Heating Effects of Corn on Poultry

[dacjohns]

Thank you.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
Did I fail to mention that rocket sciences are my other hobby?

http://www.alamorocketry.org/atvproject.htm

 

[eggzettera]

Mac - the Myth Buster to the rescue..... I had heard this & have repeated it......am I bad.....

normally I like to think that I don't just blindly believe what I'm told. Well you certainly have opened a few eyes

 

[BearSwampChick]

I feed my chickens cracked corn every night when I lure them back into the pen. Well, lure might be the wrong word. More like I try to stay out of their way as they stampede to see who can the most corn first!

 

[prariechiken]

Should you be stressing a balanced diet? That way someone won't think that they can feed their birds corn or straight scratch everyday and not run into any problems. Also, do you have the conversions available pertaining to the differences in whole corn versus cracked, don't we lose something everytime we introduce processing to the grain?

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
Prairiechiken:

You bring up a good point. The various commercial feeds available to poultry fanciers and producers contain many nutrients that do not exist in adequate levels in simple grain mixtures. The Vitamins, macro minerals, trace minerals, and other ingredients are used to maintain the health and production of poultry. These nutrients have been investigated for the past 100 years and are essential to growth.

Unfortunately, many choose to eschew the research and think they know better than the cumulative knowledge of the hundreds of researchers that have examined the nutrition of poultry and other livestock.

Jim

 

[EllyMae]

Thank you Mac for the info. I never gave a lot of thought to that wives tale because I knew my grandpa ALWAYS fed corn to his chickens 365 days a year and he never had problems. In fact, he always had some of the finest chickens in the county, lol.
By the way, is that a C-130 on your avatar? Our family owes a lot to that magnificent bird!

 

[Barnyard Dawg]

We only feed our chickens around 5 to 10 percent corn, no scratch or cracked corn, they free range eating a variety of grains, seeds, vegetables, grass, and bugs, some of their current favorites are corn stalks and fresh corn, figs, bean leaves, cucumbers and steamed zuchinni, as far as heat we have plenty of fruit trees, vines and a creek not a problem for them.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

You bring up a good point. The various commercial feeds available to poultry fanciers and producers contain many nutrients that do not exist in adequate levels in simple grain mixtures. The Vitamins, macro minerals, trace minerals, and other ingredients are used to maintain the health and production of poultry. These nutrients have been investigated for the past 100 years and are essential to growth.

Unfortunately, many choose to eschew the research and think they know better than the cumulative knowledge of the hundreds of researchers that have examined the nutrition of poultry and other livestock.

Jim

Slightly different topic... I never said to feed them corn only. There were people here that were adamant that chickens should not get any corn or corn based scratch in hot weather, lest they burst into flames. Yet, half a layer ration is normally corn...

Yes they need a balanced diet, but chickens are capable of self choice to provide for their dietary needs. They will eat what they need if it's available to them. For backyard chickens, plants, grass, seeds, bugs, dirt, gravel, etc. make up for the vitamins and minerals that may not be present in their ration or is being offset by giving them simple grain mixtures to snack on.

As far as the nutritional research goes, you have to realize that the research involves feeding exactly what the chickens require to maximize production and profit. Caged layers need vitamin supplements and lysine and methionine supplements because it is not available to them otherwise. It is simply not an issue for birds on pasture, or birds offered a variety to feed on.

Somebody mentioned whole vs cracked corn. Yes, cracked corn of a certain particle size has the best feed conversion, but once again that comes back to research to maximize production with minimum inputs. Whole corn is fine as long you don't care if your hens eat .26 lbs of feed vs .25 lbs per bird per day. For somebody with a 10,000 hen layer operation, that equates to an extra 18 tons of feed every year. That is the type of data that drives nutritional research.​

 

[banter]

I think there is a lot of confusion out there on grain feed during hot weather. Geographics should be taken into consideration. This summer in Maine we have barely got over 80 degrees and have been in the 50's at night all summer. Our poultry need to get a little fat on them just to survive our frigid winters.
Mine free range so I am giving them scratch feed to condition them for a long early winter!