Anyone share any strategies they use on getting shelled corn for watching wildlife other than growing your own. Buying it by the 50# bag is really pushing the fixed retirement income. Ouur local Coop doesn’t bag it own bulk anymore which was a good savings. Anyone buy it bulk and store it? We just put out a bag a week during the winter months to attract things.The gardens do it in the summer. Fruit and mast trees in the fall. The BIRD feeder does its part feeding 400# of black sunflwr and 100# of suit. Only the wife knows the # of sugar for the homes. It all adds up. So I’d like to save anywhere so I can to continue.

Find a farmer and you can often get them to fill up barrels/ your truck bed right out of the combine cheap.

Wife asked a big farmer here to buy corn he said sure. But was taken back when he asked what for and she said late winter deer to help them out. He ask why in the world would you want to help those things out for. He prefers them dead.. as do most crop farmers.

The DNR has had several fields planted in Carlos Avery with corn, the past two years have had exceptional crops. You could go pick some , but you would have to shell it yourself. Not sure if the WMA's up by you have any planted fields.

Maybe you don't shell it and it will last longer.

Storing it means weevils, mice, and rats....then snakes.

$8/50lbs down here

Probably cheaper in the midwest.

I don't buy it, I pick it up when the picking is done before they mow the stubble
Turnarounds in corner's are the best places to start
A downed tree can have bag's full waiting
Make sure you ask permission first

Our local cooperatives sell corn for 10 cents a bushel over the current market price. I have gravity beds on running gear. I just pull onto the scale, get weighed, get loaded around 100 bushels at one of the dumps in around a minute, get weighed again, pay for the difference and pull it into the barn.

Corn at the cooperative is currently being bought at $4.50 a bushel. I can buy it at $4.60. A bushel is estimated at 56 pounds, so I currently pay a little less than $4.11 per 50 pounds.

Keith

Get a small gravity box, they're pretty cheap, offer a farmer $5 a bushel to fill it. Best if you can get it in the fall straight from the grain cart. If you can park the box in a shed you can tarp it off or build a roof for it.

I'm in south haven so not real far, I can get you all you want for $5 a bushel and can sell small quantities of its easier.

I buy the fifty pound bags and I watch for sales and deals. Sometimes I get broken bags from store or local coop at a deep discount. I add a couple mineral and a couple salt blocks too to our feed sites.

Corn is an awesome feed to run for watching wildlife. Everything likes corn especially deer and game birds but even fox and coyotes. I swear everything loves corn.

We have three sites on our property we run corn and the mineral blocks and salt blocks. Two of those with cameras over them and the other one is just outside one of our windows. I mostly just dump the corn on the ground but also have some PVC feeders that work well too.

I buy 10, 50 pound bags at a time from our co-op. Monday it was 8:57 a bag. We feed 12 to14 lbs. at a time. In the dead of winter we up it to around 20 lbs. a day plus some ear corn. By tossing some ear corn around even the younger ones will get some. We feed all year. Sunflower and peanut splits and suet for the birds. My cameras stay busy.

I sure miss being able to feed the deer in the winter. I have had as many as 28 in the yard at a time when it was legal to feed. Now with the CWD restrictions, I can't feed so I will just go cut a few Maple or Birch a week to give them extra natural browse and I get a little firewood.

I used to sell it right out of my combine.. would fill up guys pickups, then I started selling it in super sacks.. then in 100 pound sacks.. finally quit.. it’s just too much hassle dealing with the public…

I saw a guy at the supermarket with about 15 packages of corn tortillas. He told the cashier they were for feeding deer that come into his yard.

We’re just outside of restricted area yet and if they want to jail me for feeding a few squirrels, rabbits and turkeys a bucket of corn at a time I’ll pray to my patron St Francis of Assisi for forgiveness. Wasn’t sure how local farmer might react to asking to buy direct. Here aside from rodent proofing storing over winter months should be not difficult. We are not overly far from WI where self serve stations deer bait corn is half the cost as here. Might have to start an annual to pick up a load annually

If you are feeding to just watch them, get them coming and then just spread a coffee can out a day. They will still come and it will save money.

Also the Amish feed mill South of cty 11 is a little cheaper than the farm stores in town

I need a grain wagon to start buying it from a local farmer.

We put out a pile of 250 pounds. It was gone in 4 days.

We put it out in an elevated spinner feeder that holds 200 pounds. It cycles at 8am and 4pm. It lasts about 9 days.

Do you have a place to keep a 250 bushel wagon in a shed? If not put hoops on top to add slope and use a canvas tarp not plastic so the moisture can move.

I can see some possibilities with the trailer idea. Though not that large. Maybe a used sq plastic carboy on small trailer mechanical thrower or just a drop tube to a pan. If I can’t get corn from a farmer can you buy from a grain depot or whatever there called. Could they load right into the carboy?

Any grain elevator can load you in a very short time. After getting weighed you just pull up to a grain dump and they just drop it in through a large pipe. They load 100 to 120 bushels for me in under a minute. It's the best way to buy corn.

Keith