can i feed my chickens whole corn????

[peapatch]

I need to know if i can feed my chickens whole dry field corn???? Are they able to digest it????
My husband came home with a bunch of dry field corn from the railroad tracks that a railcar dumped on the ground.
It's clean.

 

[Teach97]

yes....they need grit or access to dirt and rocks and such

 

[dacjohns]

You can but don't feed them corn exclusively. It should be an extra; treat or supplement.

 

[lavacaw]

My grandmother used to free range her chickens all day and in the evening she would break the kernels off of a couple of ears of corn and throw it out in the area around the chicken house to call the chickens up so she could close them up for the night. I never saw her feed them anything else except the occasional vegetable/fruit peels when there were no hogs to feed. She always had eggs (only picked up what she needed) and chickens to butcher for Sunday dinner. I think some people go overboard in what they think chickens have to have! IMHO

 

[Keg]

I wish trains dropped chicken feed past my place!

i have no access to the stuff you guys call "scratch" where I am, so I buy large wild bird seed. It has the odd whole corn kernel in it. One of my chickens has quite a fondness of them, doesn't seem to harm her. Mind you she'd only get 4 or 5 kernels a day, at a guess.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

As a supplement or treat, sure. Not as a sole food.

My birds go through about four hundred pounds of it a month.

.....Alan.

 

[Hambone]

If they have problems eating the dried whole corn you can soak it in a 5 gallon bucket of water over night and then give them some.

 

[txchickie]

Yes! I live about 1/4 mile from 2 feed mills and I go over in the evenings and get the fresh milled corn and grain that has overflowed from the trucks. It REALLY cuts down on my feed bill!

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
Lucky!

 

[peapatch]

thanks sooooo much for answering my question thanks again