storing ear corn

[anderson farms]

I just bought a corn picker. I want to put up ear corn to grind it up and feed my hogs. How do you store it? Is a corn crib the only way? I have never done this before so thinks for the help

 

[Sid]

Define a crib. I have seen just about everything under the sun called a crib. I have seen corn dumped on the ground in a shed or barn corner. I have even seen it dumped on the ground,a well drained pot and covered with a tarp. I have seen cribs made with wood, wire walls even put in a steel bin with air dryers. I remember seeing pallets stood on end in a rough circle shape held together with a few post and old barb wire and covered with a tarp. The guy was feeding a bunch of hogs penned in the woods at the time. I guess the short answer would be no a corn crib is not the only way to store corn. Just look at what you have on hand and use your imagination.

 

[paul]

Corn as kernals will spoil if it is much over 14% moisture. Technically, so will ear corn. Time factors into it too, you can store 18% corn ok for a cold month or 3.

But, if you have it in a crib of some type, that is not more than 7 feet thick (or a round crib not more than double that...) with opennings for air to flow through it, you can store corn on the ear up to 24% quite safely. The airflow is _very_ important tho, so you need something that allows air to flow.

I've put 30% moisture corn in my wooden crib, and had reasonable good success in this cold Minnesota climate.

Some put up a ring of wooden snow fence, fill it, put another slightly smaller ring of snowfence on top, & fill that. This can stroe corn reasonably well - again in this cold climate, and you want to get it used or moved by the time warm spring comes.

Where do you live, cold, or dry, or ????

Cribs are wooden with 1x4 slats; round or rectangular wire cribs, or a few metal cribs with slotted sheet metal sides & a tappered bottom for unloading - on short stilts.

--->Paul

 

[David in MD]

A corn crib is a wooden or metal structure that allows air to flow through the ear corn. The key to keeping ear corn is that it doesn't pack tight. Air can flow through it allowing it to dry down from a harvest moisture of around 20% to a safe storage moisture of 14-15%. Shelled corn would spoil if stored at 20%. Ear corn would spoil if kept on the ground or under a tarp unless it was already thoroughly dry. My neighbor had an ear picker and there was an old corn house on the farm so I fed ear corn to hogs for several years. They just ate the grain off the cobbs. I supplemented with a complete ground feed too. I'm not sure you would want to grind it as hogs don't need the roughage from the cob. I've moved up to a combine and grain tanks so now feed a complete corn based ground feed. My only complaint with the ear picker is it shelled a lot of grain off the ear during picking especially if the corn got too dry and left it in the field.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I have built cribs with 2x4's for bottoms, 4 foot wide by 6 foot tall and used 1x2 inch mesh wire on the sides. I put a roof on them that I can tip back. Problem is the corn has to be sheveled out. I have put corn as high as 30% moisture into them with no problem. One word of advice - watch for rats. They love corn cribs.