Corn Meal

[Jogeephus]

Has anyone ever fed corn meal? I have the chance to get some bulk corn meal for nothing and was thinking about using this instead of corn in a gravity feeder but I wonder about how well it would flow with our high humidity. Am wondering if I'd be better off mixing it with something to bulk it up some so it won't be so fine. Any thoughts?

 

[TexasBred]

If it's really fine ground it will bridge Joe and be pure he77 gettin' it out of the tank. Would help if it had some chopped corn in it.

 

[dun]

Besides the obvious possible problems, wind can play he77 with it when fed and it can cause some real fast issues with it being so rapidly digestible.

 

[Howdyjabo]

Depends on what you are feeding it to- and for what goal
But I would say unless you are just bait feeding with it you should mix it with something.

My first thought would be Corn Gluten feed

And I would also want to know why it was free--- does it have toxins that need to be diluted? If you are lucky its just bug infected-- which to me just raises its protein content :)

 

[Jogeephus]

It's not poisonous or anything like that. Just a grade thing. I suspected it would cake up or "bridge" and absorb lots of moisture. I guess I'll need to figure out something to mix it with. All I want to do is put a few calves on it to finish them quick like.

 

[Texas PaPaw]

Off the top of my head would consider something like 45% corn meal 45% corn gluten feed pellets & 10% cottonseed hulls. I use this mix with soy hulls instead of the corn meal. Calves do great on it. I get by just fine with 10% csh for roughage but 15% might be a little more forgiving when it comes to bloat, etc. Maybe 45% meal, 40% gluten and 15% csh would be better in your situation.

Just another 2 cents worth.

 

[Jogeephus]

Thanks. I can get peanut hulls cheap so I might look at cutting it back with that. I really just want to turn the fat cause the calves are basically already finished on grass but I'm not a big fan of the taste of grass finished beef.

 

[Howdyjabo]

You'll still need some protein from somewhere-- the hulls would give you the scratch
factor you need, IF they are not ground up.

whatever you do with it ramp it up slow-- ground corn meal is highly digestible and will hit them hard.

 

[TexasBred]

Thanks. I can get peanut hulls cheap so I might look at cutting it back with that. I really just want to turn the fat cause the calves are basically already finished on grass but I'm not a big fan of the taste of grass finished beef.

Still thinking about this....what kind of storage bin are you talking about Jogee?? Can you get something mixed into the corn at the point of origin or will you have to do some sort of mixing at the farm? (Just trying to visualize the situation).

 

[Jogeephus]

I can use a Jaylor tub grinder. I don't want to add hay to it cause I don't want it too fluffy. I need it to flow well out of a creep wagon. Thought I'd crack the gate just a little and let them creep it for a while then when they are used to it open it some more. I just don't want it caking up on me cause I can see where it could do this pretty easy with the moisture we have.

 

[dun]

A heavy rubber mallet works really good at breaking loose the bridged/caked fine stuff.

 

[Jogeephus]

My feeder is only used to a metal hammer.