Chapter 410: Going into the Mountains to Hunt Wild Boars
Gao Mingcheng's family has two dogs, a sheep and a dozen chickens.
This sheep was bought in the early spring of last year. We originally planned to feed it until the end of the year and then slaughter it. However, a lot of wild boars appeared at home at that time, so we only killed one sheep and kept the other one. We have kept it until now.
However, the good days of this sheep are over, because Gao Mingcheng came back this time with the intention of slaughtering it.
In two days, it will be little Xuxu's full-month birthday. Gao Mingcheng doesn't plan to hold a big celebration, but he will invite relatives and friends in the county who he gets along well with to have a meal to celebrate.
Chickens can lay eggs, but what can sheep do? Besides, the meat of lambs is tender, while the meat of old goats is not tasty.
So Gao Mingcheng prepared to slaughter the sheep, and then he could prepare dishes such as braised lamb, lamb bones and stewed radish.
In addition to sheep, Gao Mingcheng also plans to go into the mountains to check on the wild boars.
Last year, wild boars suffered and their numbers dropped sharply, but this year they are recuperating. There are no natural enemies in the mountains, and he has never gone into the mountains to hunt. As for other people in the village, no one has ever gone into the mountains to catch wild boars.
Gao Fuqiang and a few others in the village did have bird guns, but the quality of their guns was not as good as his. They were barely enough to shoot turtledoves, let alone hunt wild boars in the mountains.
Gao Mingcheng led the two dogs into the mountains.
When he was not at home, the two dogs neglected hunting and hung out with some local dogs in the village. Their aura became much weaker.
Back then, Gao Mingcheng led them to track herds of wild boars and even fought with black bears. At that time, the black tiger and the elf were like newborn calves that were not afraid of tigers. As long as they followed Gao Mingcheng, they dared to bite the black bears.
The portrayal of a dog relying on the power of his master is vivid and clear.
Gao Mingcheng's absence from the village was like putting weapons in storage and horses in the mountains. Therefore, the combat effectiveness of the Black Tiger and the Elf plummeted.
Now leading the two dogs into the mountains, Gao Mingcheng observed that the two dogs were not as excited as before, but rather a little wary.
In spring, summer and autumn, there is abundant food in the mountains. It is not easy to find a group of wild boars in the mountains. After all, wild boars do not have a fixed activity area. They will look for food everywhere. When they are energetic, they will rush around in the mountains and take a mud bath in the mud.
So if you want to hunt wild boars, it is best to have a hunting dog. Hunting dogs are good at tracking prey and can help hunters find prey as quickly as possible, so they don’t have to wander around in the mountains all day.
But in winter, due to food scarcity, wild boars have few options.
As long as you are familiar with the conditions in the mountains, you will know roughly where the wild boars are.
Wild boars are omnivorous animals. In winter, they mainly eat acorns and kudzu roots. Sometimes, if they are lucky enough to encounter mice, pheasants and rabbits, they will also feast on them to supplement their nutritional needs.
Gao Mingcheng led the two dogs directly to the sunny hillside covered with oak trees. Because the sunny slope is warm and there are a lot of acorns under the oak forest litter, wild boars like to move around in this environment.
In order to reduce their own energy consumption, they are not as active in winter as in the other three seasons. They basically eat and sleep, sleep and eat.
When they arrived at the sunny hillside, Gao Mingcheng had not yet found any trace of the wild boar, but the two dogs had already smelled the scent of the wild boar and were able to track it accurately.
The black tiger seemed to have found some of the spirit it had when it first hunted with its master. It let out a low bark at Gao Mingcheng and led him forward.
The elf followed closely behind, his expression showing nervousness yet excitement.
With two dogs leading the way, Gao Mingcheng soon found a herd of wild boars.
This oak forest is relatively large and has good terrain, so it is occupied by a large family. This large family has a total of thirty-six pigs, including thirty piglets that are less than one year old.
In other words, these thirty piglets were bred from these six adult pigs.
Wild boars in the wild normally reproduce once a year. They usually go into estrus and mate between New Year's Day and the Spring Festival, and give birth from April to June, usually with 6-12 piglets per litter.
