will too much sweet corn hurt them?

BarbadosSheep · #1 07/02/12, 09:40 AM

I am going to pick corn today. Lots and lots of it....I can get all I want. I am planning on canning a lot of it and giving as much of it away as I can, but how much can I feed to my two Dexters? I plan on giving them the cobs with corn removed, but also plenty of whole corn in the husk. Can I put excess corn in the shade somewhere and feed it to them over the next couple of weeks? Will that hurt anything? I know it will turn to starch but is that bad for cattle feed? Thanks!

sammyd · #2 07/02/12, 12:03 PM

when there was a cannery in the town where had our first farm, there was a sign up sheet a mile long to get the leftovers.
Then back in the very early 80's when the corn setaside program was on, you could get paid for every acre you did not plant to field corn. Many farmers were known to have signed up and then planted sweet corn instead.
We feed our cows any left over from the garden. We run it through the chipper shredder or an old forage chopper first though, then everything gets eaten. I would recommend that if you have lots of bare cobs.
I'm sure someone will say that any corn is bad for your animal but that's just crazy talk.
As with any change in their diet, start out slow, and work up to a good feeding.

goodhors · #3 07/02/12, 12:27 PM

As with any GOOD THING, you will want to limit the intake so they don't get sick over-eating. I am always rather cautionary on stuff like this, to prevent problems. I would say for Dexters, maybe feeding AM and PM, so they have a time to digest it would help.

And if these are adult Dexters, probably no more than half bushel total for both animals at a feeding. That would be a total of a bushel for the two, each day, plenty for smaller cattle. Starting with much less, half dozen ears each cow, is safer while they get used to it. Not sure your corn will last in good shape to feed, to reach the half bushel quantity at each feeding.

You probably will want to store the extra corn with husks on, inside a shady, breezy location, spread out so it can dry somewhat. You can't keep it for a month or more, in a newly picked, green condition anyway, without mold problems. So letting the corn dry by itself in the shade with air moving over it, is about the only way to preserve it for any length of time. Drying will lose some vitamins, but with husks on, cows will probably still enjoy eating it. I would open the ears before feeding to the cattle, checking cobs inside for mold. Moldy stuff is not good for the cattle, so you have to dispose of those ones.

Depending on your shady storage location, you may get real good drying of the cobs with husks, or they may go bad quickly. I don't think under shade trees is a good location, more sun than shade as it moves all day, hot for molds inside. Birds may get into them.

The cobs with no corn will probably rot before you can feed them all. I would just throw them out if not fed the same day you process the corn. Heat does terrible things to food products sitting around in the open air and hot sun. Pile of cobs with bugs walking on them will get maggots really quick in the heat. Kind of "handle the cobs once" while they are nice cobs, not literal garbage.

Sometimes you just can't use everything you can get for free! So frustrating.

BarbadosSheep · #4 07/02/12, 12:51 PM

thanks for the input. I sincerely appreciate it. It's hot here....REALLY hot. But I do have some good strong racks I can lay out in the shade under the trees to help the corn dry. Maybe I'll put a fan on it to help speed up the drying process. These dexters are young...a yearling and a 9 month old bull calf. I also have some sheep....perhaps they will enjoy the corn while it's fresh too. There is are quite a few acres of this corn, planted on a hunt club. He has already invited everyone he knows to help themselves and we got a lot of it last week but what's left (and there is a LOT left) is going to go bad. I hate to see it wasted like that. So I guess we will get all we can handle and give as much of it away to people who can use it. And the livestock will get the rest, spaced out so they don't make pigs of themselves.

poorboy · #5 07/02/12, 02:39 PM

through a chopper and store it in barrels with tite fitting lids or get those 55+ gal size trash bags and line the barrels then seal the bags,Ensilage, will keep thata way..Methinks

sammyd · #6 07/02/12, 09:35 PM

I would make trash bag silage with it. Silage is far more palatable than dry stover.