corn

24/7chickens · **Joined:** Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:22 am **Posts:** 3

How do chooks handle raw corn on the cob and how many can I give em a day?

Roova · **Posted:** Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:04 pm

Mine chooks and ducks love fresh corn on the cob over anything else!. I normally chop it in to small pieces so they can each run off with their own piece.

Most treats should only be given a couple of times a week - you don't want them eating so many treats they don't eat their commercial food (which will help keep them healthy).

24/7chickens · **Joined:** Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:22 am **Posts:** 3

My chooks thank you I have a heap of home grown corn and the kids are sick of corn

Rhode Red · **Posted:** Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:35 pm

24/7chickens,

While not recommended as a staple of the diet these days thanks the the commercial rations.

As a child my grandfather grew corn for the livestock, cows, pigs and poultry (turkeys, ducks and fowls) on the farm. Once the corn was past the milkdow stage (when we eat sweet corn), we would pick cobs of corn and using an axe cut the cobs up to feed the birds in the morning prior to being let out to free range all day. The corn when ripe was harvested and husked by hand and shelled in a two row sheller (hard work), this was the poultry's primary food source. Even the chickens had cracked corn. We pruchased very little wheat, or pellets, generally only when the corn was finished or full of weavels before the next crop was ready.
I can tell you the yolks of the eggs were almost orange not pale yellow like some commercial eggs.

I like to use corn, yes on the cob when I get it. It keeps the birds busy, if they don't want it they can always walk away, and they do.

Provided you provide a commercial mix the hens will self regulate their diet.

Rhode Red.

24/7chickens · **Joined:** Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:22 am **Posts:** 3

Oh yes I feed them mixed grain and lay pellets every day I just want to give them corn as a treat. Thanks for the advice

Sooksilkie · **Joined:** Tue Mar 01, 2011 6:32 am **Posts:** 1

Is it true you should give chickens much corn during summer because it heats them up?

Rhode Red · **Posted:** Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:02 pm

Yes it is true, corn is a high energy food that as a by product of digestion, produces heat. But like all good things, use in moderation. For us breeding yellow legged fowls, it is a good thing, with helping to add colour to the legs and skin. It also helps to colour the yolks of your eggs.

parvo · **Joined:** Sat Jan 02, 2010 7:39 pm **Posts:** 735

Sorry, but I disagree.

No food actually increases a bird's core body temperature; corn is mostly just a carbohydrate- ie an energy source. The heat produced from the digestive process is minimal and will not overheat the bird. They produce far more heat from physical exertion eg running around than they ever will from digesting any food.

If you feed too much corn then it will replace other more balanced dietary items. The excess carbohydrates not used to produce energy will be stored as fat- and birds fed this way to fatten them up show this yellow fat.

So, as Rhode Red has said, corn really helps with yellow colouration, be it leg or yolk colour, and this has to do with the carotenoids found in corn. Other carotenoids are found in green, red and yellow vehetables.

Cheers

Parvo

mummaroo · **Posted:** Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:17 am

My husband Andrew grows corn every year for our poultry.He got the idea from my dad.He is 79 and still planting his crops for his poultry every year and always has his whole life since 13 when he became the man of the house.We have just harvested it about 2 weeks ago.Then we husk it by hand and it goes through a process to take the corn of the cob and goes through a hammer mill to break it up.We do keep some on the cob for them also.Plymouth rocks really love the corn more than orpingtons.Once it has gone through the hammer mill it is mixed with wheat and chickpeas that went through the hammer mill and some sorghum and sunflower seeds we have also grown.We add some molasses and then orga it into a silo.This dose not see us out all year but it dose help.It is all time consuming,but everything you do is anyway no matter what.This time we grew red corn for a change to see how it goes.It gradually turns nearly black as it dry's.Andrew gets great satisfaction out of growing it.I hear about when it is to dry,when there is a problem with nutrition in the soil or smut in the corn,when it starts to tassels and then the tassels are ready.He just loves it.My poultry cant get enough of the mix we make.We also make a mix for the young chickens,its finer.

andre · **Joined:** Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:21 pm **Posts:** 612

Corn is absolutely fine in a balanced diet. Most of the US chicken industry is fed on a mix of corn and soybean meal (for protein). In Australia Sorghum is cheaper so tends to form the carbohydrate source. Pitty however that my chooks won't eat sorghum.

My chickens and turkeys are fed a diet that is based on corn gradings (the cracked and broken bits they grade out). Eggs have a wonderful orange yolk. I buy the gradings because I can get them for about $250 a tonne.

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