Kelly,

Does organic automatically translate into GMO free? If it is certified organic, yes. It must be GMO free to be certified organic. 

If you could buy chemical free, non-GMO feed locally, that wasn't certified organic, would you still pay more money for it than conventional?  It would have to be cheaper than the organic, but I'd pay a LITTLE more for it than the conventional feed if I trusted the source.

Is the organic version worth double the money?  For me, yes. While I do not like pesticides, that is not what drives me to go organic. I am rabid about not having GMOs in my diet. We have no idea what the long term consequences will be of ingesting so much food that has been seriously tampered with on the cellular level. I'm not talking about hybrids that have been cross pollinated, but DNA that has been altered, which is what GMOs really are. When people start playing "God" with our food, I expect seriously scary repercussions at some point. It goes beyond just not be "natural" but rather Franken-food, as some have called it. 

I need to also state that we transitioned into a lot of organic food. But when I started raising chickens, this was the commitment I made. I pay about $24/50# bag a month for 10 hens. I sell a few dozen of my eggs for $3/doz. to a couple of friends to offset my costs. They get their eggs $1 cheaper than the store (sometimes they save even more) and I get help paying for feed. It's working pretty well and some months I have enough cash to pay for the entire bag of feed.

Organic is so worth it. Buying organic reduces the toxins in the enviornment, the exposure of it for you and most importantly, your children who will one day inherit this world that we're helping to ruin with chemicals and pesticides.

There was a report recently of a chemical being added to conventional chicken food sold in Utah. The kids that were consuming the eggs were getting sick from it. And these we backyard chicken egss, not store bought eggs.

I'v heard (although I am not certain) that most Alfalfa now is also GMO. Has anyone else heard that?

What price can we put on our health? Or our childrens?

I agree, organic feed is more expensive than conventional (sometimes up to 2x as much) but is there something in your budget you could do without if you examined it closely? Could you make a commitment to give up something like a certain food that isn't that healthy anyway, or getting your nails done, or that new pair of shoes, anything, so that you could afford to pay for the better feed? You may find that you could afford it.

Also to consider, we have several farms in our area that buy feed in bulk. And all of them buy organic. If you know any of the farmers, or know someone that knows the farmer, you could consider asking to purchase feed from them directly. They usually buy it by the ton so they get a great price on the feed.

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Jessica said ...
We've had success with soaking the alfalfa pellets in some water.  This softens them enough (into a mash, of sorts), which enables our meat goats to eat them with less difficulty.  We use this method when we want to sneak other things into their diet (garlic, probiotics, nutritional yeast, etc.)  We just sprinkle those things in and mix it all up.

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We have to soak the cubes too-and for some reason it seems the cubes are cheaper.

The organic layer pellets around here are $38 for 50 pounds.  Convnetional (which MIGHT be pesticide free, just not certified organic) are only $11 for 50 pounds.  That's almost 4 times as much and we just can't justify that at this point.  We don't even buy all organic for ourselves and we believe it's more important to spend the money on organic for ourselves first.  Sometimes it's not about how much, but about availability.  We live in a small town with one grocery store, and most people around here aren't interested and/or willing to pay organic prices, so the store doesn't carry much.  We're currently looking at buying more land so we can grow food for ourselves AND the animals.  It just takes time!

Amy-thanks for the clarification on organic being GMO free-that was helpful!

I may look into a buyers club for buying feed-I just don't know what the interest is around here.

Wow Kelly, that is an outrageous price!! No wonder.

What state are you in? If there's a co-op group in your area that does Azure Standard you can buy organic chicken food through them for way less than $38/bag.

Thanks Heather-I'll look into that.  I haven't explored any buying clubs/ co-ops because we are in such a small house with NO storage that it just wouldn't make sense.  Maybe bags of feed that can be left on the porch though...

Whew! That price IS outrageous! It someone seriously paying that? Of course, some may think I'm insane for paying $24 for a 50# bag. I guess it's perspective, but that does sound over the top. If you ever travel to a bigger town for other items, check out their feed store's organic prices; perhaps you can take a few bags home. I'm looking into doing this for broiler finisher feed because that's an item I can't get locally.

Amy, I was doing some research on gmo livestock feed in Google and guess what came up in the search engine? This discussion is on the first page of the search for : livestock gmo feed.

That is really good for such a recent discussion. BlogFrog is working well for you. Just thought you might find that interesting.

By the way, I also think it's worth paying more for organic feed for two reasons. One, If we are raising our animals for meat or eggs for health then we should be trying to get the best health out of the these animals. The more research I do on GMO's the scarier it gets. There is a lot of documented evidence that shows that GM foods are causing health problems and death in lab animals as well as cases of farmers loosing livestock after they eat from a GM crop. I think we all need to become educated on this subject because it could be the cause of so many of our nations diseases. And two, because we are consumers and we have the right and ability to vote with our dollars. I have actually only recently came to the realization that we can demand better quality foods by voting when we buy a product that is organic. If you can't always buy organic feed because it's too expensive then just do it sometimes. Buy once every other purchase or every other month or once a year. Just vote!

That's my two cents ;o)

I'm new here and I have to say, I love this post. It has been so helpful.

We are city dwellers about to get a few laying hens. We have owned a small farmette years ago and had many chickens then. This time around the only way I will have the expense of them is if I can afford to do it in an organic fashion. I echo what Mona has said, it's not only better for us, the earth but for the animals.

I am glad to see prices of organic feed so I can get a feel somewhat. I was surprised that our Tractor Supply does not carry organic feed though. I will have to search the local stores to see if they carry it.

Mona, I totally agree with your points! Well said! And I'm so excited to hear that we're showing up on the google search! Yahoo!

Michele, Welcome to the forum! Glad to have you! You're right; making the commitment to go organic from the beginning is the best way to go. That's the way I did it, too. I never got use to paying $7 a bag and then tried to switch, but rather I budgeted from the beginning to pay the extra and go organic all the way. It's been much easier to stay committed this way. 

Kelly,

Thought you may like this link: http://www.azurestandard.com/shop/product/824/

That's the co-op I was talking about. They are selling 50# of organic layer pellets for $19.10. If you're in the Azure delivery area you should check it out! :)