cracked corn vs whole corn (storage)??

Wife came back from the feed store the other day without the corn I asked her to pick up. Guy there treid to sell her cracked corn at more than twice the price of whole corn. Told her that she needed to buy a week at a time on the day they cracked it because it'd loose feed value in storage.
Honestly, If I buy 200 pounds of corn, take them home and put one in a sealed container (not airtight, but rodent proof covered barrel) as whole corn and run the other one thru the rolls & crack it before putting in the same type container, am I gonna loose significant feed value?

Thanks, Dave

When I feed corn, I crack it and store it until it's
time to get more. When feeding it to cows, a lot of
whole corn passes through. I figure that the loss in
"value" by going whole is lost in the feeding.
Chickens crack it themselves, but I mix other things
into it as I grind it, so any loss is made up. It's
all in what you WANT to do. At 200#, you aren't
going to lose much nutritional value before you use
it up.

(quoted from post at 05:56:55 03/12/12) When I feed corn, I crack it and store it until it's
time to get more. When feeding it to cows, a lot of
whole corn passes through. I figure that the loss in
"value" by going whole is lost in the feeding.
Chickens crack it themselves, but I mix other things
into it as I grind it, so any loss is made up. It's
all in what you WANT to do. At 200#, you aren't
going to lose much nutritional value before you use
it up.

Click to expand...

Thought so.... I have my own press, just have to change the settings for cracking corn or rolling oats or barley. Corn takes the longest (little over an hour for 50kg) so I like to do get 2 bags and spend an evening in the feed room with a few beers and brushing the dogs while it runs thru. Then set it back and the wife rolls the oats/barley as needed or I do it once a week for her.

I would go to another feed store. This one tried to take advantage of your wife. Ground feed will not store as long as cracked but we are talking months difference not days. Clean dry shelled corn will store for years if kept at the same moisture. Cracked or ground corn will usually store for six months or so with out any issues. As far as nutritional value it would not change much either.

Many feed stores and feed salesman try to gimmick their way into higher sales. They know many people that have livestock today did not grow up around livestock. So the customer has little real world experience with feed issues. One local feed store had a whole bunch of horse people buying "special" horse feed a few years ago. All it was is rolled corn and oats with a lot of molasses added to it. They actually where using low test weight corn in the feed but they knew that with the amount of molasses they where adding that the horses would eat it and would still gain weight. What they really where getting away with was selling a $150 per ton feed for over $300. They had suckered my SIL in with it. I sent it into Iowa state for a feed anallise it did match the label as far as nutritional value. I also sent a sample of some I made rolling oats and high test weight corn plus molasses. The sample I made was several point higher in protein and fiber both. I figured market cost on the corn, oats, and molasses. The feed store was doubling their money.

Any bird pigeon size or largercan eat the whole corn. Either free range em or provide grit.