"Huh? Sheep, sheep, eating little egrets?"
Chen Ling looked like I heard it right.
I was surprised that my uncle could say such a thing.
"Brother, please don't make trouble. No matter how wild my sheep are, they won't eat those newly hatched birds, right? Maybe they ran up to lick the salt and eat them."
"I'm not talking nonsense. Look, they all put their heads into the nests made by egrets. How could they be licking salt..."
Wang Qingwen said with a serious face that he had seen a lot of strange things at Chen Ling's house, and when he saw this kind of scene, he couldn't help but think about things in an unreasonable direction.
In fact, I didn’t see clearly what they were eating.
While talking, Wang Qingwen still raised his head and shined a flashlight on the cliff for Chen Ling to see.
“There are some sheep in our mountains that eat eggs and chicks. We have seen them before. Dad also told me that there used to be pregnant ewes in the village who hid in the mountains and forests to give birth to lambs. After that, his temperament changed drastically, and he ate randomly, which was very scary.”
He said this did happen.
Chen Ling also knows something.
Some people who do not give birth to lambs will also have this situation.
Maybe he is very hungry, he may be stressed, or he may have some kind of disease.
In short, there are still occasional cases.
In addition to sheep, cattle, horses and donkeys can also suffer from this condition.
For example, in some severely cold places.
For example, in Iceland near the Arctic, the people there raise horses. In order to survive the severe cold winter, they will also feed the horses some meat, such as salvaged fish, to supplement their nutrition.
The horses will also have a great meal.
Such things are rare and not very common.
But there are still some.
It just sounds a little weird.
"Well, these sheep put their heads into the egret's nest, but I didn't see them eating the little egret."
Chen Ling looked up and saw the mountains to the west of the farm. There is almost no slope to speak of. They are all 90-degree steep cliffs on the water, standing up and down, just like cutting with a knife or an ax.
It is impossible for people to stand up there.
But these flocks of sheep, big and small, can actually go up. They are scattered on the protruding rocks on the cliff. They bleat and poke their heads to eat in the egret's nest. something.
From time to time, they would compete with each other and eat happily.
However, Chen Ling could clearly see that these sheep were not eating the little egrets.
But there are some things inside the egret's nest, which are messy, like a clump of weeds or some crop seedlings.
Being eaten by the flock of sheep.
“咩咩~”
It was getting dark. Listening to the cheering of the sheep on the cliff, Chen Ling and his uncle took a look. Later, Su Ligai and the two people from the provincial station also came out.
Chen Ling asked them to guard here.
I took Erhei and several other small male dogs to go around the back mountain to catch the sheep.
By the way, explore the situation on the cliff.
The dogs that grew up in Chen Ling's family are naturally much smarter than other dogs.
The female dog at home is about to give birth, and these male puppies have been very busy recently. They will catch mice, hares, mountain birds, hedgehogs, etc. and bring them back to feed them.
This is also a bit wolfish.
When a female wolf is pregnant, other members of the wolf pack will bring back food for her.
Naturally, if you have other things in mind, you will be distracted when looking after the sheep.
In addition, Zhao Yubao and the others have been hanging around here a lot recently. The two old men like to let their own lambs follow the Chen Ling family's flock, saying that this will help the lambs grow.
So Erhei and the others felt that they had less tasks, so they all started looking for prey and courting the little bitches.
......
"Woof, woof, woof!"
As soon as they rounded the back mountain, Erhei and his dogs rushed towards the sheep on the cliff and screamed.
The sheep got used to the management of the dogs on the farm, and they all immediately raised their heads, swaying their green eyes in the dim night, and barked 'baa-baa'.
Wang Qingwen followed closely and flashed the flashlight, making his green eyes brighter.
“My dear, these sheep are really good at climbing. They picked all these places.”
“There is no way, goats are much wilder than sheep. They have been left alone for a long time. Running around.”
Goats are playful by nature.
Since childhood, it has been more lively and active than sheep, and likes to climb high and low.
Not to mention if they have been kept free since childhood.
No.
Without the supervision of the dog, I couldn't see it for a while and climbed up the cliff.
It gets dark very early and very quickly in the mountains. It is impossible for humans and dogs to pass such a steep mountain wall.
Fortunately, these sheep will know to go home when they see the dogs coming to chase them.
One by one, they clung to the cliff and jumped down in a posture that made people's hearts tremble.
The big sheep are like this, and the little sheep are like this too.
Everyone is a master of rock climbing.
The two of them shined their flashlights and watched the sheep bleating and jumping down step by step.
Chen Ling asked his uncle to go back and drive the sheep back into the pen. He took Erhei to the side of the mountain lake and went up the cliff to see the situation.
After entering the forest, the egrets were very alert.
When I shine the flashlight, I can see that there are little egrets that have just hatched in almost every nest. Some have just one, some have two, and some have all hatched, four or five together, all naked. He didn't have much hair on his body and was very ugly.
