Walton bulk food order

[MamaLiberty]

I promised to send someone the link to the complete list at Walton's, but now can't remember who I was talking to!!! So, here is the link for everyone. http://waltonfeed.net/cart/all.html

I have a good sized order already, just waiting for one or two more people to decide what they want. I'll place that order soon because the prices are just going to skyrocket - so if you want a part of this, let me know in the next week.

[MamaLiberty]

Just to let you know what's happening. Prices have gone up so much, as has shipping, and many things we want are simply no longer available. I've waited almost three months for the oats to come back in, and now the price is double - with no guarantee they would ship even so... Don't know if they are doing any "rationing."

It seems best to me to wait for a while and see if this panic and hysteria will ease off, as it usually does eventually. Some folks already ordered on their own, so my stuff wouldn't qualify for the best shipping rates now.

If anyone else wants to organize a group buy in the meantime, that would be super. Please let me know.

[NoKnownPurpose]

Just FYI - we're still buying 50lb bags of whole oats from Tractor Supply for around $11 and change (as of last weekend).

You may need to clean them a bit before storing them for long-term storage as they are meant for animal feed.  They are a whole lot cheaper than Walton or anywhere else.  (granted it isn't an apples to apples comparison)

They also have rolled oats, cracked corn and whole corn in 50lb bags.  Don't recall the prices.

 

[MamaLiberty]

Thanks very much, but I don't consider such oats to be suitable for human use - let alone long term storage. There is no way to effectively remove the various insect eggs and insect waste from such feedstuff. There is also the great possibility of pesticides and other chemicals present, which would be impossible to remove. They can't even be used to grow oats since the hulls are removed, usually, and won't sprout. 

I have raised livestock and bought a lot of feed for horses and other critters, so have contemplated such use before and, after investigation, decided it was not in my best interest to eat it.

Here is a test. Take a cup of the feed grain (any kind), put it in two cups of water and cover. Allow it to stand in a warm place overnight. Next day you will probably see that it is swarming with insects that hatched during the night. 

Given that, the price of oat groats from Waltons is a bargain, however much more it is.

[NoKnownPurpose]

That would be an interesting experiment.  I'll try it and let you know what hatches.  While I don't expect them to be insect free (even store bought flour has the occasional weevil) they don't seem to be too bad.  Will have to see how wrong I am.

These do for sure sprout, one only has to look at the lush oat grass covering the manure pile.  (and those are just the oats that didn't get chewed and digested)   

[NoKnownPurpose]

OK, experiment begun.  Went out to the barn and grabbed a cup of oats from a fresh bag.  I put one cup dry oats and two cups water in a pyrex baking dish and covered with plastic wrap.   The oats are from a bag I bought a couple of weeks ago and have had nothing done to them.  If I were going to store them for human consumption I'd winnow the grain and then pick out the imperfect grains.  Would take a bit of work but not too bad.  I've taken some before pics.  Will take more tomorrow after they've had some time to sit.

The feed may have pesticide, will need to do some research on that.  We've stored whole oats for several months before (in their original bags) with no pest problems whatsoever.  We generally mix the oats with sweet feed, cracked corn and mineral supplement and store about a month's worth in large rubbermaid bins, again with no pest problems.

I have absolutely no doubt that the stuff from Walton's is far better.  Given the choice of having what I have or none at all I'll take what I have.  (We've got probably six months of food stored at the moment but would be eating a lot more rice than normal...)

I'll post an update tomorrow evening on the whole oat experiment. 

[MamaLiberty]

Feeding whole oats or grains of any kind to a horse is pretty wasteful, which is why they should have only cracked or rolled feed. Whole oats can be fed to cattle or goats because their digestion is much more complete, but the rolled is better for them too. I've never bought anything but the rolled oats for animal feed, so wasn't aware that unhulled whole oats were even available. I'll have to check on that at the local feed store.

It was probably "illegal" to sell whole, unhulled oats in California. Remember, everything that is not illegal there is mandatory... sigh

It will be interesting to see what happens in your experiment. If you are lucky enough to have a source for really clean, insect free whole oats I'd most certainly be interested, but even if yours is clean there's no guarantee what I'd find locally would be.

But you are right. Some is better than none, and this old Scotswoman sure needs her oats. LOL I'll see what's available here.

[NoKnownPurpose]

Actually whole oats are a better deal from what research I've done.  Processing, by whatever means, typically increases digestibility only about three to five percent compared to feeding whole oats. Considering that rolled oats are $17/50lb bag vs $11-12 for whole oats it is more economical to buy the cheaper stuff.  The horses don't mind because they get to eat more...one of their favorite pastimes.  We also get the benefit of free oat grass growing in the pasture.  Since crimping or flaking exposes more of the soft groat's surfaces to air, stored processed oats are more susceptible to vitamin losses, protein degradation and fat oxidation. As a result, they have a very short shelf life of only a few months compared to unprocessed whole oats.  This hasn't been as much of a factor since we moved out to Illinois from Michigan since we only store at most a couple months worth of horse feed.  We used to have a 3 ton silo back in Michigan which would last us 4-5 months when full.  (We had more horses then).

I do think that horses should only get cracked corn as opposed to whole kernels.  Corn is a lot harder to digest and there have been some cases of colic due to too much whole kernel corn in the diet.  Whole oats are a bit softer/easier to digest (try biting one sometime vs a kernel of corn).  We haven't had any problems with our horses in any case.

I would imagine Tractor Supply has the same stuff everywhere (Assuming you have their stores out there.)  They are called Producers Pride and are bagged specifically for TSC.

