Corn?

What are you going to feed the corn to? If cattle, pick it and have it ground up, shuck and all, and add a little cottonseed meal or soybean meal for protein. If feeding chickens, shuck the corn as you pick it and leave the shucks in the field. Store the ears in a rat proof place, if possible. Shell corn as needed to feed chickens. Small chicks can't eat big grains of corn. I have an old hand sheller that takes one ear at a time, which we used when I was a boy. I now shell corn and hand grind it for corn meal and grits.

Corm can be shelled by hand but it is a slow process unless you get a variety that is easy to shell. I have pencil cob corn which has tiny cobs and long grains and is easy to shell. the down side is that it has thick shucks which resist the birds somewhat but is slow to shuck.

Planting an acre of corn by hand can be done but it is slow. I once had a two row corn planter but found that for the small garden I could plant by hand in less than the amount of time it took to hitch up the planter. Cultivating the corn is the big problem. I've never sprayed for grass and weeds, the equipment costs and the time involved plus the technical aspect of figuring the spray rates is a deterrant. If a tractor is avaliable with one or two cultivators that solves half the problem, but you still have to hoe along the row, one time. the only other method is to use a garden tiller, which is more work than using a mule and plow. (Yes,I have done both)

Picking the corn by hand by the methods described by other posters is not that big a deal for just one acre. It's a lot easier than picking cotton and I have done that too.

What drove me batty about garden corn was deer and raccoons. I finally more or less solved that problem with an electric fence, and pick corn before the crows get to it. Shooting one crow and hanging it up near the garden works for crows, but you still need to pick the corn ASAP.

COWS

It was a stationary hammer mill with the flat belt but was not that hard to move. Two men could handle it to get it on the back of a pickup. If I had to chose one piece of equipment over the other I would rather have the hammer mill than a corn picker. Just thought I would throw that in. That is if you had a tractor with a belt pulley.

Bellcow

We have a neighbor who grows a couple of acres or so of corn just to burn in his outdoor boiler. It heats his pole barn concrete floor.

It must have been a small hammermill. I think it would be possible for 2 men to pick up my Wetmore hammermill and move it, but I think they would grunt to pick up dads old MW or Sears hammermill and move it, as it was a full size one that was around between 12 and 16in wide.

I thought this was mentioned in this thread already... chopped silage is still widely used on dairy farms... my neighbors do it. yes of course its green...

Yup Beets I can go through it easy with that sheller. That very old two hole corn sheller also has a hand crank and it is easy to crank because that sheller has roller bearings. I have two like that then two slightly newer ones. One is a single hole and the other is a two hole sheller. Both are the wooden ones with no bearings. They just have a steel shaft going through a cast iron hole with a place to drop some oil on it.

We are making feed for our hog and chickens, main thought is hogs though. We have access to a 4 row planter so we wont be doing it by hand. We also have a one hole hand crank sheller. We know it will be a lot of work but we really want to try it. It is not going to save us a ton but money is money!

I don't know about the US but here in Denmark it's what all cows are fed all winter. it's made with either grass, or around here maize (corn) we can't grow it to ripeness not a long enough summer, but it gets to 6ft or so and is then mown down, chipped and heaped up in huge piles straight onto the field under black plastic to ferment.

Nope actually disappointingly small but 80,000 seeds Mostly Pioneer but some DeKalb too.

I'd look at something less labor Intensive and possibly with more earning ability.

Raise that and sell, buy the corn you need.

If I can make 20 and hour, but need something done that I don't have tools or I am not proficient at, and it would take me twice the time of some one who is, thats willing to do it for that same 20 or better yet half... well I'll go make my 20 and pay them. I'm at least 20 dollars ahead.

Roundup.

Or you might want to try the trinity better known as the Three sisters.
Corn, Beans, and pumpkins/squash.

For a commercial operation, I don't think it would work but for a small patch, its how the Natives did it.

I would think though the pumkins would be all you would need to discourage the weeds, they cover the ground pretty well.

If I can do what another can for $20 I will do it myself. Here is why -

First I have already paid tax on the $20. So it is not really $20. It is much more.

Secondly if I do it myself I pay no tax and keep that extra I pay in taxes. It is more like making something close to $30 in real spendable income.