Without a second glance, the great egret opened its wings and screamed, with a fierce look in its eyes, as if it was ready to attack Chen Ling at any time.
Chen Ling was too lazy to look at them anymore. He beat the grass with a bamboo stick and zigzagged around to the side of the cliff. As soon as he came to the vicinity, Erhei twitched his nose vigorously.
Sometimes I raise my neck and twitch to the sky twice, sometimes I bury my head in the grass like a pig, sniffing hard against the ground.
suddenly.
It screamed "woof".
He jogged around some huge rocks and kept calling at the nearest egret nest.
Chen Ling came over with a flashlight to take a look.
I saw a deep stone cave under the rocks next to the Egret Cave, half way along the road.
The hole is about the size of a basketball.
Some paw prints remain on the outer edge of the cave.
The surrounding area is not bare. There are some small trees, vines and wild grasses, with several common crop seedlings sandwiched between them. There are dried feces between the seedlings.
Surrounded by strangely-shaped rocks, covered by vines and weeds.
That is to say, the entrance of the cave is on the side of the mountain lake, in a depression, which is a shelter from the wind.
Walking four or five meters east from the entrance of the cave, you will find a large number of egret nests scattered around the outside of the cliff.
After Chen Ling looked at the cave entrance and the paw prints outside the cave for a few times, he went to see what mysteries were in the egret nests that attracted the sheep to eat inside.
Go over with a flashlight and take a closer look.
Then he was surprised to find that these egret nests were still as abandoned as before. After the previous egrets were killed by eagles, no new egrets moved in, but the family had seen egret activities here before. Yes.
Around the egret nests, there are some lush green wheat seedlings and sorghum seedlings. In some nests, due to the accumulation of soil, there are also some wheat seedlings, peanut seedlings, and some melon seedlings. , which breeds many vines.
"I'll go, it's okay for watermelons to grow on vines here. Why are there so many crops growing up? Egrets don't eat these things."
These water birds rarely eat crop seeds. That kind of thing.
So there won’t be any in the nest, nor in the feces.
"Huh? No, that cave and the paw prints, as well as the wheat and sorghum here..."
A flash of inspiration suddenly flashed in Chen Ling's mind: "I understand, this Eighty percent of it is the thing that digs holes in cornfields.”
At noon, Zhao Yubao went back and got a piece of paper, on which he wrote down several possibilities that Han Ninggui mentioned.
Among them, badgers are the most suspected.
At first Chen Ling was too convinced.
Bagers can hibernate, but unlike voles, they are not likely to store winter food.
Later I looked at what Han Ninggui and Zhao Yubao said. Said it was a badger.
The hole in the cornfield is its temporary hole, which is used to find food.
Compared to the caves where people live and overwinter all year round, it is so deep and complicated.
This kind of temporary cave is like a temporary stronghold, straight and short.
So if you fill it with water, it can spread out.
Those grains are only what they eat within two or three days.
It’s not about storing food.
"His grandma's paw prints are not much different from those of a badger. They must be dog badgers. No wonder I didn't go back after waiting for a few days. I thought I was afraid of dogs.
It turned out to be a temporary hole.”
Chen Ling cursed, feeling that he had wasted a lot of feelings.
I took a few glances at the egret nests around me and said, "These birds are really miserable. They are eaten by eagles, mountain civets, foxes, and leopards, and now dogs and badgers are here too."
And. ...
There should be quite a few badgers here.
Definitely not one or two, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much food left to take root and sprout here.
Chen Ling thought, Erhei was still barking at the entrance of the cave.
In addition to being nosy, this little fool is a bit stubborn and follows Hei Wa's tiger-headed nature.
But it is useful to call it that.
Chen Ling stepped on a few stones from the cliff, walked down carefully, walked between the shallow depressions of several huge rocks, and stared at the cave under the rocks.
Under Erhei's persistent barking, a pair of round eyes in the dark cave were shining brightly, like little raccoons, you squeeze me and I squeeze you, panic and anger It screamed, and Chen Ling could see it with a flashlight.
There are probably five or six of them, large and small.
"Good guys, there are still a few little ones. They haven't escaped now. You are the culprits."
Chen Ling's sharp eyes saw that the appearance of these little things was obviously different from that of pigs and badgers. I know it was the badger who didn't run away.
The dog badger is actually much weaker than the pig badger.
It’s not as bad-tempered as a pig or badger.
And the digestive ability is not as good as that of pig badgers.
Not to mention the badger puppy.
The digestive capacity of the intestines and stomach is weaker.
So the seeds in the feces sprout and grow everywhere.
“Tsk, tsk, I really didn’t expect that the man who came up to herd the sheep found a nest of badgers.”
At this time, Chen Ling’s shock had turned into joy.
