Squirrel Corn

The recent round of inflation has impacted brick-and-mortar retail selling of “squirrel corn”, maize that is sold by the ear. The only current grocery store in my bedroom town is now selling a 7-pound (3.2 kilograms) bag of ear corn for $9.49 which ends up to be over $1.40 a pound when including South Dakota sales tax. The particular brand sold there is sourced out of Nebraska. It’s bit difficult to convert from ear corn to the typically measured shelled corn when it comes to the price of the common yellow grain sold by the bushel, but the bagged corn sold at the supermarket is way, way above of what the general commodity stuff is sold for by either the bushel (it takes 56 pounds of shelled corn to make a bushel or 25.4 kg) or by the pound. It can make a person wonder why more farmers don’t get into harvesting ear corn to be sold to wildlife watchers to feed squirrels, pheasants, or deer?

I think there are a couple of reasons why, the first is that picking ear corn is labor intensive. There may be a machine that can pick ear corn or maybe there’s an attachment that can fit onto a corn head of combine that wouldn’t break up the ear as the machine moves down the rows, maybe this is the way the Nebraskans who sell large-scale retail do it, I don’t know. The other main issue is probably the size of the niche market. One farmer converting 20 acres (8 hectares) of corn into 5- or 7-pound bags of ear corn might be able to fill this specific market and two may saturate it and three would depress the price, again I don’t know but for whatever reason selling ear corn in common retail locations is not widespread. However, my bedroom town grocery store is not the only one doing it close by. I’ve seen it sold in Menards here locally; Menards is a Wisconsin-based home improvement/quasi-general store, and for a better price for the consumer compared to by local grocery store. I suspect that Menards has a far larger economy of scale in buying power than the small chain that owns bedroom town’s grocery store.

I knew this market existed so I hit up “Thor” at the end of the second year of having my wild gardens up at his place that we should dabble a bit in it as well. I believe our first winter was 2020/21, and I say winter because Thor’s corn is generally not harvested until November. If I have him save me a few rows in a certain spot I’m usually not picking the first ears until around Thanksgiving and maybe selling by sometime in December. And the colder air gives me a bit more of a physical work out (or so I tell myself), although I’ll never win any ear corn picking contests nor do I plan to enter any. An hour or two on a decent winter day out in a few standing rows of corn on Thor’s farm is generally quiet and peaceful. How much work is involved generally depends on how much snow is around. The shorter days and the lower light if overcast or towards evening can also add to the mood that the land, and even some of its inhabitants, are slumbering. Whatever the ambience, its different than looking at a computer or smart phone screen.

A later winter scene picking some of the last of the 2023/24 “squirrel corn” stand.

My harvesting method is simple. I take a couple of 5-gallon (18.9 liter) buckets from where I park the car and work the rows in a linear progression so I don’t miss an area and when the two buckets are full, I head back to car, dump them into banana boxes in the back seat, and head back to where I last ended. The entire area is typically about 8 rows, each about 50 meters or so long, but it’s not precise.

The first two winters doing this I didn’t have much for a snow drifting problem because the area for picking was on the general windward (cutting into the wind) side of the farm. The winter of 2022/23 was much different as Thor’s main corn field was on the leeward (the downwind accumulating) side of the farm and the rows he left me got plugged up fast with snow. The haul out became a kidde sled that I put a banana box directly on, as it was much more stable while pulling the sled than balancing a more vertical bucket. I usually made two sled runs per visit that season and re-used my existing foot holes where I had broken through the crust of the snow on the subsequent walk out, back in, and out again. This past winter, even though it was a mostly open one, the couple of big snow storms we got in January plugged up most of the rows after a couple of pickings and I had to wait until early March when they had melted away enough for me to access the ears that has been buried in the drifted snow.

Bucket filled while picking, March 2024 and the overall results of the trip back home; The sled operation during the winter of 2022/23.

I’ve sold the corn in several different ways. The first way is to go through and find the best, most prime looking ears and sell them 8 to a bag, usually leading with the fattest ears at the bottom and topping of with more slender ears up top. The gallon (3.8 l) Ziploc-style bag may or may not close with these ears on board. I’ve usually sold a minimum of two such bags per order and sold them for $6 total for approximately eight pounds so about 75 cents a pound.

