Small scale corn growing for livestock?

10 acres....planted by hand! My back aches just thinking about it. I did 1/4 of an acre by hand this year and it was not easy. Next year I'll get a planter.

Wasn't as bad as it sounds.

You take six families, with the kids helping and the women putting together a potluck dinner, and planting or harvesting was done quicker than you think. Yes, it was still work, but it was kinda fun at the same time, crazy as that might sound...

Well, I'm having a problem with the information in this thread. I raise dairy goats and, if any mildew is in the corn and/or corn stalks, it will be harmful to them. So, my question is how would you "store" that corn so it won't mildew ... and so mice cannot get into it. (My goats won't eat anything with mice turds on it.)

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THis is my second year with OP corn. I have a dent variety. I put in 450 stalks. (It's for meal and chicken feed) The only issue I'm having is the wind. Last year this was not an issue, but this year YIKES! Here in KY the storms get pretty bad, just like the mid west and 75% of my corn blew down the other day. I spent an hour standing it back up. I should probably look for a shorter variety, but OP corn tends to have large stalks for fodder purposes. I only hoe between the rows once or twice, the corn tends to out grow any of the weeds. With OP corn I just save some of the nicest seeds and I don't have to rebuy. The corn is also tasty even though it's not sweet corn and it dries nice.

You might consider Sorghum Cane too.We use to cut it and Shock it.Seems it would be good for Cattle,Goats and chickens.

We have taken Corn,ground Cob and all mix Alfalfa Meal,Cottonseed Meal and Salt,fed to Cattle.

big rockpile

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On the average, how many bushes of whole ear corn does it take to get one bushel of kernels?

I bu. ear corn(shucked) weighs 72 lb. shell it and you will have 56 lb's. That is the way corn is measured by weight . That is at a certain % of moisture which escapes me memory.
To answer your question, I bushel of ear corn will make one bu. of shell corn,,

We keep ours in a gravity box in the machine shed. Just take what we need out.
Or in a cold area you can leave it on the field over winter and pick it as needed.
Most mills won't buy cob corn so around here it has to be shelled to sell to the mill but once it's shelled there are options.
1-sell for cash price
2-store till you need it
3-sell at board price and the mill puts the money on your account and you can buy stuff till it runs down.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

HOW IN THE SWELL CAN A BU OF EAR CORN, WHEN SHELLED OUT FILL A BU BASKET FULLA SHELLED CORN?????????? Ear corn takes up more space than shelled corn. U have the cobs to dispose of. I dont know, but id say a bu of ear corn would make round a 1/4 to 1/3 bu, depending on the quality of the corn. Bigger, fuller ears, would fill up more than stunted ears with corn too small for 2 or 3 inches the small end of the cob for the sheller to reach.

A regular bushel is 1.244 cu ft but when looking at ear corn the size is doubled...

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/crops/BushelsTestWeight.htm

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

I'm thinking this will not be a problem so much with Dent Corn,just put it in a Crib where it can get air.I'm also thinking if you feed it on the Cob the Goats will eat it and not have to worry about Mouse Turds.Plus they will spend more time feeding on it.

I don't know but I'm thinking this will work out better with Goats than Cattle and I've put Cows out with plenty of Ear Corn.But back years ago I guess we practised the KISS Method more.

big rockpile

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I love being married.Its so great to find that one person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.



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If I need a Friend
I go to the Rock!

In my area, 100 BPA should be a cake walk, given you have decent soil, and the corn isn't planted too late.

I applaud your efforts...I think you are being super resourceful in your growing of feed corn.

I'd be asking around for broken bags of seed corn, since you won't need a full bag.

I always thought a set of stock racks from an old 2 ton truck would make a dandy start on building a corn crib. They sell at estate/farm auctions around here for less than $20 fairly routinely.

Im building part of mine with pallets.

Say kernel corn would cost you $8 bushel. 100 bushel yield would then cost $800. Sit down and figure out all of your cost for grow your own, including something for your time.

Corn kernels are like little bullets - they'll often go straight through livestock without getting digested. Grain that's broken down - at least cracked and maybe finer - is much more digestable, and hence much more economical.

Hammer mills are relatively cheap, and they do a great job of reducing almost anything to a finer consistency. If you've got access to bones, limestone, dolomite or chalk, you can throw that in as well, and your animals will get a mineral supplement.

Grow field peas or beans one year. The legumes build up the soil nitrogen, which corn MUST HAVE to grow a decent crop. Harvest, thresh, then you can feed livestock the pea straw or bean trash, hammer-milled if you want to ensure greatest digestibility.

Next year, grow corn. ALL the crop is edible by something or other, stalks and all, particularly if it's gone through the hammer mill to break it up first. Shell some of it for people, pigs and poultry. Hammermill grain for the pigs and poultry.
Hammermill it all - stalks, leaves, cobs, husks, whole ears, the lot - for horses and ruminants (cows, goats, sheep).

So - you pick it two ways. Whole plant; and also just picking the ears, leaving the rest of the plant standing so you can turn the livestock in to graze on what's left. They won't make as much use of it as they could after it got hammermilled, but it won't cost you as much time and energy and storage space either - pretty much a wash.

most whole corn is digested even if it does look like whole kernels are passed through. The tough worthless outer layer is what is left, all the good stuff has been digested.
And if you are feeding goats, there is absolutely no reason to do anything to the corn at all except shell if you want to mix it with something.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/vi...=animalscinbcr

gives a nice look at the cost and gain of using whole vs cracked.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

There is quite a bit of food value left in whole cornkernels that have passed through a cow. It used to be a standard practice at one time to put shoats in the cattle feedlot and fatten them out on the manure. I think the ratio was one pig for each 10-12 head of cattle. I'm Old enough that I've seen it done in my earlier years. my chickens work the milk cows manure now a days, some more of their free range food.

I grow Leaming open pollinated corn. This year I planted three acres but everything got planted late because of rain and it's not doing so well. On top of that one field is filled with grass in the rows. I was able to cultivate the grass out between the rows but in the rows it's a mess, so much grass. I'm thinking of just not using that field for a year or two, plant some clover in it and maybe it will help keep down some of the grass for the future. What do you all think? It's just got so much grass that the corn has trouble getting the nitrogen it needs. I gotta get rid of all that grass somehow.

Youve got 2 options. Like you said, plant it to hay for a few years, or plow it up in spring and continually disc it all throughh spring summer fall, and then sow it to rye grass. Plow that under, and youll be good to go with corn. I did that with my big garden 90sq thereabouts. It had grown up so bad with Johnson Grass that I had hayed it a few years. I plowed it, and disced it a couple tiomes a week. It all died last year, and it hasnt come back this year tho JG is all around it