soaked whole corn

Oshbrg · #1 11/20/05, 09:25 PM

As of right now I do not have any beef cattle. However I do hope to get the barn built in spring and have a couple shortly there after. They will be on pasture most of their lives, but would like to finish on corn for better marbeling. I was talking to a guy who raises beef cattle for a living and he is getting spent corn kernels from the local ethenal plant. It got me thinking. Could you feed cattle whole kernel corn that had been soaked in water for a day or two instead of cracked corn? It would sure help me out. I will have plenty of corn, but getting it to the mill to get cracked will be difficult. I know people do it with hogs, but with the way a cows digestive system is so much different, I worried it might not be a good idea. What do you all think?

Mike

Alice In TX/MO · #2 11/20/05, 09:36 PM

I would be curious about the processing the corn has undergone.

(added later)

From what I found on a Google search, most corn is ground before being used for ethanol production.

Wonder what is happening with the corn that dude is getting???

When we fed out calves, the large particles of cracked corn are very obvious in their droppings. I don't think whole corn will digest well at all.

Oshbrg · #3 11/21/05, 08:19 AM

Rose: We have a couple of ethenal plants around here and lots of people.. even dairy people are using the spent kernels from those plants. Aparently, the process or making ethenal just takes the sugars out of the corn, leaving all the other stuff behind as waste. Its cheap, but you have to buy by the semi truck load. I don't plan on having enough cattle to eat that much!!

Ronney: I did consider running them all the way through on pasture. I talked to a few people who did that and didn't get the best results on meat quaulity. Maybe it was the breed. I think they were raising holsteins. Which by the way would be the easiest for me to get since there is a dairy farm right next door and the owner still owes me for the rent of one of my fields this past summer.

As far as the barn goes... not a problem with the powers that be. I had a house built this year and got permits to put in a large shed and small barn right away. Just ran out of long days to work on it. I did get the foundations in though.

Mike

unioncreek · #4 11/21/05, 09:19 AM

You will find that cattle will fatten very well on whole corn. The extra money that it costs to process the corn costs more than the benefit you receive in feed value. We always feed whole kernel corn and can are very effecient at using it. Soaking it wouldn't hurt and they may be able to digest more of it.

Bobg

tinknal · #5 11/21/05, 04:01 PM

There are several good whole corn feed programs around, Doboy tenderlean is one. A few kernals in the manure is nothing to wory about, as the cow will extract much of the feed value. Spent grain from ethonal production will be high in protien, but low on energy (carbs), and I wouldn't recomend it for finishing.

james dilley · #6 11/21/05, 05:14 PM

We have had good luck feeding it if you let it soak for about a week till it begins to sprout. That way the corn is easier to digest, there is very little grain wasted this way.It also is great for hogs, but mix it with A small amount of cottenseed meal, to improve protien content..

mamagoose · #7 11/21/05, 06:06 PM

The last two beef we put in the freezer were 1/2 Hereford 1/2 Shorthorn. They were fed out on grass with 1 scoop of mixed grain a day. Same sweet feed we feed our goats. There is plenty of fat and marbling and the taste is very good. Our next homegrown beef will be Elsie's and that won't be for 2 years. She is 1/2 Jersey 1/2 Angus and bred (I hope) to a mixed Angus beef bull. We fed the show steers 5 gallon buckets of grain, but never ate one. They had much more exterior fat than our freezer beef and graded choice, but personally, I can cook/tenderize my meat without all that fat. I am considering breeding Elsie to an exotic breed that supposedly has a tender gene.

JeffNY · #8 11/21/05, 09:28 PM

Sold a beef steer in October, he was finished on corn meal and grass silage and a little bit of hay. The place that butchered him said it was really good looking meat with a nice fat layer on it. The people who bought him said it was really good, and my uncle who usually doesn't eat steak said he liked it. Corn meal is inexpensive feed, it gives energy and coupled with feed it is extra to a beef steer. He put on 3lbs a day from August to butchering time. He was around 1200 or so.

Grass silage + Corn meal + Good hay is the trick IMO.

Jeff

Ken Scharabok · #9 11/22/05, 06:52 AM

Younger stock tend to better utilize whole kernel corn than older stock and heifers do a better job of it than steers. Older cows who's teeth have begun to wear away will not process kernels as efficiently as young to middle-age cows. If you did a kernel count, you should only find roughtly 25% intact kernels in the manure, the rest having been chewed up. If you gather some of the kernels from the manure you should find they will not sprout.

At one time it was a fairly standard practice to run feeder pigs in feedlots to utilize unprocessed corn. It was also found cow manure is an almost perfect vitamin and mineral supplement for hogs.

I have heard of folks who added whole kernel corn to feed solely for the benefit of having chickens spread the manure around for them. You should see my goose going through a fresh patty looking for the kernels.

If you want to experiment, take a cow patty with corn kernels in it, mix in water than then drain through a screen. Examine what is left. (The water makes excellent manure tea fertilizer for plants.)

As noted, cracking does help digestion, but paying to have it done usually offsets the additional feed value unless it is being done for dairy cattle in which the results show up in milk quantity and quality.

You will have to soak the corn for several days. Tried it one time and found about five days seems about right. I just used a six 5-gallon, plastic bucket system to where I filled one about 1/3rd full of corn and added water to about half way up the bucket. Next day same. Topped off with water to keep all kernels moist. On the 6th day, I would use any water drained from the first for the new one, topping off with fresh.

Just did it as an experiment with two heifer calves being weaned separately. Frankly, they seemed to prefer fresh over the soaked. However, that may be because the soaked corn was cold also. I found what appeared to be unprocessed kernels in the manure either way. As an off-shoot to this experiment if I gave my herd bull his choice he would almost always consume the soaked corn first. Thus, my assumption is soaking changes the taste enough to be noticed.

During the winter months the herd bull comes up around the house every couple of days as he knows I'm usually good for about a gallon of corn kernels. Noticed back out in the pasture the wild turkey flock would usually follow him around. Then realized they were waiting for him to take a dump.

One last note, my cousins in Croatia give their rabbits (including the ones in the growth pen) a whole ear of dried corn. When they have it down to the cob, they put in a new ear.