

Coffee and oatmeal with cinnamon sugar - heading out in a bit with Obi to graze - it’s his day. Then maybe some weed whacking and trip to the feed store and TSC. Light fog and clearing soon 58-77. We had light sprinkles yesterday but nothing to add up except no sun which kept the greenery happy.

 

[Mini Horses]

IN CASE...anyone was speculating as to raising broilers, here's a read to give you pause. Chicken ain't gonna be cheap at the store!! I feel badly for these family farms.. And many winter crops destroyed in FL. More grocery prices going up.

Live Oak poultry and crop damage to 'impact global market'

As the rest of Florida moves on after Hurricane Idalia, Suwannee County remains devastated. The areas impacted the most house chickens and crops,…

www.wuft.org

 

[farmerjan]

Peanuts are also grown in Va, maybe 25,000 acres or so I think... and all this rain adds to the harvest difficulties here also. Nothing like Fla, and Ga have had to deal with...
Farmers are tired of dealing with all the disasters and the profit margins being so slim anymore. It is just darn hard to make a decent living with farming... I know everyone goes to the grocery store and says OMG prices are going up... but in comparison people spend an average of less than 8% of their budget on food in the US with most Europeon countries spending at least 10-15%....usually double what we spend.... everyone want cheap food and it has been produced with continuing innovation in the ag sector. You cannot "budget" for the disasters and with the insurance industries not wanting to take hits, like in Fl for the wind and such... so not offering insurance for the things that would most likely cause claims... there are going to be less and less farmers rebuilding. Not counting the huge increase in prices of lumber and building materials...
Get used to essentials costing more... it is not going to go down. Except for what the dairy farmer receives... Milk prices had gotten up to $25 per 100 lbs... approx 12 gallons of milk... the current prices are back to $16-18 per 100 lbs... and the high value of the cows now makes getting out a very good alternative... with needing to be there to milk 365 days a year, who in their right mind would go into milking cows in this day and age... yet do you have the slightest clue as to how many things have some sort of milk or milk product in them????
It is going to cost more to eat, and that is not going to get much cheaper when you add in the disasters and difficulties that farmers face nowadays and the slim margins they operate on.
Look at that article @Mini Horses referenced.... those pivots are very expensive and getting flipped is damaging to the pipes and everything... without irrigation to provide water in a timely manner, many crops would not produce...

 

[Mini Horses]

Yep...there's several acres of p-nuts and a sheller operation within 2-3 miles of me. . We're sandy and lot of p-nut. Hot, lot of cotton.

But -- the article hits on insurance issues, costs of buildings, irrigation equipment, weather issues and loss of businesses, jobs, product --- . All of it.

Farmers don't get paid enough. They can't keep it up. Big corporate farms raise hybrid products without the nutrition of old varieties. Just a reminder to raise your own. It's work but, healthy produce & animals. That's the bottom line.

It's raining here. 4.5" already. I'm inside on internet

 

[SageHill]

IN CASE...anyone was speculating as to raising broilers, here's a read to give you pause. Chicken ain't gonna be cheap at the store!! I feel badly for these family farms.. And many winter crops destroyed in FL. More grocery prices going up.

Live Oak poultry and crop damage to 'impact global market'

As the rest of Florida moves on after Hurricane Idalia, Suwannee County remains devastated. The areas impacted the most house chickens and crops,…

www.wuft.org

It's ugly all around and a vicious especially for the small and family farms. Building and/or rebuilding/ repairing is $$$ add in the time it takes to get any materials and it's even worse.
City folk don't get it. No concept of what it takes to get anything to market. Steps, costs, and that the farmer needs $ to live on as well - their crop is their paycheck.
Insurance companies are getting choosier and choosier in where and what they will write policies for. Here it is getting very difficult to get homeowners because of the fires, and that's just the tip of our iceberg.
The only thing I question is why the chicken farms don't have generators to keep things going - especially when the area has storms. Granted, I don't live there and know nothing of the area, I would think losing power is not a freak thing. Just kinda scratching my head on that one. Not passing any judgement.

