U.S. Dairy Farmer Feeding Candy to His Cows

Sep 24, 2012

Corn Shortage Prompts One Farmer to Feed Candy to His Dairy Cows

Feeding candy to dairy cattle might sound a little strange, but for one dairy farmer from Northern Indiana – desperate times calls for innovative solutions. The worse U.S. drought in half a century has made it hard for many livestock producers to find enough feed for their animals and have forced some farmers to get creative with cutting their feed costs and maintaining their herds.

Mike Yoder, a dairy farmer that operates 450 dairy cows has found one alternative to feed his dairy cattle – ice cream sprinkles. "It's a pretty colorful load," said Yoder "anything that keeps the feed costs down."

Among the feed shortages and sky high corn prices a new market has emerged – alternative feed rations for beef and dairy cattle. Rounding up discarded food products including, cookies, gummy worms, marshmallows, fruit loops, orange peels and dried cranberries loads are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Many farmers are taking these loads and mixing it with the feed that they have as an added source for sugar content that is traditionally provided through corn. For cattle farmers, feed is often the largest input costs for operators. While, feeding alternatives to cattle might have been the saviour, some resellers have capitalized on this new and emerging market and have tied the prices to match the price of corn.

Livestock nutritionists caution farmers to ensure that their animals are receiving enough healthy nutrients. Luckily, for cattle producers ruminant animals can safely consume a variety of feedstuffs. Some of the other more common feed alternatives that some farmers have resorted to are cottonseed hulls, rice products, potato products, wheat middlings and peanut pellets.

Video: Is China Buying US Soybeans + USDA Nov 14th Crop Report could be “Game Changing”

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12 MMT of U.S. soybean purchases by China by year-end is better than 0 but we all need to give it more time and give it a chance to unfold. China did lower the tariffs on Ag and is buying U.S. wheat and sorghum.
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U.S. government shutdown is now the longest in history at 38 days.
But despite a U.S. government shutdown we will be getting a USDA November crop report next Friday and it could be “game changing.” If the USDA provides a bullish surprise with lower U.S. corn and soybean yields and ending stocks that are lower than expected both corn and soybean futures will break out above their ceilings at $4.35/bu and $11.35/bu respectively.
The funds continued their selling in live and feeder cattle futures on continued fears that the Trump administration want to lower U.S. beef prices. The fundamentals have not changed, only market psychology has.
Stocks markets continue to worry about a weak U.S. job market, but you can blame ChatGPT for that. In the future, we will have a more efficient, productive and growing economy with a higher unemployment rate until we have more skilled AI workers.
After 34 new record highs in the S & P 500 and 124 new records in the NASDAQ in 2025 we are back to a correction and investor profit taking as AI valuations may have gotten too stretched near-term ahead of NVDA’s 3rd quarter earnings announcement on Nov. 19th. But this is not an AI bubble.
75% of Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk!
It has rained in South America in the last 7 days, but both the American and European models agree that Central Brazil remains dry in the next 14-days!

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