Anyone use cracked corn in there mix?

We use 850lbs of whole corn so i dont see y cracked would be any worse

Cracked corn in your feed mix is fine. You will get more fines in your mix and might have to adjust your mollases and or oil to bind them into the feed and get better consumption.

i use to put cracked corn in ours, but got tired of having the fines. thats the only problem i see. i wouldnt use whole corn though. animals cant get any nutrition out of whole corn.

They don't get any more nutrition out of cracked corn over whole corn. But all the corn fields I have been around is where the big bucks come from.



The only advantage to using cracked or rolled corn over whole corn is the ease of digestion for the animal. It is easier for the animal to digest and therefore gives them better absorbtion. NOW, the only question you have to answer yourself is, is the extra cost for cracked/rolled over whole corn worth the difference?

The difference nutritionally between cracked corn and whole corn is that cracked corn will net 3 or 4 % more energy. The trade off is cracked corn will have more fines. But depending on where one buys their feed, particle size will vary. Time of year where corn is ground will influence the amount of fines because of the moisture in the corn used. Corn tends to become more powdery in the late summer months before new crop corn comes in.



The advantage of whole shell corn is potential feed efficiency. It might be 3 or 4% lower in net energy but then again if one's deer leave 10% of the feed because of fines, then one actually would gain more net energy consummed per pound of feed with the whole shell corn.

Processing corn does increase digestability. It is not always an economic advantage. There is alot of energy in whole corn.

Hi there. For what it's worth, I am going to use cracked corn in my protein mix during the late fall/winter months with the advice of the farmer I bought my herd from. It seems like some have had good luck with the whole corn, but he said that he switched to cracked after having a few deer get abscesses in their mouths from "cracking" too much whole corn. He's never had one since. I am very new, so just letting you know what I was told



Good luck

Derek don't be affraid to use cracked corn in your ration . In the dairy industry all corn fed is either cracked or rolled which also cracks it . Corn is what we call a sealed grain and if it's not broken or cracked either by an animal chewing it or by a machine prior to being eaten it will not be fully digested. I'd be willing to bet if you check the manure in herds feeding whole corn you'd find some kernels that were not digested. If you check the manure from herds fed cracked corn you won't find any corn or very very little . You don't have to get corn thats beaten to a pulp it only has to be cracked . Lots of roller mills really tare the grain a bit . Usually one roller is smaller than the other with finer teeth and rotates much faster than the other roller which will somewhat tare the grain just enough to make a crack in it if it's done right . You need not worry about fines when the grain is rolled or cracked properly, it only needs a crack in it to allow ruman bacteria to enter and digest it . It doesn't have to be broken all too peices or even broken in half . I have a close friend that started rolling the corn in his feed real fine like corn meal and he feels he has seen great results in his antler growth , so it's really a horse a peice some love it and some hate it . Just an opinion !

Thanks. I'll stick with the plan to mix cracked corn in with the deer ration......although I don't know what your corn prices are like in the US, but I just placed my order and I'm paying almost 17 dollars per bag for my deer ration and 14 dollars per bag for cracked corn. They are 55 pound bags. Expensive hobby for me. Lol. Muskoka whitetails told me it was roughly a dollar per day to feed each deer....and by my calculations over the last 5 months or so, he's pretty much dead on the money. I hope to some day make a revenue from the deer.....or at least that's what I tell my wife.