Leisurely Life: I Have Ten Thousand Acres of Grassland-Chapter 95 - 93: Counting Sheep Together—The Total Number on the Ranch!
The Harvest Festival is approaching.
After a year of hard work, it’s time to evaluate the results, and farmers and herders are inevitably a bit excited.
Of course, the premise is a bountiful harvest.
Jiang Feng began to organize his employees to count sheep.
Some netizens suggested that Jiang Feng use an automatic sheep counter; with technology so advanced, a simple camera shot should do the trick.
But there are over four thousand sheep and the pens are all together, and the sheep keep moving around, which still poses some difficulty.
The way herders count sheep is very simple. They lead the sheep into an outside enclosure with a channel that only fits one sheep at a time, counting each one that exits.
Taking advantage of the good midday weather, the sheep in the pens were driven out.
At this moment, employees had already set up two large pens on the grassland outside, with wide open entrances.
Jiang Feng assigned Old Hei, Lucky, and Wealthy to drive the sheep into the pens.
Xiaojin Hua followed along.
Jiang Feng also let Little White Wolf and the seven Little Golden Retrievers onto the grassland, allowing them to learn from the three sheepdogs.
All the dogs charged forward like soldiers, except Golden Retriever Wangwang, who pranced alongside Jiang Feng like an eunuch next to an emperor.
The sheep were driven in groups into the two pens.
Then the employees closed off the entrance channels.
The sunlight at 11 in the morning was perfect, casting warmth onto the herders and sheep.
The persistent bleating of the sheep added a lively atmosphere to the wilderness.
The drone captured this scene from above.
Watching the herders, sheep, and sheepdogs moving back and forth on the grassland, the netizens felt happy and relaxed.
Jiang Feng spoke up:
"Today, it’s all about counting sheep. The method here is to drive all the sheep to one place and count them one by one as they come out, that’s how it’s done."
"I should tally up my sheep now."
"When I first came here, there were around 4050 sheep. I’ve sold over three hundred and a lot of lambs have been born."
"It should still be stable between 4000 and 4100."
The netizens were quite amused.
[So it’s all about counting sheep!]
[Haha, tens of thousands of netizens have tuned in to the live stream to count sheep!]
[I’ve always wanted to count them myself!]
[Such a grand setup just to count sheep!]
There is never a shortage of experts among the netizens.
One netizen named [Ten Years in Idiots Bar] posted a comment:
[I have a great method for counting sheep! Just count how many legs there are and divide by four, then you have the number of sheep!]
Seeing this comment, people seemed to agree.
[True to the Idiots Bar community, I suggest counting sheep eyes, just divide by two!]
[Counting legs isn’t foolproof, what if two sheep are piggybacking, leaving only six legs on the ground?]
[What if some sheep are lying down!]
[I suggest counting wool!]
The comments became lively again.
Jiang Feng saw the comments but just smiled.
He stood by the fence, looking at his sheep.
There certainly are a lot of them, a vast multitude.
Big ones, small ones, with white faces, and black faces.
Employees opened a small gate in the fence, and the lead sheep was let out first.
The sheep behind immediately followed.
Employees began to count them one by one.
They grouped them in tens, pausing at a hundred, to drive them back into the pasture pens.
At the fence exit, one person counted, another person counted behind, making sure the count was accurate.
Jiang Feng told everyone:
"Herders hire shepherds during the summer, and before handing over, they count the sheep once like this to pass them to the shepherd."
"After three months, they count them again."
"If there are fewer sheep, the shepherd has to compensate out of pocket."
"This is quite common."
As the pasture employees counted sheep, Jiang Feng watched them, and the netizens watched Jiang Feng watching the employees count sheep.
Both Jiang Feng and the netizens felt relaxed.
Because they weren’t the ones counting.
One hundred, two hundred, three hundred...
The sheep were counted quickly, and before long, there were fewer sheep in the two large pens.
The sheep flowed through the fence exit like water, one by one.
The final one or two hundred remained inside, refusing to come out.
Lucky and Wealthy were ready; they knew what comes next.
"Lucky, Wealthy, go, drive the sheep!"
Jiang Feng shouted.
The two Border Collies charged into the pen on either side, driving the sheep.
Little Border Collies, the wolf, and the seven Little Golden Retrievers stood on the ground, admiring the Border Collies from afar.
They were fully focused, with a hint of admiration in their eyes.
The Border Collie lay down directly, crawled under the fence, then circled behind the flock of sheep, and the sheep in the pen immediately panicked and ran towards the exit, scrambling to jump out.