No I will not work just to pay someone else for what I can do instead of watching TV. There is not much TV in my life any more since I do not live in the city. I do try an make an effort to watch football in the fall. It does not get in the way of an auction though.

About moving the hammer mill, the mill was mounted on two 4x4s and they would tip it over on the end that you fed corn into and back the truck up to the mill and then set it back on the 4x4s that were now laying part way in the pickup and shove it on the truck. This was an old Case model with about a 10 or 12 inch wide screen. The mill is gone now but I do have two of the screen I could go measure.
Now what we did to shell corn that was pulled by hand was pull the all crop 66 out and flip the top canvas up, put a wooden panel in so that the corn would not fall down the front apron and shovel ears of corn into the all crop. You could shell a pickup load of corn in no time. Then grind the shelled corn for the pigs? An all crop is a fairly handy peace of equipment to have on a small farm today.
Anyway back to your original question to pull 1 acre of corn by hand, 1 acre would be no problem in my opinion.

Your not making any money watching football unless your a ref or announcer...

I did not say I could not do it but if I can make more money with less effort vs more effort and less to show...

If its a wash then it does not matter.

If I got nothing better to do well does not matter.

I only watch a few shows, the walking dead,Justified,the 100, and hell on wheels.

Also wanted to point out that grinding dry corn or eared corn is different than cutting silage. Knowing how a hammer mill operates I don't think green corn stalks would work in a hammer mill. A hammer mill is based off of dry dust or material operation. Silage copper is not.

Bellcow

I keep returning to this thread to read all of the replies. We want to do the same thing, just a bit smaller do to space. Our plan is only 1/4 acre or so of corn. I keep watching auctions for an old sheller, and possibly a hammer mill or grinder.
There is no way we can produce all of our feed for our pigs and chickens, but i like the idea of doing some.
In colder months I always add some cracked corn in with my chicken feed. It's like candy to the birds. In the summer we add some to the pig feed as well. Every year I grow a bunch of giant sunflowers. My daughter likes them and likes watching the birds that come in to eat them.
I save a lot and throw to the chickens as a treat so I figure I can add sunflower seeds to cracked corn and have a nice suppliment to their regular feed all winter.

Dixie, I posted bout a sheller on Smokstak a month ago for CHEAP. You shoulda got it.

BC, Like you, I got the screens to dads old HM. He never used them after he put in the one to grind corn. I imagine he forgot them when he sold or junked it out after a hammer came loose and slit the pipe 1/2 way up. I don't remember him greasing it, tho I suppose he might have. I know he and granddad never oiled the sheller, and it finally went to heck. I saved the handle, and put it on something I no longer have. They never hardly used the drill press, but they never oiled it either to my knowledge other than to put a squirt of oil over the gears. It and the sheller likely belonged to my grandmoms first husband who was killed at the farm.

Looking back everything on the farm started to change in 1968. The hay baler went from a #55 international toa 268 new Holland the next year the JD1530 replaced the case dc 3, the next year the gehl 95 portable feed mill replaced the hammer mill, then the used JD 45 replaced the ford mounted corn picker that was on ànother uncles 1962 ford 2000. The corn picker was purchased in about 1966 but I don't think you could call it a labor saving device after you unloaded a wagon load of corn. They all just planted more corn so when we got home from school you knew there was a wagon load of corn waiting. Then in the late eighties it seem like everything took another leap forward in technology. Anyway the hammer mill was hauled off after it had set unnoticed for about 25 years. The screens were left in a old barn and I recognized what they were and brought them home. I knew they would look good with all the other junk I've got. I reckon It was more like the late sixties when everything changed.

Bellcow

I wouold agree with you on the timing therebouts. Dads sister died and left a buncha money. Dad got a share and mom made him pay off the place. With what was left from that, and the $500 he saved every year from not having to make Land Bank Payments, $200 principal and $300 interest on the original note of $8000 they had made in the 40s he was able to do more changing around of stuff.

You have to weigh the opportunity cost of that acre of corn. What could you do with that acre or the time invested into that acre of corn on other activities on your farm, might those activities return more to the farm compared to the return to the work on the corn.

Given the relatively cheap price of corn were I in your shoes I'd buy the corn from a neighbor and use that acre for something else.