If they are raised artificially, they can give birth to two litters a year, with 5-12 piglets in each litter.
Really fertile!
Gao Mingcheng complained and decided to reduce the number of members in this family with more than one child.
His eyes swept among the herd of wild boars, and finally set his eyes on a little pig that really caught his eye. The pig didn't have to be big, as long as it was enough to eat.
Finally, with the cooperation of the two dogs and Gao Mingcheng, they successfully captured the pig.
A javelin pierced the piglet's head steadily, killing it instantly.
The wild boars were frightened and had already left this dangerous place.
The black tiger and the elf pounced on the dead wild boar and bit it, their expressions becoming increasingly ferocious and hideous, as if they had completely found their original hunting style.
Gao Mingcheng let them bite him, and only when his emotions gradually calmed down did he walk over and pull out the javelin.
He had this javelin made by a blacksmith specifically for hunting wild boars, but it had not been used for a long time and the tip of the spear had become blunt. He only sharpened it before going up the mountain.
He was in a good mood as he looked at the wild boars going away.
Wild boars are animals that reproduce very quickly. By next year, the number of wild boars in the mountains will double again.
At that time, he would take the two dogs into the mountains to hunt from time to time, and effectively control the reproduction of wild boars before they were listed as protected animals, so as to prevent them from becoming a disaster.
Gao Mingcheng recalled for a moment and remembered that wild boars were listed in the Wildlife Protection Law on August 1, 2000, and private hunting was prohibited.
And this year is 1988, so I can still hunt for another twelve years!
Thinking of this, Gao Mingcheng suddenly felt heroic in his heart. Although he only had two dogs, he also had a sense of "holding Huang on the left, holding Cang on the right, wearing brocade hats and sable furs, and riding a thousand horses across the plain."
Gao Mingcheng picked up the wild boar on the ground and said loudly: "Children, let's go home!"
The two dogs immediately barked in coordination, echoing in the quiet forest.
After they left, the forest returned to silence.
The wild boar hunted by Gao Mingcheng was not big, probably just an adult, weighing about 120 kilograms.
Wild boars generally reach adulthood when they are around eight months old and are able to reproduce.
So the wild boar's brothers and sisters will go into heat and mate during the Spring Festival, and then give birth to piglets around May.
In this way, life will continue endlessly from generation to generation.
Gao Mingcheng carried the wild boar and ran down the mountain quickly.
After a wild boar dies, its abdomen must be opened as soon as possible and the internal organs taken out, otherwise it will stink.
If it were an ordinary person who was not fast on foot, he would have to find a place in the mountains to cut open the wild boar and take out its internal organs.
However, Gao Mingcheng's physical fitness surpassed that of ordinary people. When he ran in the mountains, he was very fast. In just over ten minutes, he had brought the wild boar back to his yard.
The wild boar was not heavy, so it didn't affect his speed at all.
When he got home, he started to deal with the wild boar.
This wild boar is still a small pig, and its skin is not very thick. If the hair is removed, the skin will be very delicious. However, it is not easy to remove the hair of a wild boar. Gao Mingcheng was too lazy to make any more trouble, so he still used the old method - skinning it.
He took out a butcher knife, first cut open the skin on the abdomen, and then began to cut along the skin and flesh.
This butcher knife was newly bought. The blade was sharp and it could cut off a piece of flesh with just a slight cut.
The butcher knife is a sharp knife with blades on both sides. When killing a pig, the white knife goes in and the red knife comes out. It is very domineering and is also the most important tool for the butcher.
If someone in the village wants to kill a pig, they usually ask a butcher to do it, and the butcher will carry a butcher knife and a bone-cutting knife with him.
With these two things, it's easy to deal with a pig.
The reason why Gao Mingcheng bought the butcher knife was that he found that he often used a dagger to kill prey. After doing so many times, the dagger was not sharp enough. The dagger was given to him by Gao Guobing, and he cherished it very much, so he decided not to use it anymore.
The dagger was put away, and the newly bought butcher knife took on the task of processing prey. It was very useful whether it was slaughtering sheep or bleeding wild boars.
Butcher knife, everyone who has used it says it’s good!
(End of this chapter)
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