Harvesting our new, big, field, we got almost 71 thousand liters of sorghum on what measured to 5 hectares. We calculated that the harvest cost us $63.3 per hectares. Cheap compared to all the grains we harvested of course. But the harvester is naturally a lot more expensive vehicle than our use tractors, so it costs more to maintain and use considerable more fuel.
In total we now have 144159 liters of sorghum, and we have 9110 liters of barley left for the chickens. If we grow barley we can hopefully harvest in June, how much sorghum do I need to keep for chicken food?
The chickens seems to eat a bit less than 3000 liters a month. The pen is full with 500 chickens and all should be adults or close to now, so I'm guessing the food consumption doesn't go up a lot from here. For 10 months that's around 30000 liters. If I hang on to ~30.000 liters of sorghum I think I should have enough food.
Our mill can turn 15 liters of sorghum to 16 liters of flour, 960 times per month, thus it will consume 14400 liters per month. Flour prices are high in December, which is 4 months from now. By then we hopefully have turned 57600 liters of Sorghum into 61440 liters of flour to sell.
Hopefully, in December we'll be able to get a new tractor. We've been looking into the closest JD dealer around here, and we found the new 40 series.
It costs a lot of money, but it would be awesome. Hopefully it can pull our new and bigger equipment at full working speed as it's strong and we can get it as 4WD. It's also got a front PTO which may become useful. Hopefully also a better gear box. And of course, it's got a cab, decent lights for when it gets dark, a nice radio and a comfy seat.
Assuming we will need ~36.000 liters of chicken food per year, we can calculate how much grains we need to produce. Barley has the highest yield, thus sounds like the most efficient chicken food.
Assuming the chickens don't eat different amounts of different types of food, but I don't think that is the case.
Barley has a yield of 9600 liters/hectares. With a 95% yield bonus, that is 18720 liters/hectares. We should thus have enough chicken food from 2 hectares of barley. Field 6 & 8 is a bit more than 2 hectares in total. For the other fields, we have the option of producing something else, like for instance wheat or canola. We can make flour of wheat or oil of canola. We should try to run a little income analysis before deciding.
- If we go for wheat, we are likely to get 1.95 * 8900 = 17355 liters per hectares, which can become 13884 liters of flour. A good flour price of $835 is then $11593.
- For barley, we can get 18720 liters which will become 14352 liters of flour, to a price of 11984.
- Canola, we can get 11310 liters, which can become 5655 liters of canola oil, which can be sold for $2408 per 1000 liters if we get a good price. That is $13617. More than wheat and barley, but we don't get straw. 71760 liters of straw is worth around $4305 if we get a good price.
Thus, canola is simpler to harvest as we get less yield, and we don't have to handle a lot of straw. But the straw is actually worth enough that barley is likely more total return, and wheat slightly less.
Another thing to consider is that the mill can process 7200 liters of canola/month, or 14400 liters of barley or 12000 liters of wheat. Even with the lower canola yield, the mill will still use longer going through a hectares of canola, than a hectares of barley.
Thus, it sounds like we can just as well go barley all the way here to maximize profits.