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Feeding Corn Stalks

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Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
I';m looking at stretching out my hay this winter as I'm going to me a little short. I can bale corn stalks behind a neighbors combine. Is there any feed value in them as I have only ever used them as bedding but I have heard they can be used as feed. Does anybody do this. Do you feed them in a seperate ring feeder or what. I would use them for beef cattle.

Thanks

Joe
 
I've seen guys round bale them, and feed them to cattle. I feed mine to goats. They LOVE the stuff and seem to get fat on them. They see me putting some into the feeder and they come running! I just use tractor tire feeders. They clean them up fast - they aren't in there long before they are devoured....
 
BETTER THAN EATING SNOWBALLS ,,,,
I HAV SEEN THIS IN BAILS BUT WHAT DO U DO?
HAVE TO MOW DOWN THE STALKS FIRST AFTER PICKING CORN? SEEM LIKE IT WOULD BE HARD ON THE BAILER
 
There are several guys in my area that have done this for the last few years. Most use a flail shreader before they bale them up. They can be pretty hard on a baler and have been known to start a baler or two on fire. That being said, if done correctly, they can provide good nutrition and really help stretch your hay. As far as feeding, it is pretty much up to you and your equipment. I fed some a few years back using a bale processor which worked pretty well. I would imagine that you could unroll them with a 3pt bale unroller with pretty good success as well. Most of the guys around here grind them and mix it in with their feed rations. Here lately there have been quite a few that mix it in with wet distillers grain for their feeding operations. If you're planning on baling them up,I would recommend going through your baler making sure everything is greased and all the bearings are in good shape.
 
We used to do it and ground it up with hay. Makes wonderful chew for the cows, especially with molasses added.
 
As others have said, they beat a snow ball and cows don't do too bad on them. There was alot of cows include'n mine round here last winter that made it through with them. I would not feed just stalks for a long time, what I have always done with bad hay is feed two good ones and one bad one. Last year was the first time in years that alot of people here put up stalks and we all learned alot. Some balers like the bush hogged, mine did not. I had to cut them down with a disk mower. Use net wrap if you can or move them as close as you can to where they are going to be fed asap before they get rained on.

Stalks are better if you can get them befor they are rained on. If you can try to find some places in the field that have crabgrass in it. A mix of stalks and crabgrass will bale better and be better for you cows too. Crabgrass will cure quick.

If you can work out something with the neighbor, I have found its alot cheaper and quicker to put up a hot wire around a corn field than to try to bale the stalks. Just an idea.

Goodl luck,

Dave
 
If you can grind them they'll eat every bit of them. Pretty good protein and with a little Loomix Liquid Feed they'll get fat on them. Some round balers don't like to bale them though.

Jim
 
We tried a little experiment with our left over sweet corn. It was still green, 8 feet high, and with a lot of cobs left. Mowed it down with the discbine with flail conditioner(beat most of the cobs off) side raked it up with old ground drive bar rake to clean up the cobs and round baled it for silage. Interesting to bale (hard core, 848 New Holland chain and bar baler)had to leave it spinning for a bit at end to pound stalks flat. Lots of plastic (8 layers) to wrap and heavy. Tipped over the wrapper when loading. 4'x5' bale is in the 2600 pound range at least. Let you know how the feeding goes this winter. I think I'll need the big loader for feeding them out, heavy stuff.
 
You can chop them with a greenchopper (flail chopper) and feed them that way till the snow covers them. If you can store them inside if you bale them they will eat them better. After they get rained on they wont eat them as well. We used to greenchop them with a flail chopper when it froze till we could go back to the sudan grass or alfalfa.
 
Done all the time here only without handling the stalks in any way.

Just run a hot wire around the field, turn 'em in and those old cows will slick 'er up right down to the dirt.

Have to make sure that they have access to water.

Allan
 
another option -

was reading a 1930's circa gov't publication about turning the corn stalks into silage -

I use a bar rake - rake a couple swaths of standing corn stalks together - then use the hay pickup and run them through the silage cutter - tha part works pretty good

before i was always trying to keep them as dry hay - i made a large pile of dry stuff like a silage pile (no packing necessary since u aren't trying to get the air out - then i covered it with plastic to see if it would keep over winter - it did pretty good, but my well fed animals didn't really like the stuff - even though a lot of it was as good as the day i put it there -

so next I am going back to try to make it ensile - it has advantages - you can go sooner after they combine - start earlier in the day - go longer in the evening - going to harvest the same way - make it into a silage pile - add water to get back to atleast 50% to 60% moisture or so - pack it and see how that goes.....
 
Have been growing a large garden load of sweetcorn. Far more than I need. Excess - stalks, leaves ears get cut and fed to our Shetland sheep. They love 'em. Eat everything.
Seems like good food, and they stay in good condition. We do also feed hay, but cut back when using corn.
 
When working for the neighbor in the late 70's, he had a Hesston stack hand 10. We would mow close to the ground with a bush hog, rake and stack with the stackhand 10. Some fields that had a lot of Bermuda would be square baled. These square bales would weigh 100 lbs.
 
Nothing wrong with feeding cornstalks. Just have them tested for nitrates. If they test too high, it may abort pregnant cattle. Also make sure that you supplement something with good protien, since hay stalks are short in the protien.
 
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