1968: Started from breeding

Chapter 316 Old Hou, even you with thick eyebrows and big eyes have learned how to flatter!
Su Wenchen only glanced at it.

They discovered that those isolated were all infected because they had only eaten one type of food, and they stated this directly.

"Don't just feed them alfalfa. This breed of rabbit needs concentrated feed. You have to feed them alfalfa mixed with concentrated feed such as soybean meal and corn."

Hou Guozhong was taken aback when he heard this, and then frowned a little.

"So they can only be fed concentrated feed? No wonder they can only be raised on state-run farms in places like Harbin!"

"But this isn't suitable for our farm!"

"There's not enough corn and soybeans for people to eat, how could we possibly use them to feed rabbits!"

Upon hearing this, Su Wenchen continued walking to the next room, and said the same thing.

"I'll look at other breeds first, and then try breeding them with this breed of meat rabbits to see if there's any chance of breeding a rabbit breed that only eats alfalfa."

"These fast-growing, high-quality meat rabbits have a good foundation!"

Enter the third room.

The rabbits in this room are all large, dark brown ones. Su Wenchen estimated at a glance that the largest one weighed nearly ten pounds.

Belgian Rabbit LV0
Current status: Rabbit selection period
Fattening-oriented breeding: Increase subcutaneous fat content, enhance muscle deposition efficiency, optimize feed conversion rate, and strengthen tolerance to transportation stress.

Fur-oriented breeding: Enhance the shine of dark brown fur, expand high-quality fur areas on the back and loin, improve heat tolerance, and increase resistance to pelvic diseases.

Introduction: Belgian large meat rabbit breed, with a slender and muscular body and dark fur that absorbs heat well, but requires ample space to move around and has very high requirements for cages.

"Director, these are Belgian rabbits imported from the state-owned meat rabbit breeding base in Shandong Province. Although these rabbits don't grow as fast, they are the largest in size!"

"It also has the lowest mortality rate among all the rabbits in our farm, besides the local ones!"

He pointed to the largest rabbit, which he felt was the only thing he could show off this time.

"Director, this one was just weighed, it weighs a full ten pounds! It can't even fit in the cage when it stands up."

"Moreover, it can tolerate roughage, straw, leaves, alfalfa, it can eat all of them."

"It just keeps inexplicably reducing its food intake, and sometimes it even chews on the cage."

Just then, a rabbit was seen struggling to break into the iron cage in the distance, but its strength was woefully inadequate compared to the huge cage.

However, the commotion they created still caught Su Wenchen's attention.

After the two walked over, Su Wenchen looked at the obviously agitated rabbit. When the rabbit saw them coming, it didn't even try to back away.

Normally, rabbits, due to their nature, will instinctively back away when a person approaches.

Of course, there are also those who are bold enough to simply pretend that the person doesn't exist.

But this was indeed the first time Su Wenchen had ever seen a bird lunge forward into the cage like this.

Upon approaching, Hou Guozhong asked, puzzled.

"Director, you said you'd serve us the best food and drinks."

"He wasn't bitten by a dog, so why is he acting like a madman!"

"Do you think this breed of rabbit might have some hidden illness that we're unaware of?"

After observing carefully, Su Wenchen looked at the other person with a bit of speechlessness.

"Old Hou, what do you think you'd be like if you were locked up in a tiny place where you couldn't even stand up for a long time?"

Upon hearing this, Hou Guozhong's eyes widened instantly.

The next moment, he suddenly slapped his forehead.

"So that's how it is! No wonder this rabbit, which seemed so easy to raise, kept getting these kinds of illnesses for no reason!"

"It's because they feel their environment is too cramped and they want to escape!"

"Indeed, while our cages are quite large for other rabbits, they are a bit too small for this type of large rabbit, which explains why this problem has occurred."

"Director, wait a moment. I'll call someone over right now to see if we can get them a new cage."

As he spoke, Hou Guozhong quickly walked to the door.

Seeing several workers chatting and chopping alfalfa with a chaff cutter under the thatched shed in the yard, I said.

"Whoever is free can go and call a few male workers from the storage silo next door to move the wooden cages we made earlier over here!"

"Tell them to bring their tools; they probably won't be able to get through this door."

Upon hearing Hou Guozhong's words, the old woman who had stopped Su Wenchen earlier immediately stepped forward to speak.

"Section Chief Hou, I'm quick on my feet, I'll go!"

Before Hou Guozhong could even agree, she ran outside.

The others, seeing that their chance to shine had been snatched away by someone else after the director's rare visit, immediately expressed their dissatisfaction.

"Hmph, Chun Tao's mother just loves to show off. I think she just wants to impress the director!"

"Who says otherwise! You said your legs weren't good! Look how nimble her calves are!"

Hearing the group of women start nagging again, Hou Guozhong didn't want to get involved.

Because he couldn't understand these women either; they would argue over trivial things like needles and thread.

He tried to get involved a few times at first, but then realized he was being completely unnecessary, because as soon as they started cricketing, they all started complaining that he was meddling and acting like nothing had happened.

Anyway, he doesn't understand it at all, so it's usually not a big deal. He doesn't want to get involved in these kinds of verbal matters anymore.

