Feeding Sweet Corn

[Ken Scharabok]

Meant to post this a month or so ago.

During late summer I feed my cattle herd sweet corn stalks. I have several locals who will let me come and chop the corn out of their gardens. I have regulars and then I run a wanted ad: WANTED: Still green sweet corn stalks for cattle feed. Ken Scharabok, XXX-XXXX.

This year I really didn't need them as we have had lots of rain over the summer. Some dry years it has really helped to stretch the dry pasture.

During a rainy year I don't want to tell my sources I don't need them this year as they might not call me next year.

Feed out from two sources this AM. One from a garden which used NPK fertilizer. Other from a garden which used composted horse manure/straw. Checked a bit ago and the girls had eaten virtually all of the first, and just pulled the ears off of the second. I have to wonder if the horse manure didn't change the taste of the stalks and leaves. If it did, also wonder about the ears.

While the stalks provide some nutrition (and a change of diet) they also get turned into manure which is then deposited around the field.

I have been hauling for about a month and still have several more patches to cut.

[agmantoo]

Just a gut feeling, I think it may be retained odor on the stalks. For example, cattle will eat where chicken litter is spread but will shun some manures/urine using smell. I have to scatter the cattle manure in my rotational pastures to avoid clumps of forage/manure that they will refuse to eat.

[Ken Scharabok]

I would accept that explanation except he used composted horse manure, not cattle manure. In my pasture I've noticed it takes 2-3 years before they will graze where a manure patty was deposited.

At one time I was going to drag my pastures to scatter the patties. However, someone told me all I would be doing is making the entire pasture stink to them.

[sammyd]

run everything through a chipper/shredder and avoid these problems.

[Up North]

A resourceful use of waste vegetable biomass.
Hogs love 'em too :1pig::1pig:

[gone-a-milkin]

It is also possible that the cows were not as hungry after they had eaten the first corn stalks, therefore thy were just picking out the 'good stuff' off the 2nd batch.

Also, maybe they were different varieties of sweet corn? I have had the animals (goats & horses) get loose into my corn...they eat the sweetest tasting stuff first. Save the hominy corn and eat it last....if they still have time.

Even the age of the cornstalks would affect the yumminess of it.

I bet they cleaned it all up eventually though, right?

[Ken Scharabok]

No, they ate the remaining ears and a bit of the leaf but refuse the rest - even after the second lot (from the NPK fertilized garden) were completely gone. Sometimes they come up in the evening and check to see if anything is left edible. This they just walk past.

The donkeys won't eat it either.

Both batches of stalks were about the same size and age. NPK ones were peaches and cream. Didn't look what the horse-manure ones were.

I've been hauling sweet corn stalks for the girls for about ten years now. First time they have simply refused to eat a batch.