 

[farmerjan]

Most have generators, but when half the building is demolished you cannot safely run them... and add in the difficulty of getting more propane, or for the bigger ones most are run on diesel..... after storms like that... and you cannot run all the fans on those houses on one generator.. so they have to have one for every house or 2 houses... they use ALOT of electricity... my dairies often have generators so that if the power goes out they can run the milking system.... then as soon as it is shut down they can run the bulk tank cooler and the well pumps for water for the cattle... and then shut down something else to run the silo unloaders to fill the feed bunks... then shut that down to run more well water... and these are generators that are in the 20-80kw..... and they cannot run non-stop....forever....
Those fans are set up for what they call tunnel air flow... and have to exchange a certain amount of air per minute... If the air inlets are blocked or have dirt and debris from a storm, the efficiency is diminished greatly and the birds will not get the air exchange which also translates into cooling...
It is a very complicated and precise configuration when the houses are built... and if anything is off, it can affect the airflow and the heat in the building...
So, to say it is not an easy "they need generators" thing is so true... and I know you were not judging... there is so much that goes into figuring things like that. One reason that the birds are cheaper to raise in places like Fla and Ga is because it is cheaper to cool them with fans/airflow than it is to heat the houses in the winter like here... and once you have the well/infrastucture/ barns/sheds for feed and such, it is cheaper to add another house there than for another farm to start from scratch...
Nearly every single poultry building that is on my different dairies is an older one, and the newer ones are built in pairs now... more efficient to operate... and any that are adding do so in "2's"...
But generators cannot run at full capacity for days on end... and no one I know can afford enough generator capacity to run everything.,...believe me, many have systems that are designed to kick in as soon as the power goes out... but it is a stop gap measure and damage and devastation like from the hurricanes just taxes every single thing they do...

 

[SageHill]

Most have generators, but when half the building is demolished you cannot safely run them... and add in the difficulty of getting more propane, or for the bigger ones most are run on diesel..... after storms like that... and you cannot run all the fans on those houses on one generator.. so they have to have one for every house or 2 houses... they use ALOT of electricity... my dairies often have generators so that if the power goes out they can run the milking system.... then as soon as it is shut down they can run the bulk tank cooler and the well pumps for water for the cattle... and then shut down something else to run the silo unloaders to fill the feed bunks... then shut that down to run more well water... and these are generators that are in the 20-80kw..... and they cannot run non-stop....forever....
Those fans are set up for what they call tunnel air flow... and have to exchange a certain amount of air per minute... If the air inlets are blocked or have dirt and debris from a storm, the efficiency is diminished greatly and the birds will not get the air exchange which also translates into cooling...
It is a very complicated and precise configuration when the houses are built... and if anything is off, it can affect the airflow and the heat in the building...
So, to say it is not an easy "they need generators" thing is so true... and I know you were not judging... there is so much that goes into figuring things like that. One reason that the birds are cheaper to raise in places like Fla and Ga is because it is cheaper to cool them with fans/airflow than it is to heat the houses in the winter like here... and once you have the well/infrastucture/ barns/sheds for feed and such, it is cheaper to add another house there than for another farm to start from scratch...
Nearly every single poultry building that is on my different dairies is an older one, and the newer ones are built in pairs now... more efficient to operate... and any that are adding do so in "2's"...
But generators cannot run at full capacity for days on end... and no one I know can afford enough generator capacity to run everything.,...believe me, many have systems that are designed to kick in as soon as the power goes out... but it is a stop gap measure and damage and devastation like from the hurricanes just taxes every single thing they do...

Yup. Get that. We have poultry farms here as well, though most are quite old. Being CA we all know they won’t be here much longer.
I wish the article had addressed the generator issue/angle as without saying anything it implied there were none.

 

[Mother Hen]

 

[Mini Horses]

Slept late, 7:30 . Having lovely coffee, seems especially good today. Hoping this gloomy cloud cover clears. I'm over it!! It's Sooo wet outside and I need to do things Hoping to get CDT boosters done today but, might not work. Goat wrestling works best on dry ground . However -- I'll go to TSC first as I only have 25 head worth of vaccine. Need more. Hope they have in stock. And, a can of colored spray marker! So everyone gets done. It's harder to keep tract when so many are same color.

Better getta move on -- since I'm already behind

 

[Baymule]

On second cup of coffee, already been outside to do chores. Church at 9:30, class first, then sermon at 10:30, usually out at 11:30. New preacher goes on overtime, so not out until 11:45. I’m sure we need the extra time! LOL By then it will be hot and I won’t be interested in playing outside. High of 96F today. Just a few weeks ago, I bailed outside to work in 90’s before it hit 100’s!!!! My, I sure have gone wimpy in a short time.

Chicken broiler houses used to have chicken wire on the side walls, with drop down Tin flaps for inclement weather. Or farmers would run plastic down the sides. Those are no longer acceptable. Now chickens must be enclosed in solid walled houses, technology running everything—until it doesn’t. Then the birds all die. Old style chicken houses are still standing on a few farms scattered across east Texas, they have weathered many storms. Most have been torn down. My son bought me and him trusses for a 40’ span from an old torn down chicken house. They will be used to form a roof between two shipping containers. Storage for hay and equipment.