My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 375 Chicken Matchmaker, Relatives

A hen incubating eggs is unreasonable.

Let alone people, they even dare to peck at the family dog ​​if it gets close.

These brooding hens in the chicken coop are like that. Wang Susu said that they laid eggs very frequently for four or five days in a row a few days ago, and then suddenly started brooding in the bushes on the hillside.

Perhaps because people often go to collect the eggs, they don't go back to the chicken coops that Chen Ling built for them on the hillside to incubate their eggs.

Later, when Chen Ling discovered this, he sent the puppy to chase them away, but they fiercely pecked at Erhei and the others.

In the end, it was Chen Ling who carried them back to the chicken coop.

This is also to prevent them from being frightened by the dog, which would be bad for these old hens.

Even so, I still got pecked twice without realizing it. The back of my hand was bruised and sore, and the skin was almost broken.

"Alright, Zhenzhen, stop messing around with it, or it'll really peck you hard in a minute."

At this moment, Chen Ling climbed over the wall and entered the chicken coop. Wang Susu and the two actresses behind him also opened the fence gate of the chicken coop and came in.

"Hmph, I just thought it was too disobedient. Last year I even caught grasshoppers and tadpoles for them, and it still pecked at me."

Wang Zhenzhen shouted indignantly, then squatted down in front of the big spotted chicken, pinched its beak and head, ignoring the chicken's struggles, and turned to shout, "Brother-in-law, quickly release the bird eggs, I've pinched its beak."

Chen Ling then placed the two crow eggs and one cuckoo egg under the old hen's belly.

"Alright, let go."

Wang Zhenzhen did as she was told and scattered the big spotted chicken, which then angrily squawked at her.

The two actresses were terrified and hid behind Wang Susu.

"It's alright, don't be afraid. The hen that's incubating her eggs won't move."

Seeing this, Wang Susu smiled and comforted them.

The two women looked over there, and the big spotted hen crowed angrily twice before settling back down on the chicken and bird eggs and steadily began to incubate them.

As expected, they didn't move the location.

Although it's fierce, it stays put and won't randomly run out to peck people.

The two women immediately breathed a sigh of relief and were less afraid.

At this moment, Wang Susu saw her younger sister grab a smaller speckled hen from the side and called out to the little girl, "Zhenzhen, don't do that to these two older sisters' bird eggs anymore. Just put them in front of the hen, and when it sees the eggs, it will bury them under its belly. Don't worry about it."

"Huh? Is this going to work? Sister, don't try to fool me." Wang Zhenzhen turned around, disbelieving.

"I'm not kidding you, ask your brother-in-law if you don't believe me."

Hearing her sister say that, Wang Zhenzhen swung her braids and turned to look at Chen Ling with a questioning gaze.

Chen Ling smiled and stroked the little girl's braids twice: "Whether I'm fooling you or not, you'll know once you try it."

"Okay, I'll give it a try, hehe."

Wang Zhenzhen slapped his hand away and giggled.

Then he took two bird eggs, gently placed them in front of the speckled hen, and pushed them forward: "Here, here, here are two more treasures for you, will you hatch them or not?"

The two actresses beside her were also watching intently.

Upon seeing the two bird eggs, the speckled hen stood up without a word, used its beak to pull the eggs to its front, and then quickly moved its head to stuff the two eggs, one after the other, into its belly.

Then he sat down steadily on his bottom.

"Wow, that's amazing! This hen can actually collect and incubate its own eggs, even bird eggs."

Upon seeing this scene, the two actresses seemed to have discovered a new continent, and hurriedly gathered around, squatting down to look at it with wide, curious eyes.

Wang Zhenzhen clapped her hands happily and said, "This is so much fun! I'll give it two more bird eggs."

Upon hearing this, Chen Ling stopped her, saying, "Stop taking bird eggs. What's the point of hatching so many birds? Aren't these enough for you to play with? If you want to hatch eggs, go and get a few of the goose and duck eggs you just collected this morning, and let them hatch them."

"Hehe, okay, I'll go get it right away."

Bird eggs are not allowed, but duck eggs and goose eggs are fine too. Wang Zhenzhen nodded quickly and ran out.

A short while later, he came running back with the basket.

The basket was clearly filled with duck and goose eggs.

Then they gave the chickens to two actresses, one big and one small, and put them in front of the brooding hens, where the chickens had a great time.

Even with chicken feathers all over his hair and face, he still had a happy smile on his face.

This prompted Rui Rui to lean forward and hum, wanting to join them.

