Processing High Moisture Corn at Ford County Feeders September 2013
I have been anticipating the release of this video for quite some time. I love all the machinery involved in this rarely filmed process. For people that do not know, cattle feed yards buy corn from farmers at a higher moisture content from 28 to 35%. This higher moisture content allows the corn to ferment during storage making it the equivalent of cow candy. Feed yards in Kansas and in many other places that use HMC will run the corn through a roller mill to open the kernels so the digestive system of cattle can process the nutrients inside the corn. If the corn is not processed in some way the kernels can pass through the animal giving no feed value.
Once through the mill the corn is typically stored in a bunker. The tractors pack the corn pressing out air creating an anaerobic environment perfect for fermentation. The pile will be covered to reduce spoilage and fed out over the following year with other feed products. This particular yard has a 55,000 head capacity and will buy overt 2 million bushels of corn annually.
So there you have it, the short lesson in high moisture corn. But the point of this video is to show how this Kansas Feedyard puts it up. Enjoy and thanks for watch.
