Reborn in 1977

Emerging from the backyard, Jiang Lili went to prepare dinner, while Chen Fan went to find Captain Yang in the front to discuss buying feed with pre-paid work points.

Arriving at Captain Yang's house, he explained the matter, and Captain Yang agreed without hesitation, immediately leading him towards the livestock shed in front.

"Our team's feed is basically stored in the livestock shed for easy access."

Chen Fan asked, "Captain, what kind of things do you have?"

Captain Yang smiled and said, "We have rice straw, corn stalks, corn cobs, sorghum stalks, as well as some hay and rice bran. Mostly it's roughage, with less grain feed. In a couple of days, we'll slaughter three pigs and distribute the meat, so we won't need as much grain feed. I'll have you haul back two bags of rice bran later, mix it with some green grass and radish peels, boil it, and feed it to them. That should get you through the winter."

After a pause, he shared his experience with Chen Fan, "Piglets are hard to raise in the winter. Losing weight is a small matter, but it's hard to find pig feed everywhere. They can easily die. It's best to catch piglets after the first month of the lunar year when pig feed sprouts everywhere. I was planning to ask you to catch piglets together after spring, but you bought them yourself."

Chen Fan humbly listened to the advice, chuckling, "I've never raised pigs before, I just bought them when I saw them."

Captain Yang nodded, "Anyway, you're studying to be a veterinarian, so they shouldn't die on you. At most, you'll raise them for a few days in vain, consider it gaining experience."

If someone else had done this, he would have scolded them severely. Raising them for a month in vain, doesn't the pig feed need someone to gather it? Doesn't it need firewood to cook it?

But for Chen Fan, he could give the greatest patience and tolerance.

Whether the team would have a veterinarian in the future, and how good the veterinarian's skills would be, might all depend on him. Would he not cherish such a treasure, but instead pick him up and beat him?

After a few words, the two arrived at the livestock shed.

As soon as they walked into the alley, Captain Yang shouted, "Uncle Liu, Uncle Liu."

Although they didn't share the same surname, they were both from the same village, so he followed the same generation of the Liu family and called Liu Shifu Sixth Uncle.

Liu Shifu emerged from the small house, looked at the two, "It's snowing so heavily, what are you doing here at this time?"

Chen Fan quickly said, "Liu Shifu, I caught two more piglets and two lambs today, and I want to borrow some feed."

Upon hearing this, Liu Shifu immediately scolded with a smile, "You're really messing around. Who catches piglets in the twelfth lunar month? Are you going to dig for pig feed in the snow?"

Chen Fan chuckled, "That's why I came to borrow some feed."

Liu Shifu said, but still went back to the room to get the key, leading them towards the shed opposite, while saying, "See when you have time these days, still come over and listen to me talk about the secrets of raising livestock, otherwise I'm afraid you'll raise those little guys to death.

I know you want to be a veterinarian, but a veterinarian is for treating diseases, and there is still a big difference between that and raising livestock. Besides, you're not a veterinarian yet. You're really bold, raising pigs, sheep, and horses at the same time. I studied for three or four years and didn't dare to do that…"

Chen Fan suddenly chuckled, "There are also chicks and puppies."

Listening to the constant nagging, he wasn't angry. If this were decades later, who would care if you raised them to death or alive, avoiding trouble would be the priority.

Liu Shifu turned around, pointed at him good-naturedly, and then took the key to open the door.

The only difference between the storage room for feed and the adjacent livestock shed was that it had walls and a door. Inside, there were bundles of roughage stacked, as well as bulging sacks, all filled with rice bran.

In other places, sacks might be relatively important supplies, but in Yunhu, they were everywhere.

For no other reason than that, every year before the summer floods, the superiors would allocate a batch of sacks to each production team along the river and along the river. Once there was a flood emergency, these sacks would be used to fill soil. Villagers would be the main force, militiamen would be the backbone, and they would rush to the dam one after another, carrying sacks of soil to block the water.

If they could hold on until the main force arrived, they could basically eliminate the danger. If they couldn't hold on, not only would the sacks of soil be washed away, but thousands of acres of fertile land would be flooded, and even the lives of the people would not be guaranteed. As for property, it would naturally be left to fate.