At the time of starting out in the winter of 2020/21, that was pretty comparable with what brick-n-mortar was selling similar sized bags, the kicker with my corn is that I’ve selected for the nicest ears and also that its “organic” (or most years it’s been that way). I’ve sold these bags of squirrel corn through Facebook rummage sales or market place. The “organic squirrel corn” often gets laughs and maybe even some pokes from the peanut gallery, such as, “I bet the squirrels really LIKE that organic stuff more than regular corn, hahaha!” Thor would actually argue that animals DO like organic corn more than what’s now typically produced but that’s his fight and not mine.

Several years back I had an interesting soul that wanted to prove he was a consumer warrior and he told other people that my price for the weight of the order was way above the cost of what corn sold for at the “elevator” (the large-scale, common commodity buying business). My comeback was, “Hey, no one is stopping you from buying such corn and re-selling it at a higher price if you think the squirrel and other wildlife feeding people will buy it.” He made another grumbling comment about just wanting to tell people that they were being ripped off and then sulked back into the internet vapors. I cannot recall not selling some sort of corn product that I’ve offered on Facebook even when I raised the price to a minimum $7 for a sale, using the two-bag standard.  

A number of people often want more than one order of the standard two bags or they will ask, “how much do you have?” which might trigger a “bulk box” buy of various sizes. A bulk buy may go for a little bit less a pound just to make the rounding to dollars easier, e.g., approximately 35 pounds (15.9 kg) for $25. I typically deliver if its in my medium-small (on a national scale) metro area, although sometimes people will pick it up at the house. For the less than aesthetically pleasing ears such as already half eaten by critters, not well-formed ears, smaller ears, or other issues, I will shell the ears while I’m watching something on a screen. I have sold the shelled corn as chicken feed or if I give the critter eaten part of the ear a decent margin and not include other off-looking kernels, I will grind it for corn meal to sell to people. I’ve even given some of these “lesser” ears away to deserving people, including an “imaginarian” who has been establishing her own on-line channel and likes to feed various critters in her backyard and doesn’t care what the corn ears look like because in the end neither do the critters 😉.

Some photos of how the various forms of product are shown for advertising.

This past season, we added selling a purple-black ear corn that we raised from a variety called Montana Morado Maize (check out the next essay about this adventure). The reception of “Triple M” corn met with mixed success. One wonderful older lady who lives just over in southwest Minnesota but has ties to the bedroom town area and who had not fed squirrels before was my first test case and she and the bushytails in her area loved the dark ears. I gave one of my longer established customers some MMM to try out and he just didn’t like it– I think it was mostly because he couldn’t see the contrast between the cleared part of the ear and how many of the kernels were still present compared to the yellow kernels contrasting against the reddish cob. To each their own.

A squirrel in southwest Minnesota gets to try out MMM corn during the fall of 2023

Selling something to people is (obviously) a social interaction. I’ve been to some of the lowest socioeconomic parts of my metro and to rural residences that probably would go for pushing a million bucks. I’ve had people pay in $1s and quarters and a bulk buy that produced an Uncle Ben (a tip was included there). For some people it’s mostly just a quick business deal whereas others will visit a good amount and tell me some of their life adventures. In the end, it probably comes down to a common denominator that feeding critters makes these people happy for the reason or reasons they choose and we certainly could use more happiness in the human world. And I guess some cats don’t mind watching squirrels eat corn as well 😊.

A customer’s grand kid spreads out some ears to feed pheasants and white-tail deer on his grandparents’ place; “Bill and Lori’s” cats are entertained from inside the house watching a squirrel outside do some munching.

Next Essay: Growing MMM in South Dakota

If you or any of your friends are still looking for some vegetable garden seeds, the Shopify store is still up and running:

https://dakprstreamseed.us/

If you are interested in some neat adventure storytelling, check out my friend Haleigh’s link:

https://www.youtube.com/@FrankisPodcastNetwork