New high for price of chicken

[chuck white]

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meye...me-high-us

Chicken is the oldest currency

[PonderThis]

That's interesting that this article primarily talks about increased costs for farmers for having to comply with new regulations regarding manure and its run off.

Manure seems like such a valuable resource as fertilizer and microbial booster for soils it seems so ironic that it's become a cost burden. I wonder why they're not composting it, or perhaps even making energy from it, and don't they sell dried chicken manure in bags anyway? There's something more from this story that seems to be missing.

[chuck white]

The article seems to have a typo on the year, they say 2003 and I believe they mean 2013.
I like to mix my CS with maple leafs for compost. That mixed with what little soil I have, is what I use in my garden plots.
Feed price is up 20% from a few years ago. Most of the cost is from transportation and not the grain prices which go up and down much more radically.

But I have laying hens, not eating hens, which is a different dynamics.

[PonderThis]

I've been composting horse manure and bedding, and it makes the most perfect potting soil, mixed with just a little real dirt for structure and trace elements.

Chicken manure would be a great nitrogen booster for this blend, but it's probably cheaper and seems to work just as well to add calcium nitrate to the water instead.

[orygunluvr]

Maybe mark can tell us how more government regulation doesn't cost us anything.

[PonderThis]

Well, we're probably all healthier by living on an earth with cleaner surface waters, and that's what this is all about, really. Do farmers have the right to pollute streams and rivers in order for you to get cheap food?

[tvguy]

Well, we're probably all healthier by living on an earth with cleaner surface waters, and that's what this is all about, really. Do farmers have the right to pollute streams and rivers in order for you to get cheap food?

No but I'll wager that you haven't seen the over the top Bureaucratic regulations that OL and I and most People in construction have seen.

You make it sound simple. It's not. You and OL are both are somewhat correct in my opinion.

BTW You don't watch TV but I saw a Dirty Jobs episode with mike Rowe on an egg farm and the owners said they turn the chicken shit in to money.

[cletus1]

Well, we're probably all healthier by living on an earth with cleaner surface waters, and that's what this is all about, really. Do farmers have the right to pollute streams and rivers in order for you to get cheap food?

No but I'll wager that you haven't seen the over the top Bureaucratic regulations that OL and I and most People in construction have seen.

You make it sound simple. It's not. You and OL are both are somewhat correct in my opinion.

BTW You don't watch TV but I saw a Dirty Jobs episode with mike Rowe on an egg farm and the owners said they turn the chicken shit in to money.

What? People are selling chicken shit. Get outta here!

[chuck white]

Well, we're probably all healthier by living on an earth with cleaner surface waters, and that's what this is all about, really. Do farmers have the right to pollute streams and rivers in order for you to get cheap food?

No but I'll wager that you haven't seen the over the top Bureaucratic regulations that OL and I and most People in construction have seen.

You make it sound simple. It's not. You and OL are both are somewhat correct in my opinion.

BTW You don't watch TV but I saw a Dirty Jobs episode with mike Rowe on an egg farm and the owners said they turn the chicken shit in to money.

What? People are selling chicken shit. Get outta here!

No, they make paper out of it and print money.

[Leonard]

Maybe mark can tell us how more government regulation doesn't cost us anything.

Perhaps you could tell us the cost to the healthcare cost of the country if industry were self regulating and would you actually eat chickens produced for profit instead of health concerns?

And don't give the, ''but the consumer can buy another product'' because if consumers died from the bad chicken, he can't very well try another brand. Remember Ford found is less expensive to pay off the dead and maimed from the Pinto's exploding gas tanks then adding a 50cent rubber part.

Since the government is suppose to do the bidding of its people, don't you think the people want regulations and inspections by people who have no financial interests in the product they regulate and inspect?

If this and many other questions, environmental laws, financing wars over infrastructure, jobs, healthcare, education, Wall Street bailouts, and taxing the wealthy were actually put to a ballot, without the paid propaganda from the ''harmed'' like Monsanto's tricking the public on GMO labelling that the ''we the people'' would actually want less government regulations?

After all, it is only the industries involved that are against being regulated and inspected because it costs them money.

And the answer is to Nationalize all Industries that directly have an impact on the public welfare and leave capitalism to the merchants and business people to make a living.

[chuck white]

When people complain about Government regulation cost us money, I remind them that medical cost could be a lot lower without government regulations. I could open a clinic and charge half the amount medical clinics charge today. But there is a silly government regulation that says I have to go to medical school, get a degree, and pass the medical board, before I can practice.

[MarkM]

Let me put it in a way that you construction types can understand. Regulations are like copper pipe . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1slibJ52yoc

[MarkM]

I know you might not believe it because it's not a right-wing news site, but Yahoo Finance say chicken is expensive because of the recent droughts.

Chicken prices have almost doubled in the last two years, leading higher costs for restaurants and chicken lovers alike, and prices don’t seem to be dropping any time soon.

Drought conditions pushed grain prices higher in 2010. And last year's drought-- the worst since the Dust Bowl which decimated farms in the 1930s--made matters worse.

Poultry producers increased prices to offset higher grain costs.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/big-data-...55167.html

No government regulations to be seen in the whole story. It's probably a climate change thing, which of course could be solved through government regulations.

[MarkM]

Bloomberg corroborates the drought story. In fact, it reports that chicken prices will be coming down because of a plentiful corn harvest in 2013.

The biggest-ever U.S. corn harvest is spurring poultry farms to expand chicken production, sending domestic supplies of the meat to a record and cutting costs for buyers from Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) to McDonald’s Corp. (MCD)

Corn fell 50 percent from its peak during last year’s U.S. drought, boosting profit for Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN) and other poultry producers and expanding supplies of broiler meat the government says will reach a record this year and next. Wholesale prices will drop 7.1 percent to 92 cents a pound in 2014, according to the median of seven analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
...
U.S. farmers are collecting a record corn crop of 13.843 billion bushels this year, 28 percent more than in 2012, when the worst drought since the 1930s cut output and sent prices on the Chicago Board of Trade to an all-time high of $8.49 a bushel in August 2012. The grain fell 0.2 percent to settle at $4.2625 today.
....
Feed including corn makes up about 68 percent of the costs of raising a live bird, according to Tom Elam, president of FarmEcon LLC, an agriculture and food-industry consultant in Carmel, Indiana. While that’s less than the 72 percent cost for hogs and as much as 85 percent for cattle, poultry farmers can move more quickly to expand production.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-03...ities.html

Sorry. Looks like you're going to have to look elsewhere to find an example of government regulations run amok. Interesting story though.