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Just what the birds will need in a cold winter night: Easy to access calories to burn and produce heat.Cracked corn is just empty calories anyway, It just dilutes their real food.
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Just what the birds will need in a cold winter night: Easy to access calories to burn and produce heat.Cracked corn is just empty calories anyway, It just dilutes their real food.
But it adds behavioral enrichment for chickens to scratch around for it. Feeding a higher protein ration leaves room to feed some scratch, which gets birds moving and prevents boredom.
Have you tried to eat a dried whole corn?When I give my chickens their daily treat of scratch grains they usually eat everything but the corn. They like corn on the cob but apparently not the dried stuff. Guess it must not taste good because it doesn't matter what brand of scratch grains I get them they leave the corn alone.
You buy some corn and a steamroller...Where do you get steamed rolled corn? @casportpony.
Where do you get steamed rolled corn? @casportpony.
That's funny.You buy some corn and a steamroller...
Good question! The guy in the local store gave me a strange look.
Thank you very much for the pictures! That explains it, it is the same thing they do with oat grains to make oat meal. Roll the grains flat between two (steam-) heated steel cylinders to crack the tough shell and to change the structure of the starches in the grain into something more digestible. Duckies use grit for that purposeThat's funny.
It's usually sold as a horse feed, just ask for "rolled corn". I think it rolled for horses because it's more digestible that cracked or whole corn. Not sure if this is true for chickens, but mine do seem to like it much better than cracked and whole.
It also makes for a lovely hot mash. Something about the rolling process allows the corm to get good and soft after being in hot water.
Rolled corn
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Cracked corn
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Whole corn
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