It's my understanding that cattle don't digest shelled corn very well. The cracked corn I've bought has a lot of shell corn in it and I can see it in the cow piles. I also notice a lot more crows in my pasture fields when I feed the partially cracked corn and I'm not happy with that.
I can remember my parents going to the freezer locker they rented to store the meat they bought from my grandfather. This was back in the 50's in Cedarville, Ohio.