UkPigeonRacing

Hello Neil, I do think due to adverse weather conditions over the last 3 years or so that a lot of crops have failed when planted by farmers e.g barley, wheat, beans etc even if planted have rotted & failed to germinate.
So I think a lot of home grown feed would actually be a poor yield & so go in to animal feed.
The price will always be dictated by how good the crop is in relation to the cost to plant it & if it ends up in animal feed I would say it's borderline as if the farmer makes any profit which in turn they may well have to diversify & move to other crops in the future .
So in answer to you the cost I think will stay high unfortunately, I pay about £16 for breeding mix , barley I can get for £6 a bag local farm, yes it not as good as say Gem's barley, I appreciate like you said about the ear's but you pay your money & take a chance.

The price of corn has increased year on year and will continue to do so even farm sourced, there has always been a premium for branded corn.
The only way to deal with this on a fixed income is to reduce the number of birds kept, who knows it could even improve the quality of those that are left.