"This place is really fun. We'll definitely stay longer after we finish filming."

"That's right, I just found out that these ducklings and goslings were actually hatched by a mother hen."

"Haha, not really. Besides old hens, we can also use a heated kang here. If you don't have a heated kang, you can boil water at home and put a cotton quilt on the water to cover the eggs. I helped my mother hatch eggs several times back in my hometown."

"Wow, I didn't know you could do that! Zhenzhen, you're amazing!"

"Huh? Why are these two hens brooding together?"

"Yes, these two brooding hens are best friends. They want to stick together day and night. My brother-in-law tried to separate them the night before last, but they ran off together again, so he left them alone."

The two actresses were young and had little experience with rural life. They were also quite playful. When they got together with Wang Zhenzhen, the two older women and the young woman looked like peers, chattering away endlessly.

They only left reluctantly after the entire crew had finished eating and were about to head into the mountains. Before leaving, they made a promise with Wang Zhenzhen that they would come back and play together again.

This scene amused Chen Ling and Wang Susu, who remarked that Wang Zhenzhen had made two more great friends.

Their breakfast was indeed late today; they didn't eat until almost nine o'clock.

After dinner, the sun was shining brightly. Wang Susu took Rui Rui back to the village to see patients, while Wang Zhenzhen watched TV and did her homework in the living room.

There was nothing else to do at home except wait for Little Sheep to come back to fetch fish and for Zhao Dahai to plant the telephone poles.

So Chen Ling released all the poultry and livestock, letting them roam freely.

However, seeing that the three yellow oxen were dirty, Chen Ling tied them to a nearby tree, went back to get a brush and a bucket, and washed them.

It doesn't matter if the ox is a little dirty when it's being raised by someone else, but it's better to keep it clean when it's in your own home.

Although the final result is inevitable—killing and eating meat—it's still more pleasing to the eye if it's cleaner.

Furthermore, with the weather getting warmer, if the cow is too dirty, it will attract flies and mosquitoes and have a strong odor.

When Lao Ba brought the cows over to him a couple of days ago, Chen Ling thought the three cows were too dirty.

However, since the livestock had just arrived at the farm and hadn't yet adapted, we let them rest for two days. After they had adapted to the farm's environment and food and water, we then went to wash them.

They were drawing water from the irrigation ditch to wash the cows. The ditch was bustling with activity, as tadpoles, small loaches, and small eels swam around everywhere in a dark mass.

A flock of ducks swam around in the irrigation ditch, quacking and chasing after the small creatures, constantly swallowing them and making a splashing sound. Meanwhile, the geese lay peacefully in the grass, basking in the sparse sunlight filtering through the trees, looking quite content.

"Huh? No..."

"Wow, these geese have started brooding too. No wonder they've been so quiet today."

Chen Ling tossed aside the brush and walked toward the bushes where the geese were lying. Sure enough, they were brooding.

These farm-raised geese are different from ducks.

Domestic ducks don't brood or incubate eggs; the hen usually takes over.

Geese can still incubate their eggs.

That's right, this goose has webbed feet, no claws, so it can't flip eggs.

So even if you let it incubate the eggs, the success rate is not as high as if the mother hen were to incubate them herself.

"Alright, we don't need you to incubate the eggs. Just lock you up in the dark room for a couple of days."

Chen Ling bent down and looked. Two geese had started brooding, and the remaining geese got up as soon as they were disturbed, as if they had come to join in the fun.

So he reached out and grabbed the two brooding geese by the neck, carried them back to the farm, found an empty large water vat, threw them in, covered it, and left them there.

The methods for dealing with brooding geese are similar to those for dealing with brooding hens.

They usually keep their bodies in a shady place, without food or water, and away from sunlight to lower their body temperature.

Or they would pierce the nostrils with feathers or prick them with sewing needles.

Ultimately, these folk remedies are all stress-inducing techniques that scare the animal away from its nest.

Even so, it's still better than medication.

"Sigh, after taking care of the geese, there are still the hens. Only four or five hens need to brood, we can't let them all incubate the eggs."

"They've all gone to brood and stopped laying eggs, how can that be?"

The old hens at home are starting to brood one after another. With so many chickens being raised, naturally there are quite a few brooding ones.

Chen Ling quickly washed the three yellow oxen clean and let them graze. He then led a pack of dogs to patrol the mountain.

He planned that if he saw any hen showing signs of brooding, he would catch it, tie its feet, blindfold it, and put it in a cage for two days.

But when Chen Ling reached the foot of the mountain, he was stunned by the sight on the hillside.