As for using manure on the garden, let it compost for at least six months first!  More is better.  It makes great fertilizer (as your weeds told you...) 

Nothing happening in my pan of watery oats as of this morning, they are starting to swell/soften up though. 

[MamaLiberty]

Feeding more of something that costs a bit less doesn't really save anything, does it? <G> I never bought more than a hundred pounds at a time, so nutrient loss wasn't an issue, and I had desert - dry land paddocks, so the oats would not have grown there anyway. We were happy to have a crop of weeds once a year in the spring.

My horses actually didn't get much grain at all unless they were working hard, pregnant or nursing a foal. Once I bought a load of barley hay with lots of grain in it. (Frost damage to a barley crop) I quickly stopped giving it to the horses because they became ping-pong balls with too much energy!! The cows and goats really benefited a great deal and the milk flowed like Niagra falls for a while. Plain grass or sudan hay works best for horses in the desert.

And all of this was 40 years ago, so lots of things have changed. I'm glad your oats don't have a lot of insects in them. That's a real plus. I'm eager to see what is available here.

[NoKnownPurpose]

Well, if it was a small difference in price I'd agree but here are the current prices:

Whole Oats - $11.29 / 50 lbs
Rolled Oats - $17.99 / 50 lbs

So for a 5% increase in nutritional value I'd have to pay almost 60% more...

We have warmbloods (Holsteiners) who are large (16-17 hands) and need a sport-horse diet.  One is pregnant, due in a couple of weeks.  They get roughly two-three cups of oats/cracked corn/sweet feed mix each twice a day and a couple of flakes of hay at each feeding (or a round bale to graze off of as they please) They will eat a large round bale of hay in a week and a half (4 horses) in the winter.  A lot less when they can have fresh grass.  While they are well-fed they aren't getting fat (with the exception of the preg mare... her baby is going to be 150lbs when born easy.)

Good luck finding bulk grains.  It doesn't look like prices are going to be dropping any time soon.  Corn planting here in Illinois is very late as it has been too cold/wet.  Farmers are getting nervous.  When prices do finally drop a lot of farms are going to be wiped out with the cost of fuel, fertilizer, seed and land (some of the farmers here are selling their land for $8k an acre as farm ground - makes more sense than to try and farm it.  Whoever is buying it is in for an unwelcome surprise when commodities prices easy.)

If you need hay I suggest you buy that early too as prices are expected to be high.

[MamaLiberty]

Yes indeed, many things change over 40 years. I don't have any livestock now - unless you count an old beagle dog.. LOL  Sure would love to see your horses. I had mostly American Quarter Horses and assorted ponies over the years. Lots of good memories.

[bobcat]

Neat stories on the horses, Noknownpurpose.  Hope your prego mare fares well.

ML, I too had been contemplating a local group buy from Walton, but as 4Q07 wore on, the prices and availability started to become a problem.  And with Walton no longer shipping certain products until supplies improve, it was easy for us to just wait until the hysteria dies down.  It'll pass.

As lush as this area is, we won't likely starve, even if the fit hits the rotating device.  There's also plenty of four legged critters running around.  Deer and turkeys are EVERYWHERE.  I even had a stray ewe come through the yard last week.  The owner came by later and gave me permission to shoot it!  I thought he was joking, but he said no, pop it (he was pi$$ed).  I guess he was worn out chasing it down.  Just never know what kind of critters might be 'available'.

And then there are gardens, so we'll be fine.

It's been wet here too, but it's dry enough this week that farmers are hitting the fields hard.  High fuel and HIGH fertilizer costs are the big issues around here.  These guys are going to NEED a high corn and soybean price in the fall to offset the fuel and fertilizer costs or they'll be cooked.

This biofuel thing looked good to a lot of these guys, but as soon as .gov lets the subsidy air out, as they are murmuring about right now, it's gonna get ugly for undiversified grain farmers.  Especially those guys caught with a lot of corn in the ground.   

[NoKnownPurpose]

Sure would love to see your horses.

Not as good as the real thing but more pics than you'd want to see  here.

[NoKnownPurpose]

The preggo mare is looking pretty miserable so I imagine it won't be long.  She's due the 18th so foal watch has begun.  I've never seen such an active baby!

The stray ewe story was amusing, if he doesn't care enough about it to let you shoot it why even bother looking?    We've got turkeys here in the neighborhood - at least 3 flocks of 20 or so birds each though the females have slit off to brood.  Lots of coyotes and deer too.  I could hunt from the deck if I was so inclined.  I'd prefer some slightly bigger spaces but for now this'll do.

I agree with you that this will all pass.  Prices will stay higher for consumers but I doubt the end is nigh.  The stock market is already picking up, though I expect we'll see another sell off before we're done.  Gold is taking it in the teeth and will probably drop back to the 700's.  I'll be a buyer then.  Also agree that the ethanol thing will go bust and take a lot of farmers with it.  The older guys seem to get it but there is a fair share of greed around.

As for the Oats I was soaking, nearly two days have gone by and nothing was crawling about.  Some of the oats have started to sprout, so I rinsed them off and put some fresh water in.  Going to enjoy some fresh sprouts this weekend.  (Or the horses will.)

[Paul Bonneau]

For do-it-yourself food storage, take a look at a forum member's business, diatomaceous earth:

http://freshwaterorganics.com/

You might be able to get some locally-grown stuff, pack it in buckets, and put some of this DE in it to keep the bugs out. Apparently the seeds are viable longer as well, if oxygen-reduction tactics are not used as they do with Waltons.