Like most deer leases, we have cattle on the land that we lease for hunting. One of the guys I hunt with has placed his feeder in a 50' x 50' barb wire fence. His feeder will throw corn about 35 to 40 feet away from the barrel.

He claims the cows will eat his deer corn if he had not enclosed the entire area. I did not study Ag at A&M, and have little experience with any livestock other than Holstein cows. So, my question is this….can a cow actually pick-up an individual kernel of corn like a deer?

Yes, they will eat the corn. We had some bulls that would jump the 3' tall fence to get to the uncle's corn feeder.

They'll lick the spinner plate to pile corn on the ground under the feeder.

They'll rub on the legs, too. I had a feeder staked down with rebar but the ******* cattle pressured the legs enough to break the weld on a leg bracket.

They ate what they could then the hogs came in to finish off the destruction job.

I've got game cam pics that show all the carnage.

[This message has been edited by SanAntoneAg (edited 4/11/2009 9:33p).]

There is no doubt they can damage a feeder...I was planning to fence my new feeder, but I am just not convinced I need to build a 50' x 50' fence around my feeder. I was thinking more like 25' x 25'

I use hog panels around my feeders. You can buy them at Tractor Supply or just about any good Farm Store. We put 9-10 panels around our feeders with T posts at the end of each panel with a little bow in the panels. This keeps the cattle out as well as hogs. One year I had a black baldy heifer that learned to jump over but she really couldn't get much corn, then she would jump out. Before we put up the panels, the cows would rub on the legs and jiggle the corn out just like the hogs would and then eat the corn. I highly suggest the panels around feeders.

ditto what Chief said.............


panels will also keep the hogs out

We don't build fences around our corn feeders, but we do build them around our protein feeders. We got some great pics last weekend of turkey stretching to eat out of the protein feeders.