The male wild boar, weighing nearly 300 pounds, is an adult.
Lin Mo patiently explained to them:
"Boars go into heat as soon as they reach adulthood. The hormones they secrete during this time smell like feces and urine, specifically skatole, which is found only in feces. This makes their entire body rotten."
"Anyway, it stinks and smells awful, I can't eat it."
Hearing this, the three brothers were unhappy.
Awang reluctantly suggested:
"Just take it back and wash it thoroughly, that should be enough."
“That’s right, let’s go to the riverbank to cut and wash it, then take it back and marinate it with salt! What meat can’t taste good!” Awang said, swallowing his saliva as he spoke.
Lin Mo smiled helplessly:
"Sure, you can try it. After killing it, cut off the pork belly, then cut it into pieces and deep-fry it in a hot pan until it sizzles and drips with oil..."
This description made the three brothers' mouths water.
Lin Mo then changed the subject:
"The stench is starting to waft out, and the porky smell is getting stronger and stronger. Let's add water and stew it to clean off the porky smell."
"Keep stewing, then you can throw the pot away too."
What a disappointment, so disappointing.
Miao Qingsong looked at the pig to stave off his hunger, muttering to himself:
"If we can't eat it, then we've caught it for nothing."
Lin Mo actually had other ideas in mind, such as going out of the village to see if there were any pig farms where he could trade boars for piglets.
The village had just had a bit of a commotion, and any further commotion would be excessive.
I doubt even Chen Gang would dare to start a business like pig farming, even though he knows other places have long encouraged it.
But this wind hasn't reached the Greater Khingan Mountains yet.
"Would you dare raise pigs in secret?" Lin Mo beckoned his three brothers to gather their heads closer.
“If you dare to raise them, we’ll quietly clear out a spot in the ditch between Bald Mountain and Old Man Mountain and build a pigsty.”
"Wild boars and domestic pigs have no reproductive isolation, meaning they can breed."
"Let's use this boar as a breeding pig and trade it with someone at an outside farm for a few piglets. We can probably get ten piglets in return."
"What? Aren't all the farms outside state-owned? You dare to go there?" Miao Qingsong only knew that the government could raise pigs, but private individuals couldn't; if they did, they would die along with the pigs.
"I've got it all figured out, as long as I don't get caught..." Awang thought about raising pigs and being able to slaughter them and eat meat in a few months, and he found it both dangerous and exciting.
Lin Mo picked up some stones and threw them at the wild boar in the pit.
The wild boar's rump thudded with a loud "thud," its thin skin twitching as it grunted a few times.
He didn't die, he was just starved to death.
"Let's raise them! Let's raise them!" The three brothers chattered amongst themselves, and the lure of raising pigs to eat meat quickly brought them to a consensus.
“But feed is a problem,” Lin Mo explained, giving them a breakdown of the costs:
"The feed conversion ratio for pigs is 3.5 jin of feed to gain 1 jin of meat. From piglet to 300 jin, it takes 1,000 jin of feed."
“Every household in the village is still eating sweet potatoes, so it’s hard to have enough to feed pigs.”
"Moreover, I estimate that the nearest breeding farm is probably in Heihe City, which is two or three hundred miles away from our village."
The villagers are basically born and die wherever they are. The three brothers had heard of Heihe, but they had no idea what it was like, let alone how far away it was.
Lin Mo decided to find a way to feed the wild boar, just enough to keep it from starving each day.
We'll try to find a pig farm to exchange for piglets later.
Each of the four men would prepare half a pound of sweet potatoes for the pigs to eat every day. During this time, they would also secretly enclose a piece of land in the ditch and build a wooden house and a pigsty.
In previous years, when hunting was still possible, professional hunters would build a wooden hut deep in the mountains and forests, firstly as a place to rest, and secondly as a place to hide if they encountered danger.
Over the past decade or so, hunting has almost disappeared, and there are few simple wooden huts left in the mountains.
"Let's chase the rabbits for a while, and then go catch fish around noon!"
Having made up his mind, Lin Mo gave a shout.
Awang and Ajun got excited; they had heard Miao Qingsong talk about chasing rabbits yesterday.
Today we can learn a new skill!
The four of them ventured slightly westward into the mountains and, after finding a new earthen slope, began searching for a rabbit hole.
The two searched for a cave, while one bundled up damp straw and firewood. Lin Mo wandered around the ridge, observing the situation in the forest.
There was a lot of bird droppings, and some of them looked like sheep droppings.
Some of them were black and looked like roe deer droppings.
However, it is difficult to hunt roe deer in the nearby ridges, because roe deer mainly live near river valleys. This dung ball must have been left behind by someone passing by.
After a few days, once we've become familiar with the surrounding mountains, we can then explore the valleys within them.
The banks of the Nenjiang River are open spaces where wild animals come to drink water. When you have some free time, you can walk west along the Nenjiang River.
Further along the river into the ridge, there are plenty of wild game such as sable, red deer, roe deer, musk deer, and badgers.
Even a simple trip can trip up several people, hehe.
"Huh, why is this hole so small? I almost didn't see it if I didn't look carefully."
Miao Wang pressed his face to the ground, searching everywhere for rabbit holes. After finding two, he stuffed them with grass and marked them, then went to look for the next one.
The next one was so small that four fingers couldn't fit in. I tried rubbing it with my foot, but the hole didn't get any bigger. When I looked inside, the hole was straight and tight.
Lin Mo leaned over for a peek, and that one glance was enough. He quickly grabbed Awang by the collar and pulled his face away from the cave entrance.
"Are you stupid? This is obviously a snake hole, and you're still sticking your face up to it!"
"If a poisonous snake inside flicks its tongue at your face in a moment, you'll be in for a world of hurt."
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