However, he still went back inside and explained a few words to Su Wenchen.

"Director, actually we made some cages at the beginning."

"However, they are all made of wood, which is not as convenient as the iron cages that are uniformly ordered here at the main farm."

"So we stopped using it later, but now it seems that raising these large Belgian rabbits has really come in handy."

“Those wooden cages are much bigger; they should be big enough for these rabbits to move around in.” Soon, a group of people came in carrying huge wooden box-like objects.

They were so big that they had to be disassembled before they could be moved into the rabbit hutch.

However, since it is made of wood, it is easy to assemble once the nails are re-nailed.

It only took a little over an hour to transfer the larger Belgian rabbits to the new cage.

This time it was much higher up, so high that even two rabbits couldn't reach the top.

It's also much more spacious.

However, it has much less light transmission than a wire cage.

However, seeing the Belgian rabbits inside, who were much more active, the staff who helped feed them every day looked at the rabbit cage in surprise.

"Hey, look how much more active you guys are!"

"I was wondering why these rabbits in this house always seemed so listless. Turns out they were complaining that their cages were too small!"

“We considered so many possibilities, I even thought about whether the rabbit had epilepsy, but we never thought it was because it thought the cage was too small.”

"Who says it isn't?"

Hou Guozhong also looked at Su Wenchen with some admiration.

"Director, in the field of aquaculture, I think your observation skills are even sharper than an eagle's eyes, and your mind is also better than ours."

"I've racked my brains and probably still can't figure it out. This rabbit got sick because it felt cramped in a small place."

"I've tried many things, but I've never tried changing their cages."

"And regarding the diarrhea issue earlier, you were able to pinpoint the problem at a glance, Director."

Although it hadn't been tested yet, Hou Guozhong had a lot of confidence.

He was certain that his director was right. This confidence stemmed from his repeated witnessing of this incredible ability since he started at the brigade's chicken farm.

Upon hearing this, Su Wenchen immediately retorted irritably.

"Alright!"

"Old Hou, you've gradually become a leader, but your technical skills haven't improved much, although your flattery skills have certainly improved a lot!"

Hearing this, Hou Guozhong immediately felt a little embarrassed.

"Director, I wasn't flattering you, I genuinely believe it!"

"With your ability to see through things like X-ray vision, I don't think I could ever learn it even if I studied it my whole life."

Su Wenchen waved his hand, looked at the house at the end of the road, and said directly.

"Alright, if you keep praising me, I'll get arrogant."

"Are these the only ones you've introduced? Nothing else?"

Hou Guozhong immediately said helplessly.

"Director, importing breeding rabbits isn't that easy!"

"I only managed to bring them in by using our main farm's name. If I didn't use our main farm's name, the other farms wouldn't even pay attention to me!"

"Even so, I pushed Lao Miao out. The reason why they were able to send over these kinds of breeding rabbits so quickly is that they all wanted to import our ordinary-grade Moonflower rabbits from our farm."

Su Wenchen also understood Hou Guozhong's helplessness.

Although they are both state-owned farms, they can't just cooperate unconditionally just because you open your mouth.

Either get the correct orders from your superiors, or negotiate between the two sides.

However, all of this comes at a price.

For such simple matters, Su Wenchen prefers to exchange resources with others rather than directly asking his superiors for help.

Asking your superiors for help just to save a few resources is clearly not a worthwhile deal.

It wasn't that Su Wenchen was embarrassed to ask his superiors for help. When he was in Beijing before the Lunar New Year, he wasn't embarrassed at all when there were all sorts of excavators, large tractors, and large quotas of diesel fuel.

However, if such a small matter requires orders from above, it would make it seem like their farm has very poor interpersonal relationships.

After all, importing animals doesn't mean emptying someone else's farm, especially since dozens or hundreds of rabbits are just a drop in the ocean for a farm's scale of operations.

Just as Su Wenchen and Hou Guozhong were about to leave, Chun Tao Niang, who had blocked Su Wenchen's way and was calling for someone to carry the cage, reminded them.

"Section Chief Hou, have you forgotten? You also let us raise several rabbits in the backyard!"

"Director, would you like to take a look? We've been taking very good care of those animals."

"They eat everything, and apart from growing a little slowly, they have no other drawbacks."

Upon hearing this, Su Wenchen immediately looked at Hou Guozhong.

Hou Guozhong immediately remembered and said.

"Yes, yes, Director, I almost forgot about the ones in the backyard."

"But those few were local white rabbits, and I really can't remember which of them is healthy and without any problems right now."

Of course, Hou Guozhong's forgetfulness was also related to the fact that these local rabbits were easy to obtain. Since he could easily buy them from people in the surrounding areas, he naturally didn't pay much attention to them.

In addition, since it is a native variety, there is no possibility of it not adapting to the local environment, so he has even less to worry about.

However, upon hearing this, Su Wenchen felt that he really needed to check the attributes of the native rabbit.

If possible, Su Wenchen felt that it was still necessary to use local breeds as the mother breed and absorb the advantages of other rabbit breeds.

The Moon Rabbit was actually born after several generations of breeding with local breeds.

He estimated that the Moonflower Rabbit wouldn't be so adaptable without the genes of the native white rabbit.

(End of this chapter)