The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1917-10-26
WILL HORSES AND MULES
EAT VELVET BEANS
Because of the High Price of Corn, 1t
10 Highly Important That Velvet
Beans Be Fed as Largely as
Is Practicable.

There are millions of acres of vel
vet beans in the South this year and
it is highly important that they be
fed as largely as possible. as a sub
stitnte for and to balance high-priced
corn. We know that cattle will eat
velvet bean meal-beans ground with
the pods-and that this meal makes
a good feed for those animals. We
also know that hogs learn to eat the
velvet beans in the, fields after frost.
But reports comes to US that the
meal is not satisfactory feed for hogs,
that they do not like it and do not do
well on it, especially pigs two to five
months old. We also have reports
from several sources that horses and
mules refuse to eat this velvet bean
meal. Prof. John M. Scott, OF the
University of Florida, who has pro-
badly had more experience with vel
vet beans and written more about
them than any other man in the
South, says: "My personal expert
ence has been that horses and mules
will not eat velvet beans even when
ground. This may be due entirely
to the kind of mules we have here
on the farm, but we have tried num-
bers of times to get our mules to
eat a ration containing velvet beans,
and we have always found that they
will eat out the other feed and leave
the beans"
Even if we grant that the best way
to dispose of velvet beans is to Craze
them in the fields after frost, with
cattle and hogs, it is still important
that we teach our hogs and horses to
eat the meal. Many beans have been
grown this year on landwhich is in
jured by the tramping of livestock in
wet weather, and moreover, we need
such a protein feed as velvet bean
meal for hog feeding, especially For
horses and mules %cottonseed meal
will serve the purpose required, but
we need the velvet bean meal for
feeding hogs, especially during the
winter.
As a generl rule, when it is proved
that one class of animals eats a con-
centrate like velvet bean meal and
does we'll on it we do not consider
seriously any complaint about other
animals refuseing to eat it, but this
may prove an exception to the rule.
We know that many animals refuse
to eat melilotus or sweet clover at
first, but afterwards eatit and do well
on it. We also know that many
horses and mules at first refuse to eat
cottonseed meal, but thousands have
learned to like it and do well on it.
As of interest along this line, Prof.
E. R. Lloyd, Director of the Mississ-
ippi Experiment Station, who has had
an extensive experience in feeding
cottonseed meal to weanling colts
horse and mule-says he has never
had a weanling refuse to eat it, but
like many others, he has had animals
fed on other feeds for a few years
refuse to eat c%ottonseed meal when
it was first offered them.
It is highly importnt that the
horses and mules of the South be
taught to eat velvet bean meal. The
crop is a good one for gathering nj
trogen from the air to enrich our
poor soils, it is grown with corn and
adds greatly to the feed produced per-
acre, and corn always being high
priced with us, it is important that
we reduce it's use for feeding live
stock as far as practicable. 1t is not
enough to use velvet beans for cattle,
alone, we should extend their use as
far as possible.
In view of these facts we hope our
readers will proceed carefully and in
telligently to teach their horses and
hogs to like velvet bean meal and re-
port, results to The Progressive
Farmer.
In starting any animal on a. new
feed, especially animals which have
learned to like other feeds, it is i'm
portant that considerable car be ex-
ercised. 1t will, therefore, probably
be best to grind the velvet beans into
a rather fine meal and mix it with
some feed of which the animals are
fond, such as corn meal. If by start
ing with l per cent of the velvet
bean meal and slowly and gradually
increasing it the animals can be
faupht tn eat the desired nronortion