Ground corn stalks for chicken feed - Has anyone tried?

[marke985]

I recently watched a YouTube video (link below) of a farmer in the USA who grounds up his corn stalks and feeds it to his chickens.  Has anyone here tried this?  I see locals burning their old stalks all the time and soon I will have a large surplus as my corn is about to mature and it would be great if I could use them as chicken feed for my birds.

 

My second question, and the reason I'm asking here if anyone has tried it, does anyone know where to get a mulcher like the one in the video?   I'm in Kalasin and have never seen one.

 

Thank You

 

 

 

[Pogust]

Chickens will scratch it around and ad their fertiliser while eating bits out of it. It will be perfect to put on a compost or direct back to plants when they are done with it.

 

I have seen a similar mulcher in Thailand, think it was in Toolspro Udon Thani.

 

All the burning in Thailand is sad to see. Instead of burning the carbon should be returned to the soil as mulch and help increase the humus layer.

[Jotham79]

There are a lot of more nutritious options out there...banana plants...gratin.....corn screenings....rice polishings.......  These are available on a continuous basis and can be cheap and sometimes free.  I agree that it will make a nice compost, but pretty worthless as a feed supplement.

 

BTW,  you can usually get things like the outside leaves of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli.... that have a pretty good amount of protein.  Use them only after you wash them as the outside leaves can hold

pesticides.

[marke985]

On 8/22/2017 at 4:34 PM, Jotham79 said:

There are a lot of more nutritious options out there...banana plants...gratin.....corn screenings....rice polishings.......  These are available on a continuous basis and can be cheap and sometimes free.  I agree that it will make a nice compost, but pretty worthless as a feed supplement.

 

BTW,  you can usually get things like the outside leaves of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli.... that have a pretty good amount of protein.  Use them only after you wash them as the outside leaves can hold

pesticides.

I get a lot of rice polishings for free and pay a little for rice bran in the village.  I sometimes get the cabbage heads of my source has her stall in the ROI Et market.

 

However, as of late there has been some competition for the free items.  (Perhaps the chicken population here is growing)

 

What exactly is corn screenings?  I'm always looking for bird feeder ideas.

 

Thanks

[Jotham79]

After the ears are shelled ( and sometimes before) the corn is sold to a broker.  The price is dependent on water content.  After the corn need to be dried so it is spead over a large concrete apron and spread around with a tractor.  Then the corn

is cleaned.  The byproduct is called corn screenings or corn sweepings.  It contains bits of broken corn, small kernels from the ends of the ears, bits of cob, dust...ect  From what I found on the internet the protein content is about 8%, but I use 7% as a guide in my feeds.  Makes an excellent scratch feed.  I grind mine to mix with other things to make feed.    In Thai is sometimes called Kee Kaput