MAY

It has been an extraordinary way of living during the last 6 weeks!  For some of us, there has been more Family Time which is good but for others responding in the first line against the Covid Virus, there has been less time with their family for them.  Although, we are so fortunate to be living in rural settings as opposed to the big cities where the virus has thrived and taken so many lives.

Hopefully the curve will be on a steady down-turn and life can get back to normal.

For now, we are open for business at our front door until further notice.

GARDENING 

The potatoes and onions finally arrived but they sold fast and in record time this year.  We received 49 bags total of 50 lb bags of potatoes.  Between customers picking up their pre-ordered bags the first week and customers purchasing smaller quantities from the McBrayne stock during the first and second week of receiving them at McBraynes, everything sold over two weeks maximum!  Dutch Sets in a 50 lb bag all sold within a week along with 50 lb bag of Spanish sets that sold out in 2 weeks!  It is unbelievable how fast everything sold this year.   It is either people have more time while at home maybe wondering what to do next since they can not go to work or more people are planting gardens this year to help continue being out of grocery stores.

     In stock we now have the 250 gram size for Green Beans, Yellow Beans, Peas, and varieties of Sweet Corn.

The OSC company we order our seeds from do claim their sales have really picked up.  As a result, it took longer for our order to arrive.

Do not forget, we do have a display of small packets of seeds

CHICK DAYS

The orders are continuing at record strength!

The Hatchery has told us they are filling their incubators at maximum level to keep ahead of all the orders.

Next delivery date that we are sending orders is June 9. 

May 19 delivery is SOLD OUT now.

The hatchery is really stressing that orders should be placedfor chicks no later than the date they show for a given delivery date for Day-Old Chicks.  Then they make their plans for setting up the incubators for specific breeds.

CHICKS     

ie  Order By:   Monday May 4              Delivery: June 9

     Order by    Monday May 25            Delivery: June 30

     Order by:   Monday, June 29        Delivery: August 4

     Order by:   Wednesday, Aug 5      Delivery: Sept 9

• To make it easier for everyone – Plan carefully the number of chicks you want to order. Late add-ons may be sold out.
• Add-ons or changes only cause for more chance of errors.
• Beak Treat has been stopped because they do not have time to do the procedure on the beaks.
• If you need to cancel your order, be sure to let us know as soon as you can.

 Next deliveries of day-old birds and turkeys are:

                                     May 19, June 9, June 30  

                                    August 4 and September 9

If you are wanting Muscovy ducks, they will be delivered during the three deliveries shown above until June 30.      After that date, there will no more ducks available until the Year 2021. 

Ready-to-Lay Update   

The Ready-to-Lay birds are selling faster than anticipated.  Next delivery of RTL birds is June 30 but there have been many orders that came in during the middle of April that were either cancelled or moved to the September 9 Delivery.  The Hatchery supplies RTL Birds within various delivery locations that require orders to spread out.  If you did not hear from McBrayne’s about your RTL order, then so far, so good.

      RTL are Sold Out for June 30^th

The last delivery date for Ready-to-Lay birds is Wednesday, September 9^th.

Remember to order early by putting your order in TODAY, Do not wait to order RTL birds later as suggested by the “Order By Date” in the Welcome Letter. The supply this year has gone really quickly!

The Hatchery has informed us that if RTL orders do come early, there still could be a chance they will not be able to guarantee the order when they are filling orders for other mills and locations.  Their suggestion this year is to consider starting the ISA Brown Hybrid Chicks from June 9 if you do not have birds coming already for May 19. 

The time line for 19 weeks would be:

• May 19 purchase. Chick matures for RTL by Sept 29
• June 9 purchase. Chick matures for RTL by Oct 20.

It is something to seriously consider especially this year.        

     Each one of us has an opinion of the Covid19 pandemic but no one can disagree that it has caused major disruptions in our normal lives.  We are doing our best to continue to meet your expectations from a safe distance.  Both Rich and I are available by phone, text and email though we are not directly calling on any producers at this time.  Prayerfully, that will become a reality sooner rather than later although we do not wish to prematurely resume our normal activities until we are assured that it is safe to do so.

     Both the Swine and Dairy teams have been hosting weekly online producer Webinars as Rich mentioned in his portion of the newsletter.  We have done so for the past several weeks with the intention of presenting pertinent information to you from a distance.  We hope that you are finding them interesting and informative to watch.

     I have a Feed Inventory calculation spreadsheet at my disposal to determine the capacity of your tower or bunk silos.  All I need from you are their dimensions and the dry-matter content of your ingredients.

     The soymeal price decreased $46/tonne from the first to the last day of April.  Currently it is the same price it was on March 2^nd.  The supply of DDGS remains tight because of the continuing weak demand for ethanol in fuel.  So too the price continues to remain comparatively strong. 

     None of our feed products are being featured this month.

  RICH’S REMARKS

Ontario Pork’s report on April 29, 2020 states that the 100% formula price was $127.76/ckg DW.  This is down $41.94 since last month’s newsletter.  The CME price was $ 50.74 which is down $5.67 from last month’s newsletter.  

OMAFRA’s Ontario Market Hog Price Trend Sheet is not being produced right now.  Therefore I have looked at the futures numbers from Ontario Pork’s report on April 29 and calculated out the 100% formula prices for June to be $141.73, July $152.05, August $160.83 and October $149.82.  These are significantly lower from last month’s newsletter. 

Shur-Gain/Trouw Nutrition’s Swine Team has been hosting producer webinars online on Wednesday afternoons.  So far we have talked about Nursery Pig Nutrition, Nursery Barn Management Tips, Commodity and Co Products Markets, How Commodities and Co Products are used in feed, Sow Nutrition and Sow Barn Management tips.  If you were unable to attend these webinars and would like to see the information, please contact Carl or myself and we will get you the information.

Upcoming Events

CANCELLED June 17^th – 18^th – Ontario Pork Congress

Upcoming Events

• For Sale in early May: 

          25 weaned fall heifer calves.

    Shorthorn sire/500-600 pound weight range.