Reborn 92's Business Tycoon

Chapter 23: Pig farmer Feng Yiping

Apart from cows, there is another type of domestic animal that needs to be raised with care, and that is pigs, especially sows that can give birth to piglets. Feng Yiping also has a lot to say about this. During the years at technical secondary school, the family kept a sow in order to make ends meet.

The sow would give birth to two litters of piglets a year, each litter containing ten or so piglets. The law of the jungle, where the fittest survive, was directly reflected here. In every litter, there was always one or two piglets that were born weaker than their siblings. And there were several occasions when the sow gave birth to more piglets than there were nipples.

Feng Yiping remembers that their sow had 13 teats, but there were a few times when there were more than 13 piglets. Therefore, the weakest piglets had difficulty getting milk from their mother, and the weakest one was also the most troublesome.

A piglet is worth 70, 80 or even 100 yuan, so of course it has to be well taken care of. It is fed with rice gruel boiled with rice water in a bottle, held in one's arms like a baby.

But this is not good enough. Breast milk is still the best, so he has to wait until all the other piglets have finished their milk, and then carefully take it to its mother so that it can nurse. The reason for being careful is that sows in lactation are very grumpy and protective of their young. Even if the owner approaches, they will be very vigilant, and sometimes they will not only butthump you, they will really bite you, so be careful.

In addition, nursing mothers, whether they are human mothers or pig mothers, seem to have a very bad temper and are very easily irritated – Feng Yiping has experienced this himself.

You've just fed it once, and now you're asking a tiny thing to nurse again. If it's in a bad mood, it'll just lie on the ground, pressing its whole body against your nipples, while the little one next to it cries and cries. It'll close its eyes, its big ears hanging down, pretending not to see or hear. At this time, you have to give it a good scratch and coax it, before it will turn its body sideways and expose its nipples.

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Be careful, too. While you're eating, Mama Pig will get impatient again and say, 'Not yet!' So she rolls over. The skinny little one doesn't have a quick reaction instinct, and it's hard for it to think about anything else while it's enjoying its meal. It might get squashed under Mama Pig's belly, and the hundreds of pounds of Mama Pig will take most of the little one's life in an instant. So you must be quick and alert when you're nearby, or you'll be an accomplice.

From the time the piglets were born to the time they were sold, there was a gap of more than two months. Piglets were expensive, and each piglet grew one pound a day, which added up to more than ten or twenty pounds. The average price was three or four yuan a pound, which meant nearly a hundred yuan. So those two months were really hard work.

First, the sow had to be fed well so that she had milk to feed the piglets. Then, as the piglets grew and were weaned, they had to be fed well and kept strong. At the time, the family could not afford to buy feed, so they used an old-fashioned method: they ground rice into rice milk in a stone mortar and then added water to cook it for the piglets to eat. It was not easy to grind an extra ten catties of rice every day in the primitive stone mortar.

And just like with children, it was a long night, and they had to be fed at least once in the middle. In the middle of the night, you had to boil a large pot of rice milk, then tell them to eat it up, then drive them out to go to the toilet, then coax them back home one by one. It took nearly two hours.

If you want the piglets to eat a lot, you have to use your brain. If they just eat and sleep, they will certainly gain weight, but then they will only eat less and less. So what should you do? You have to let the piglets get the right amount of exercise every day.

So, in Feng Yiping's resume, in addition to herding cows, there is also one item for herding pigs.

The mother pig leads the way, followed by a group of piglets, some of which are limping with their bellies hanging out. As she walks along, she squeals, and the group of white, black and striped piglets follow in a tangled mass, chasing each other and wagging their tails. They are not idle either. All the little pigs respond to their mother in a similar melody, but they are not in unison, as they are all rushing about in different directions.

There is a flat area on the hill, which is usually used for drying. The little ones are in groups of two or three, playing merrily in the middle of the field. Their mother is in the grass nearby, snorting here and there. When she gets tired, she lazily returns to the middle of the field and lies down.

As soon as she lies down, the piglets swarm over her, fighting with each other. Soon there is nothing left but the sound of slurping. After a while, the mother piglet lets out a squeal, struggles a little, and then lies flat on the ground, not feeding anymore.

A few of the piglets were still not satisfied and kept nudging her belly with their little mouths, but she ignored them with narrowed eyes. Seeing that this trick didn't work, one of the piglets ran to her head, squealed anxiously and nudged her face with its little mouth. She still didn't budge, so the piglet continued to be cute, but she was getting impatient. She shook her head and swept the little one away with her mouth.

The little pig that rolled out of the house seemed a little dizzy and confused. It lay quietly on the ground for a while before it came to its senses. After just a few moments of silence, it let out a happy squeal, spread its four feet, and ran happily towards its other siblings. You nosed me, I bumped into you, and we all played happily together. Only a few of them were left, snuggled up next to their mother, peacefully taking a nap.

At this time, there are always people who drop by to see which one is the biggest, the most lively, the most voracious, the most impressive... so that they will know which one to choose when the time comes.

After more than two months of hard work, the time has finally come for the family to say goodbye. A day is chosen, and while the mother pig is locked in the pen, the piglets are locked in the house. Those who have made an appointment come to the house and each grab the piglet they like. Whether they got the piglet they wanted or not, the Feng Yiping family didn't care. After the final weighing, the piglets were loaded into sacks or baskets and carried off to their new homes.

From the moment they were separated, the mother pig never stopped. She barked again and again, walked towards home again and again, and was pulled back again and again by the rope tied around her neck, but she kept on working tirelessly.

The piglets' cries grew more and more urgent and louder and louder. In their cries was anxiety and fear. The mother pig heard them and grew more and more agitated. She too kept on crying, her cries growing more and more urgent and louder and louder, full of anxiety and concern.

But in the end, she could only watch in vain as one piglet after another was led further and further away by strangers.

Some of the piglets struggled to jump up from the basket again and again, with their little legs hanging over the edge, watching their mother's incessant yelps, or rather sobs. The mother pig would rush in that direction again and again, tensing the rope every time, straight...

For many days afterwards, the sow would remain listless, not even willing to eat.

It was strange. During the three years when Feng Yiping was in secondary school, which were also the most difficult times for the family, the sows they kept were all very good. They rarely got sick, gave birth to more than ten piglets per litter, and had a high survival rate. They added nearly 2,000 yuan to the family's income each year. But after he started working, the family continued to raise sows, but there were always problems of one kind or another. It was not cost-effective, so they stopped raising sows.