Chicken supply prices

I was wondering what good prices are on the necessary chicken supplies, such as feed, wood shavings, etc. I just paid $18.50 for this 50lb bag of medicated chick feed and $7.50 for that big bale of shavings. What do you think? Should I keep going to this local feed place or shop around?

I would say location plays a big part, Purina is mostly manufactured in the central /midwest. You can probably save if you find a more locally prepared feed.   For shavings check around if you don't mind extra work check with local wood workers (cabinet makers ect) we get 90% of our shavings free from a local cabinet maker.  Also TSC, farm n Fleet may be other options.  

We'll for DuMor Chick Starter 20lb bag here is $8.79 and the 50lb bag is $15.69 and for the bedding 5.5 cubic feet coverage is $5.49

stegmanjessica wrote: Ok so it sounds like I pay quite a bit more at my closest feed store. I will check around for other local places to see if anything is cheaper but if not I will continue to support them because they aren't a chain, it's a mom and pop shop with quite a local history and I love the idea of keeping them in business :)

Meghan, are you giving your chicks medicated feed? We went with medicated because we got them from 2 different places and have so many (triple what you have), but I'll probably switch to organic feed for them when they're grown. I called the grange and they're more expensive than Reber ranch for both things though.

I'm excited though because Isaac just stopped by Petsmart and bought this food container for our feed. It was expensive but it's also indestructible, meant for food, airtight, and holds at least a 50lb bag of feed. It'll save us in the long run since the feed will never go bad or get infested with bugs while stored outside. http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753798

Jess Petsmart has a lot of really nice dog food containers, you should definitely check there!

Petsmart has free shipping over $49 right now ;)

No, were giving non-medicated organic non-GMO feed since we only have a few chicks and we try to keep the brooder very clean.

I'm looking at a bin where we can just put the bag right in it. I'm not quite sure how chicken feed compares to dog food but I was just reading an article about how you shouldn't empty your dog feed bag into a big plastic bin like that because the fats from the food stick to the plastic and start to go rancid. Then when you dump the next bag of food in it won't stay as long.

That is if we even get a bin at all... I just hooked up with a group that does a bulk order of feed and you can either do 40lb bags or a 350lb barrel of feed. DH is interested in the barrel but I still need to research how long it will keep since that is A Lot of feed!

jessmomto2 wrote: I was trying to think if we had a Petsmart around here and i think there might be.  Next time we have a "date night" we'll have to go that direction and check it out.  I know our local Petco doesn't have anything decent as i already looked there.

Totally off topic but made me chuckle when I thought of date night looking at chicken feeders.