We are doing different things though Travis.
I'm not feeding all of this corn. Well not to animals anyway. About a third of it is sold to a local mill to be ground into corn meal and corn flower.
The rest goes to my brother for chicken and hog feed. They don't do so well on silage, oh though the hogs would probably eat it.
As for harvest time ear corn is always picked after a couple good frosts. It's easier to store the ear corn and shell it as needed. Plus it will dry stored in a corn crib. If you shell it and put it in a bin you have to spend money on energy to dry it down.
As for your GE corn, it's not as good. Don't take that personal. But its a fact. GE corns have been modified to be be harder to resist breakage during shelling and to be resistant to roundup The trade off was a loss of protein.
GE corns are any where from 15 to 30% lower in proteins than open pollinated corn.
Ohio State tested open pollinated in two test plots a couple years ago, The state average was 175 BU/Acre. OSU's two test plots did 164 BU/Acre So it makes less corn, but you feed less of it. Plus your not paying huge seed corn prices. What hurt me this year is the grounds poor to begin with There where a bunch of pine trees growing there that I cleared. It will take 3 or 4 years to get yields up where they belong.
A cow nutritionist ?
You dairy guys are funny.
I can't get my head wrapped around feeding grain to dairy cows.
What you need is a pull type chopper. Like a new Holland 717. I have one with a hay head that I use for making mulch for the garden. I paid $500 for mine this summer. Guy I got it from had a single row corn head for it also. With both heads you could chop both hay and corn for the sheep. Supplement that with a few minerals and you probably wouldn't need anything else for the woolly little buggers
As for when we harvest corn, all depends, silage around here has been done, High moisture corn is off. Dry shelled corn is coming off now.
I have been adding to the toy list this summer, So far, 1750 Oliver, JD 7000 6 row corn planter. Older IH 13 hole grain drill, The 717 Chopper, Grove self unloading wagon.
Set 0f 4-16 Oliver plows and a 7 foot New Holland hay bine.
I'll get you some pics of the chopper tomorrow.