Whole Maize Passes Straight Through — Why Crushing Matters

Walk behind a cow fed whole maize and look at the dung: the kernels are there, intact, exactly as they went in. The hard seed coat protects the starch from the rumen, the cow gets a fraction of the energy she was supposed to, and the farmer pays for grain that fertilises the field.

Crack it, do not powder it

Grain needs to be broken for the rumen to reach the starch, but there is a wrong way in both directions:

• Whole: largely wasted, as above. Goats and sheep chew more thoroughly and do better on whole grain than cattle, but even they waste some.
• Coarsely cracked or rolled: each kernel broken into two to four pieces. This is the target — digestible, but still slow enough to ferment safely.
• Fine flour: ferments very fast in the rumen. Fine maize flour is one of the most common causes of acidosis in home-mixed rations, because the whole dose of starch hits the rumen at once.

A hand mill or the village chakki set coarse does the job. If the only option is flour, mix it well into chaffed fodder and feed it in two or three small lots rather than one.

Soaking

Soaking cracked maize for a few hours softens it and makes it more palatable, especially for older animals. Do not soak for a day in warm weather; it ferments and sours.

How much grain is sensible

Cracked maize is energy, little protein and almost no minerals. A kilo or two a day for a milking cow, as part of her concentrate, is a reasonable energy top-up in winter. More than that without matching protein and minerals produces a fat, poorly milking, mineral-short cow — and a high acidosis risk.

Grain beside compound feed

The sensible pattern for most households is a compound feed as the base of the concentrate — GOKA Star, Smile or Challenger 8000 at the calculated quantity — and home grain as a small, cracked, measured addition when it is cheap. The feed carries the protein, mineral and vitamin balance; the grain adds a little energy. Doing it the other way round, with a sack of maize as the base and a handful of feed on top, is how the milk stays flat.