Chapter 169 Sheep Production

The hole was about two fists wide, and Zhao Yeqing didn't find any footprints inside.

Or maybe he had come yesterday, and the footprints on the surface were covered by the slightly melted and then solidified snow and ice.

When Mu Xi came back, she took the full basket and poured all the mustard greens into the basin before she started talking.

Mu Xi: "After such a heavy snow, foxes are unlikely to come out. Digging a hole to come in is not something foxes would do."

The two guessed for a long time but couldn't determine what kind of animal it was, so they didn't take it seriously anymore.

After all, small animals won't cause any harm to humans, they just steal some food.

Snow must be washed and dried before pickling.

Pour water into the basin, wash the snow vegetable, and wipe off all the water before drying it.

I didn't dare take it outside, so I just let it dry in the shade behind a sunny window. Otherwise, it would be frozen hard and would break if I gently bent it with my hands.

The only advantage of the hot weather before was that everything dried very quickly when hung out to dry.

If the temperature was over 40 degrees before, the snow cabbage could be pickled in half an hour. But in the current weather, it took two full days to dry.

The dried snow mulberry leaves had become a little wilted. Zhao Yeqing took all the snow mulberry leaves and cut them into small pieces, about half the length of a finger joint.

Put the cut snow mustard greens into a bowl, sprinkle with salt and continue to marinate.

The pickled mustard greens are ready when they have shrunk slightly and the bottom of the pot is filled with green vegetable juice.

Squeeze the Chinese mustard greens in the basin tightly with your hands and squeeze out all the juice before putting them into a water- and oil-free pickle jar.

After putting two handfuls of mustard greens in, press them down before putting more in. A pot of mustard greens should be just enough to fill a jar, with about ten centimeters of space left at the mouth of the jar. Pour the juice from the previous pickling into the jar.

There is a lot of salt in vegetable juice, so there is no need to add more salt. Sealing the container with concentrated salt water will not only prevent it from freezing but also block harmful bacteria.

Zhao Yeqing placed the jar in a dark corner and waited about twenty days before eating it.

There was a noise outside. Zhao Yeqing walked out of the kitchen and saw Mu Xi coming back with another sled load of hay.

Recently, I go out and pull back a few carts of grass every few days, which can feed the cows for two or three days, and occasionally give some to the ewes that are about to give birth.

The ewe is probably about to give birth soon, so a charcoal basin is placed in the sheepfold when the temperature is low at night.

Most of the charcoal has been consumed, and the two trees that had been cut down in the pine forest before have to be used and cut back to make charcoal.

During the half month before the snowstorm, the temperature dropped to over 30 below zero. After the snow stopped, the temperature dropped to over 20 below zero and has remained there ever since, with no signs of rising.

It took them another two days to cut down a pine tree and three days to make the second batch of charcoal, but the temperature remained unchanged.

Zhao Yeqing originally thought that if the temperature rose a little, he could spread salt to melt the snow. When it got even warmer and most of the snow melted, he could go fishing in the lake.

I've been thinking about boiled fish for more than a month but I haven't eaten it yet.

When the temperature rises, the lambs will not easily catch cold when they are born.

But from June to early July, the temperature was still minus 20 degrees Celsius, and the system was stuck there without moving at all.

Just after dinner at noon, I heard the first ewe in the sheepfold start to move.

Maybe it's the same as humans, giving birth is very painful, and every time the ewe pushes, she makes a loud "bleating" sound.

This was the first time Zhao Yeqing watched a sheep give birth. The ewe lay on the ground screaming, her belly heaving violently, and the lamb wrapped in the placenta was gradually squeezed out.

When the lamb has not yet fully come out, it is like being wrapped in a balloon filled with water. When it is about to be born, it will break the membrane of the water balloon and fall to the ground.

The female goat gave birth to two lambs in succession before slowly standing up and turning around to lick the afterbirth and amniotic fluid off her kids.

This lamb doesn’t look like a rabbit. When rabbits are born, they are bald and red, like newborn mice.

The lamb was covered with white fur when it was born. After its mother licked the amniotic fluid clean, it became much more energetic and struggled to stand up.

Mu Xi quickly lit the fire in the charcoal basin. Although it was not so cold at noon, the newborn lamb still found it a little unbearable.

Zhao Yeqing had not yet recovered from the surprise of watching the sheep giving birth for the first time. The two ewes nearby, perhaps stimulated by the cries of the giving birth ewe, also showed signs of giving birth.

One sheep is standing and the other is lying.

Zhao Yeqing was a little frightened when watching this, fearing that the lamb that was born while standing would fall and hurt itself.

Fortunately, both sheep gave birth smoothly, with each ewe giving birth to two lambs.

The last one was still standing there without moving, and it didn’t look like it was about to give birth.

The two of them cleaned the sheep pen again. When the ewes give birth to lambs, the sheep pen will inevitably be a little dirty. The lambs are still unstable and fall to the ground after taking two steps. They have to clean the floor and put some straw on it.

Please clean up the afterbirth that falls on the ground in time to prevent the sheep from accidentally ingesting it.

The body of the ewe that has just given birth needs to be cleaned.

Mu Xi used a wet towel to wipe off all the dirt on the ewe's body. Zhao Yeqing returned to the kitchen and boiled a pot of brown sugar water to provide nutrition for each ewe after giving birth.

The ewes were very weak after giving birth. After Zhao Yeqing fed each one with brown sugar water, he reached out and gently rubbed their neinei to help them produce milk quickly.

Only one ewe had some hard lumps on her neinei. Zhao Yeqing was worried that it might be an inflammation, so he marked the sheep and told it to take medicine if the lumps were still there tomorrow.

In addition to manual massage, ewes also need food supplements to help them produce milk.

The recipe looks similar to what humans eat. Feeding eggs boiled with brown sugar, or sesame seeds, etc., can also help increase milk production.

Eggs are not scarce at home now. Although chickens don't lay many eggs in winter, their refrigerator is now full of meat, and the eggs they have stored are enough to feed the sheep.

When the two men boiled the brown sugar eggs and brought them into the sheepfold, they saw that the only sheep that had not given birth was already lying on the ground.

The sheep seemed to be in pain, its body gasping for breath, and its birth canal was wide open, but the lamb's head was still not seen.

The two of them were getting a little anxious as they waited, and they kept flipping through their notes, fearing that they would miss some knowledge points that could help them.

There was a continuous stream of mournful bleating sounds coming from the sheepfold. The ewes were too tired to call anymore, and then the first lamb gradually emerged.

It might be because the birth took too long, unlike the previous ones which were born quickly. When the lambs were born, they were still wrapped in the afterbirth and water balls.

As soon as the lamb appeared, it kicked the afterbirth at the birth canal of the ewe!

The two of them looked at each other suddenly, and they were both startled.

Could this be a difficult birth?