So as long as there was no intentional damage and it was properly stored, there was never a shortage of sacks in this place.

And winter was the least likely time for floods, so these sacks became the best containers for rice bran.

Liu Shifu dragged another flatbed cart over, and together with Chen Fan, they lifted two bags of rice bran onto the cart, and moved four bundles of roughage, before saying, "These things should be enough to eat until the first month of the lunar year. At that time, there will be plenty of pig feed and green grass. If you go to cut grass for half an hour in the morning, it will be enough for these livestock to eat. If it's not enough, come and get more."

"Okay, thank you, Liu Shifu."

After Chen Fan thanked him, he looked up and asked curiously, "Don't we have any prepared silage?"

Liu Shifu was stunned for a moment, turned his head to look at Captain Yang who was grinning, shook his head and smiled, "Technicians did come to the team to guide us a few years ago, but that thing was too troublesome. We had to do it while the crops and green grass hadn't withered, and we had to pay attention to what kind of formula ratio, our team didn't do it."

After a pause, he smiled and said, "I've been raising livestock for decades, and I've always used these feeds to get through the winter, and haven't I taken good care of the livestock? It's not necessarily necessary to make that silage."

Chen Fan pursed his lips and said seriously, "If there is time, it's better to prepare some silage for the winter next year."

Liu Shifu was slightly stunned, looked at him and asked, "How do you say that?"

Chen Fan looked at him and Captain Yang, his face quite heavy, "I went to the commune today, and went to the veterinary station to find Station Chief Zhou to ask for a set of veterinary training class materials. I happened to see a water buffalo suffering from hypothermia, its body temperature was too low, and its organs were also showing signs of failure, it was so thin that it was just skin and bones.

Later, I asked about it. After excluding several other causes of the disease, the most likely thing was that the water buffalo did not get enough rest and nutrition, which caused it to get hypothermia. If I hadn't happened to go there and found a treatment method in a periodical, the cow might have been gone.

So, the nutritional supplementation of livestock in winter must not be ignored."

Hearing this, Liu Shifu was suddenly stunned, and Captain Yang's face also became serious.

After a two-second pause, Liu Shifu grabbed Chen Fan, stared at him intently, and asked, "What you said about hypo-, hypothermia, what's going on?"

"Oh."

Chen Fan explained the water buffalo's hypothermia in detail, and finally said, "The incidence of this disease is very high in winter. Station Chief Zhou said that there have been three cases in the past month…"

Before he could finish speaking, he saw Liu Shifu suddenly slap himself in the face, his eyes turned red in an instant, turned to look at Captain Yang, choked up and said, "Captain, I'm sorry to the team, I'm sorry to Da Hei! If I had been willing to learn how to make silage, Da Hei wouldn't have died last year."

Chen Fan was immediately stunned, looked at him, then looked at Captain Yang, his mind full of questions, what's wrong?

Captain Yang sighed, shook his head and said, "You're not a veterinarian, even Station Chief Zhou can't do anything, what can you do? That technician who guided silage, he didn't explain it clearly either. He only said that silage is better than dry roughage, isn't that nonsense?

Who doesn't know that meat is better than vegetables? But meat is more expensive than vegetables. Making silage is so troublesome, we had to harvest late rice at that time, and after harvesting, we had to pick the dam, where did we have time to make this thing?!"

Liu Shifu still shook his head, but just sighed, unable to speak.

Chen Fan looked at the two of them, vaguely understood what had happened, and murmured to himself, "It's not like making silage will definitely be okay, it has many causes, maybe it was infected with schistosomiasis…"

Liu Shifu didn't listen to his comforting words, just looked at him and asked, "Xiao Chen, can you make silage?"

Chen Fan hesitated for a moment, then said, "This can be learned, as long as there is information, you can learn it after reading it once."

"Okay."

Liu Shifu wiped his face, turned to look at Captain Yang, and said seriously, "Xiao Yang, next year, definitely, definitely, we must prepare silage."

Captain Yang nodded vigorously, "Okay."