Among the dense flock of chickens, many wild pheasants had landed, mingling with the native chickens, pecking at small insects and earthworms in the grass. Their bodies, some dark brown and some colorful, bobbed their heads and searched for insects in the grass even faster than the native chickens.

A yellow hen, perhaps frustrated by its lack of food, clucked angrily and pecked at a beautifully feathered pheasant. The pheasants, however, were equally fierce, launching a swift and sustained counterattack with loud, drawn-out clucking as they fought back.

"Good heavens, it's like a wild pheasant from outside has infiltrated the flock and is now ruling the place."

Chen Ling was quite dumbfounded. There were actually some wild chickens in his flock, but only a few of them. They were the chicks that Little Fatty Liang Yiming caught with Wang Zhenzhen and the others at the village primary school last summer, and there were only six or seven of them.

However, there are now six or seven wild pheasants mixed in with the flock, not to mention six or seven, there could be as many as sixteen or seventeen.

After his initial shock, Chen Ling was filled with immense joy: "Wow, I never expected that just raising a few pheasants among the flock would yield such a result. They actually acted as decoys and lures, attracting so many pheasants."

The so-called chicken-borne and chicken-borne decoys are the same as bird-borne and bird-borne decoys.

Take bird owners, for example. They are so obsessed with birds that when they have nothing to do, they will set up a few nets in the fields or outside the woods to catch birds.

Especially during the spring and autumn bird migration seasons, large flocks of birds pass through the sky.

However, it's not easy to catch them online.

We need to bring them down from the sky.

How can we lure the birds flying in the sky down?

This is the function of bird pollinators and bird decoys.

Go and see, many bird catchers hang their own birds nearby when they set up their nets. These birds are bird decoys and bird lures; as soon as they call out, the birds flying overhead will hear them and come down.

At this moment, the bird keeper holding the net seizes the opportunity to drive the birds away, and all the birds that fly down will crash into the net.

The chicken tamer and chicken lure are similar in purpose.

It is used to deal with wild pheasants, bamboo partridges, and various other mountain pheasants.

Of course, the effect is greatest and most obvious when they are of the same kind.

"Damn it, most of these pheasants are female. They must have seen that my male pheasants are strong and handsome, and couldn't resist their lustful desires, so they were lured here."

"Since that's the case, let's ignore them for now, wait until they're done fighting and have settled down, then we can settle down here and lay our eggs. We'll have plenty of wild eggs to collect every day from now on."

Chen Ling rubbed his hands together, his face beaming with joy.

He had originally come to catch brooding hens, but now he changed his mind and decided not to alert them, but to let his excellent pheasant-catcher work its magic and see if he could keep the flock of pheasants.

As for the brooding hens, it's fine to catch them after dark when you go up the mountain.

"Tsk tsk, I really didn't expect such an unexpected gain. Does this mean I should go find some wild duck eggs this year to hatch some baby ducks, so I can be a duck decoy and lure next year..."

Chen Ling waved his hand, calling the dog back, and thought to himself with delight.

Actually, there have been many precedents of raising wild ducks in the village, but once they grow up, they are usually eaten.

Otherwise, even domesticated wild ducks are quite wild and can fly.

As they grow up, they can easily be lured away by wild ducks and fly off with them.

Chen Ling wasn't afraid of that. With such good conditions at home, he wasn't worried about it flying away once it grew up.

Those pheasants are a good example.

Chen Ling has never clipped their wings and let them fly freely, but after raising them for more than half a year, they have returned to the chicken coop on time with the main flock of chickens every day, without any signs of escaping.

"Alright, since that's the case, while no one's home, I'll start by getting some of the fish fry out of the cave, and then I'll go out this afternoon to look for wild duck eggs."

After making his plans, Chen Ling let the dog out and then returned to the farm to get busy with his own tasks.

Now that the lotus flowers in the pond have grown, Chen Ling plans to raise some of his favorite koi carp here this year.

As for the ornamental fish in the three ponds used for sale, after the lambs have finished transporting and selling them, they can simply buy another batch of inexpensive fish fry on their way back.

After all, the profit comes from the price difference.

Buy it at a low price, let it rest for a month, repair any flaws with diluted spiritual water from home, and then sell it at a high price. That's all you need to do.

"Ah Ling, come out quickly, our relatives have come to visit."

Around noon, Chen Ling had just put the fish fry into the lotus pond and was saying he would add some water for Yu Qi'an's birds when he heard his wife's happy voice coming from outside the door.

(End of this chapter)