"Brother Fugui, are you there? I heard the dog barking."
"It's me, are you going to change shifts?"
"Yes, it's time to change shifts for dinner, and the crane hatches. In the past few days, we have been feeding the red-crowned crane fish all day long. It knows that we have no malicious intentions and is no longer so wary of us.”
“Good thing, good thing”
"Hahaha, yes, we are quite proud... What are you doing here at night, looking for scorpions?"
"No, it's not a scorpion, it's a nest of badgers that stuck me here."
"Huh? Badgers?"
The group heard that this was a new thing Son, come here quickly.
Chen Ling told them what this was, and a group of people started yelling.
“Wow, is this the melon-stealing 猹 written by Mr. Lu Xun? It looks so strange.”
"Yeah, when I was studying Runtu, I thought the hair on this thing was all the same color, like an otter, but I didn't expect it to look like this."
"How to make this thing? How do I get it? Do you want to catch them and eat them?”
“If you don’t want to eat them, you can just catch them and let them play with them for a few days before letting them go... The main thing is not to let them dig holes around my house.”
There is a way, a thousand-mile embankment is destroyed by an ant nest.
Chen Ling was very wary of things like pig badgers and dog badgers digging holes in his territory.
The farm is a good place and attracts many wild animals.
If these experts who dig tunnels are allowed to cause trouble here, the foundation will be easily destroyed.
And.
They dig ten or twenty meters deep, and they usually don't notice it.
Once it rains heavily or there is an earthquake or something, it is not a trivial matter.
Those who don’t understand may not take it seriously.
He and Wang Lixian saw how powerful this thing was last year.
Wang Lixian’s greenhouse was destroyed by this thing.
The cave and space dug below are larger than a house, and dozens of pigs and badgers live there. The destructive power is simply terrifying.
The dog badger is not as ferocious as the pig badger, but its burrowing ability is not weak.
How dare Chen Ling let them dig holes everywhere.
"Then how to catch it? Do you want smoke?"
"No, this hole is also a temporary hole they use to catch egrets. It is very short and can be hooked with an iron hook. Come out."
Chen Ling smiled and waved to Erhei, "Go back and get the iron hook and the wire rope."
When Erhei heard that he had a mission, it was more exciting than ever. Excited, he raised his tail and barked, then ran down the mountain.
After a while, a long and thick iron hook and wire rope were brought up.
Of course, there were several small male dogs like Ermao following behind, also holding several sections of wire rope in their mouths.
These people from Provincial Taiwan were dumbfounded.
"Good guy, are all your dogs so smart? I thought only Heiwa and Xiaojin were the best."
Everyone knows that Heiwa and Heiwa are the kings of dogs.
In addition, dogs with intelligence and human nature have different eyes.
Heiwa Xiaojin has that extraordinary temperament.
"Hey, dogs lead dogs, top students lead poor students, poor students have to learn two tricks, don't you think so."
Chen Ling smiled and didn't care.
Everyone was stunned when they heard this, and then they also laughed, thinking that Chen Ling's statement was very novel.
Then he helped Chen Ling hold a flashlight and shine it.
Their strong-light flashlight is for commercial use and is much stronger than Chen Ling's flashlight.
The light shines into the dog's cave, and the light inside is as bright as day.
“Look, they are digging inside, trying to dig a hole to escape.”
Someone exclaimed, but the badgers in the cave sensed the danger and did not dare to run out. , big and small turned around together, using their sharp claws to dig in with all their might.
"Haha, I'm not afraid of it running away. The place they chose is full of rocks. It won't take ten days and a half to dig through it."
Chen Ling smiled, grabbed the long iron hook and hooked it in. He hooked a badger's hind leg, so he had to use his strength at this time.
Just like picking at an eel, when the badger instinctively retracted its legs, it quickly pulled out, and the badger stuck out its butt with a white-haired tail and was hooked to the entrance of the hole.
Chen Ling stepped on its hind legs, front shoulders and head with his foot, preventing it from moving.
Then I took the wire rope and wrapped it around its legs to avoid being scratched by the sharp claws.
When this badger was tied up and rolling and struggling in the grass.
Someone shouted in a hurry: "A dog badger is coming out. It is so fierce and wants to bite people."
When Chen Ling saw it, everyone yelled to avoid it. He rushed forward and pinned the badger there. He could only growl and couldn't move at all.
"Hahaha, after all, it is not as fierce as a pig badger. This is still a big badger... Don't be afraid, the dog is here, it can't change the world."
Chen Ling smiled and stretched out his hand to rub the badger's belly. Sure enough, the milk bag had disappeared. Now he couldn't get rid of the badger's milk anymore.
Then we can only capture the trembling little guys in the cave and give them to Ruirui to play with.
Well, Zhenzhen is coming back soon. I will be very happy to have these little gadgets.