The employee counted them one by one at the fence exit.
Finally, the employees at the two fences totaled the numbers and calculated the total number of sheep.
"Manager, it’s 4,197 heads."
Yang Maolin came over and said to Jiang Feng.
Jiang Feng nodded and replied, "Great, thanks for your hard work."
Then the employees began arranging to feed the sheep grass.
Jiang Feng calculated the number of the flock: "Sold quite a few recently. Earlier at home, we thought the sheep weren’t fat enough, so we didn’t sell, but after coming here they got fatter and we sold some."
"The total is close to 4,200, not bad, they’ll reproduce more in the winter."
"By next spring when the lambs come out, it’s estimated to reach five or six thousand."
At his scale, relying solely on the birth of cattle and sheep can already bring a decent income.
But he wants to do it even bigger, so the number of sheep sold is still restrained.
After counting the flock, Jiang Feng had nothing much else to do.
He once again went to the cattle farm.
But this time it was the dairy farm.
The environment at the dairy farm is much better than the cattle farm; it’s all specialized indoors with suitable temperatures here.
Jiang Feng’s dairy farm has twenty adult dairy cows, which are the treasures of the farm.
"Today I’ll live stream milking once."
"Everyone should be quite interested."
"Dairy cows are good things; among livestock, the feed conversion rate is highest for dairy cows."
"There are a lot of dairy products in Maodeng, and the demand for dairy cows is also high; those big farms all have specialized dairy cow farms."
"I sell milk once a week, and not much because the farm uses a lot of milk, so we can only sell a little to cover some costs."
Jiang Feng entered the dairy farm and said to the viewers.
Upon hearing about milking, the viewers immediately got interested.
[Are we going to milk? I’m in!]
[What did the first person to drink milk do to the cow!]
[I was saying how there couldn’t be a farm without dairy cows, finally got to see them!]
[The manager actually has dairy cows here, quite hidden away!]
[Dairy cows are expensive, even more than beef cows!]
Jiang Feng walked into the cowshed, inspecting the milk in the pen.
These dairy cows are black and white in color, animals in black and white are very much liked among Huaxia People’s aesthetics.
Like pandas, killer whales, and such.
Dairy cows have a few more touches of amiability compared to beef cows.
Jiang Feng looked at the comments and explained:
"Nowadays it’s all machine milking, there are specialized milking machines, more convenient than hand milking, and the cows are more comfortable."
"Technology is advancing, and so is the farming industry."
This time just happens to be milking time.
Gelya and Niu Erhu are both here.
Jiang Feng, along with them, arranged for the dairy cows to come out and come to the side of the milking machine.
Jiang Feng seemed to use a disinfected towel to wipe the cow’s udders.
He further explained:
"Disinfection work is a major difficulty in the farming industry."
"Here, each cow uses a different disinfectant towel specifically configured to avoid potential cross-infection situations."
"First, a simple disinfection with the disinfectant towel, then connect to the milking device, and it’s done."
The milking device is similar to a car charging station, with two small suction cups at one end, providing negative pressure to directly suck the milk into the refrigerated box.
It’s much faster than manually milking bit by bit.
If the pressure starts to increase, it means the milk is running low, and the suction cups will automatically fall off.
Watching the farm employees milking scenes, the viewers were quite interested.
[Learned something new again!]
[It’s so high-tech now!]
Then someone asked:
[Manager, isn’t it said dairy cows have the highest feed conversion rate among livestock? Why not raise some more dairy cows then?]
Jiang Feng saw this comment.
He replied:
"This involves market issues. With only dozens of dairy cows, the profit efficiency is the best."
"If it’s a large dairy cow farm with hundreds of cows, you have to consider milk refrigeration, transportation, and such, the cost is very high."
"A large dairy cow farm can produce dozens of tons of milk daily, if not promptly handled it can easily lead to losses."
"So there are relatively few dairy cow farms nowadays; as far as I know, many dairy cow farms have been losing money year after year, and have converted to raising beef cattle."
"Beef cattle are more stable, raising too many dairy cows makes all the money go to dairy product companies."
After hearing Jiang Feng’s words, everyone suddenly realized.
The cost to open a dairy farm is high, the investment is high, it’s troublesome, not as worry-free as raising beef cattle.
[Manager may look young, but very savvy!]
[Quite the clever chap!]
[With such a big farm and ten employees, it wouldn’t work without being savvy!]
The comments responded one after another.
