Mill dates & Mills

[mishellyshel]

all this talk about feed and milling food, i was curious, what is a good mill date to go by. or basically how "old" of a mill date is acceptable.

last month i bought a 50lb bag of the PRSC at my feed store and the mill day was May 19, it was only 1 month milled. i thought that was great! as previoulsy i have purchased food milled 3 months out.

Other question....in the feed thread there was discussion of milled food. do many ranchers or whatever mill thier own food by creating the combination and using a joint mill. meaning does say shoots & ryersons (just an example) use the same mill but have a different blend? could they be using the same mill as say purina or mazuri? just curious. thought it was an interesting topic.

 

[Spoof]

Yes to the mills question - one mill can run hundreds of types of feeds for dozens of people and companies. That includes you - but most have a minimum of one ton. You can put whatever you want to buy into it. There was a time when I was getting the Purina Show that I would get a dozen or more elk pellets in each bag. At least they were huge and easy to pick out, but after talking to Purina about it, turns out they ran that feed before the rabbit.

On the mill date - I try not to pick up anything that will age more than six months by the time I've used it. I don't like to get stuff older than a couple months, but since it only takes me one month to use it I will sometimes accept bags that are three or four months out during the winter.

 

[tunes]

Six months here as well. Anything older than that I don't use. It doesn't instantly go bad at 6 months. Think of it more like a slow leakage of nutrients and vitamins as it gets older. Thankfully (?) I go through food too fast for this to ever be a problem.

I remember someone saying that Oxbow was good for a year. I don't believe that at all. Any manufacturer of chin food I've ever contacted (or pelleted food of any type for a small animal), said that 6 months is the furthest out they would recommend it.

 

[momenteller]

Can anyone tell me where to find the mill date on the Oxbow bag? All I can ever see is a "best by" date. Should I assume it was milled a year ago from that date?

 

[Sandi]

Can anyone tell me where to find the mill date on the Oxbow bag? All I can ever see is a "best by" date. Should I assume it was milled a year ago from that date?

Per a few people at Oxbow including a quality control manager, they have stated to me that the mill date is one year prior to the "best by" date on a 50 lb. bag of chinchilla deluxe pellets. I never asked about the 5 and 10 lb. bags that they sell at the store, so I'm not sure about those.

 

[momenteller]

Thanks Sandi. Guess I should have thought it through a little better before I wrote the question as the "best by" date on my bag is September of next year. I wonder if they are saying these 10 lb bags stay fresh for two years??? I'm guessing you really aren't going to agree with that, Tunes.

 

[tunes]

Nope, I don't. I wouldn't use it past the 6 month mark. I wouldn't feed it to my animals anyway.

 

[Sandi]

I wouldn't either, feed or sell past the 6 month mark. IMO, once I open a bag I want it gone asap. Every 50 lb. bag I get, I sell 90% of it in less than one month and leave the rest here for my boys.

 

[Spoof]

After six months the horse gets it. The hay itself will hold it's nutrients, but the added supplements all have short lives.

I'm sure Oxbow has done studies on it at one and two years of age to claim that it stays good. My question then is what type of preservatives are they using that allows it to have a shelf life like that?

 

[Essentia]

I was in Petsmart today and saw a bag of Mazuri that said it was good until 2013. It makes me sad as I am sure someone will purchase this food in 2012 and then wonder why their chins won't eat it.

 

[momenteller]

I called and left a message at Oxbow. Bob, their QA guy called me and left this message:

On the plastic bag 10 pounders, the best buy date reflects a two-year shelf life. On the 50 lb paper bags, we only do a one-year shelf life on those because the bag is much more permeable, so there is more of an exchange of oxygen and things that cause the vitamins to not hold up as well.

Do you think the packaging should factor in?

This means my food is now over 6 months old. I buy the bags from a reputable local feed store at only $12 for a 10 pound bag. I guess that means less money wasted...

 

[Sandi]

I've never seen the 10 lbs. bags of Oxbow by me, only the 5 lb. bags and those are $16.99. That is the main reason I got into ordering direct from them. That way I could request their freshest bag and it's usually within a couple of weeks to 1 month from the mill date.

 

[Linda]

Purina Mills has posted some data on shelf life. It's not all easy to read and some even shows increases over time, but they clearly also state six months is it for feeds. I can't imagine other mills' processes are significantly different, so the numbers are probably similar for all. And they emphasize the negative affects of high heat and high humidity on the food -- both of which will decrease the shelf life below six months.

You can go down and click on the rodent diet and the guinea pig diet for some details -- both of which are probably similar to rabbit or chinchilla foods.

http://www.labdiet.com/product_reference_shelflife.html

Linda

 

[mishellyshel]

Thanks for the info. Once I get my bag, I dump it into a plastic container plus it is in my basement which is freezing & has a dehumidifier running.