Mixing ground corn with feed?

[Milliemay]

So, has anyone done this, and does it slow down their finishing time? Ground corn is half the price of the feed, so I was wondering if this is possible. My 52 meaties, Cornish x's, go through a 5 gallon bucket of feed a day, and are growing very nicely. Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

 

[scooter147]

I mix scratch grain two weeks before slaughter and then all scratch and free range (they don't go very far trust me

) the week before slaughter.
IMHO it won't hurt.
You will need to provide grit, I mix a little sand with the broiler mash.

 

[Bossroo]

Corn will add a nice layer of extra fat during the last week or two before slaughter. As we all know, FAT is where the flavor is in all meats.

 

[jaku]

Yeah, corn will fatten them up, so depending on what you're looking for, that may or may not be a good thing.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I wouldn't feed them corn until they reach the weight that you want. This will slow their growth way down. Feed is already full of corn... if they could put more in... they would as it's cheap.

However... if you want a fat layer for flavor... I would feed it to them last week (or two) after they have already got to the weight you prefer.

Good luck.

 

[Milliemay]

Thanks for the advice. We are going to weigh some of them tonight and see where we are at. They are almost 6 weeks old, so I might add the corn along with the amount of feed they are eating if the weight is where it should be. How much weight do you lose with say an 8 lb. bird, what will it weigh dressed?

Thanks again!

 

[Brunty_Farms]

You can figure about 30% of the bird live weight will be waste....

So an 8 pound bird will dress out at... say 5.6 lbs.

 

[CARS]

My feed from the mill is mostly ground corn. I don't have the papers in front of me but I think that for every 350#'s of corn they mix in 100#'s of 41% protein (cargill) equaling 16%.

Extra corn will just cut the protein level.