Chicken stimulus?

"Before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say I'll paint your house." ~Sue Lowden, Nevada GOP candidate for Senate.

Now, just about everybody is pecking fun at Ms. Lowden because of her barter plan to solve the health financing crisis facing many American families. For her part, Ms. Lowden doesn't think it is a yoke and is standing by her alternative plan for health care reform. A plan that is both creative and old-timey.

Now as even a dumb cluck can figure out, this is great news for Shenandoah Valley poultry farmers... health care solved for them! They can visit the doctor every day! Those farmers who are entrepreneurs (and don't need all their extra birds) will raise chickens for city folks' bartering needs. There will be new markets for chicken coops, for cages for transporting chickens, and for pluckers. Which breed is worth more more... a White Leghorn, a Rhode Island Red, or a Delaware Blue Hen?

But wait, there are opportunities for suburbanites and apartment dwellers alike to raise chickens and, in effect, print their own money to pay for health care. Always light years ahead of national politics, the debate about backyard chickens hit Harrisonburg one year ago. I'm sure Sue Lowden can expect out-of-state donations from the big birds of both commercial poultry as well as those with backyard coops. Does she take barter instead of cash for campaign donations? I've got some cracked corn and extra poultry litter that makes great fertilizer.

Where does all this chicken in every pot talk leave turkeys? Pigs? Goats? Can they cash in on the new health care for barter craze? Only time will tell. And that's no bull.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: To take flight... doctor visits are the last time any bird will cross the road.

Good Eggs - Bad Eggs

Governor Tim Kaine announced that Westport Corp. will invest $3 million to open an assembly plant in Roanoke. They will take over the 200,000 square foot Smurf-it building to build axles for the Volvo Heavy Truck Plant in Dublin. VA bested WV in competition for the plant that will create 60 jobs. Cock-a-doodle-do!

Corn prices are described as the "silent killer" for the poultry industry which is so important to the economy of the central Shenandoah Valley. Feed makes up 70% of the cost of producing chickens and turkeys. Corn prices have gone from $4.60/bushel at the first of the year to nearly $8.00/bushel recently. Most analysts think the federal mandate for 15 billion gallons of grain-based ethanol is a major reason for the nearly doubling of price. So, in addition to your morning bowl of corn flakes, you can expect to see prices rising for chicken, turkey, and beef too. Thanks Congress and President Bush. CCC has posted on this previously - the basic analysis stands.

The increase in feed prices could lead to job losses. Pilgrim's Pride in Broadway has cut back on egg placements by 5% and they closed a NC plant and let go 1,100 employees.

Coarse cracked corn used to be the low cost ingredient in cheap wild bird food - no more. Gimme some thistle seed.

Cheep.