In my days as a farmer

The power of a sweet dream is infinite, and Xia Dongli's good mood lasted for nearly a week.

Being in a good mood is good for anything, even if it's carrying poop... well, well, it's not a happy thing.

But there is no way, the test report of the organic fertilizer produced by the composter before came out, and his organic fertilizer was fine, except that the nitrogen content was low and the potassium content was high.

This is because the raw materials put in before are mainly straw. Among the raw materials for composting, the nitrogen supply capacity of straw can only be regarded as moderate, but the potassium content is rich.

Nitrogen grows leaves, phosphorus promotes flowers and roots, and potassium promotes photosynthesis.The three elements have different functions in plants, but generally speaking, plants have a stronger demand for nitrogen.

In particular, Xia Dongli is currently planting grass whose leaves are the main sales part, so nitrogen is even more important.

Xia Dongli also got a list of the nutrient content of common compost raw materials, which is convenient for him to configure organic fertilizer.The suggestion from the laboratory is to reduce the amount of straw used and increase the amount of livestock manure, especially urine.

When he got the form, Xia Dongli was a little irritated even though he was mentally prepared.There is one thing to say, although it is all excrement, the difficulty of collecting poop is still lower than that of urine. After all, the transportation and storage of solids are always easier than liquids.

Moreover, most of the small animals in their house are raised free-range, and sometimes they can still see their poop. The pee can be solved all over the mountains and plains. It is not easy to collect.

Just as Xia Dongli was worrying about the raw materials, the owner of the slaughterhouse where he had bought the little black faces called him.

The little boss didn't greet him much, and simply asked Xia Dongli if he was willing to increase the amount of forage planted in the coming year. If he can supply the goods here, they can sign an order for the supply of forage in the coming year.

Xia Dongli hesitated for a while, but still refused the order.

Although having an order can give him a lot of peace of mind, he has no idea whether this type of pasture can survive the winter smoothly in the first year, and how it will grow in the next spring after the winter. Now that he has signed the contract, in case the winter fails, Wouldn't it be time to lose money?

The little boss was also happy when he heard his reason, but he didn't say anything. He just confirmed the purchase intention with Xia Dongli. If Xia Dongli's pasture can survive the winter and turn green, then his slaughterhouse will pay a fortune. Order.

Of course, the price this time is lower than the contract price. Xia Dongli was a little puzzled while signing the electronic contract.

He had visited the slaughterhouse of the little boss’s house before. Although the slaughterhouse also had the need to raise animals, according to the regulations, the animals sent for slaughter had to be raised for a period of time to check their physical condition. By the way, the slaughtered animals were transported from long distance Short-term feeding for calming down from tension and panic.

Since the slaughterhouse and the farm negotiate prices based on the weight of the livestock when they are sent to the slaughterhouse, in the last few days of breeding, the slaughterhouse will generally feed the concentrated feed that is convenient for fattening in order to ensure that the weight of the animals does not decrease.

So, why ask him to buy grass?Although pasture is a good thing, pasture belongs to roughage.

"Actually, we found that there is a group demand now." The small boss said in a deep tone on the phone, "Just, you know, when a society develops to a certain level, it is an inevitable result that the common people solve the problem of food and clothing. That's weight loss."

Xia Dongli:? ?

He reflexively covered his belly, and then quickly put it down, saying that I understand the reason, but what is the connection between losing weight for people and you losing weight for livestock?

The little boss is also very helpless: "Isn't it just those young people who want to exercise and lose weight? Oh, you know, beef is high in protein and low in fat, and it is nutritious and not easy to gain weight, but our current goal of raising beef cattle is not to try our best. Let it produce oily flowers, it has oily fragrance, and the snow pattern can be sold more expensive, but those young people said no, because there are oily flowers, it is easy to get fat, so lean beef is needed."

"If you want to eat lean beef, you can eat beef tendon. That's not good. Beef tendon is too hard and not easy to taste. It must be stewed. They also say that stewed beef is too appetizing and easy to eat too much, but it will make you fat. So I thought They just want to eat beef that is not so tough and not so fat, so they are going to try grass-fed."

Nowadays, beef cattle breeding is generally divided into grass-fed and grain-fed. If you buy beef online, you can also see that grass-fed and grain-fed are used as a standard for beef classification, and they are generally displayed on the title.

Grass-fed cattle are generally raised free-range on grasslands, allowing them to graze and exercise freely.Grain feeding is mostly used in captivity, and the hay is fed with feed at the same time. It is easier to fatten the grain feed and less exercise in a small environment to make the cattle grow fat quickly.

Although grain-fed cattle are all commercial crops and the cost is high, the speed of grain-fed cattle is much faster than that of grass-fed cattle.

The staple food of grass-fed cattle is grass with low nutritional value, so the growth rate is very slow, coupled with regular exercise, the fat content is low, and the breeding cost is high.

Which one is better between the two has always been a topic of contention in the beef circle. In the past few decades, grain feeding has always overwhelmed grass feeding. Because of the value, the status of grass-fed cattle has gradually risen.

The dispute between these two feeding methods is actually a bit similar to the dispute between black pork and white pork. To put it bluntly, it is speed VS taste.

As everyone can afford meat, from [as long as it is meat] to [I want to eat better meat], such changes are extremely normal, and it is impossible to say which is better.

But from Xia Dongli's point of view, he actually prefers to eat grain-fed beef, because his cooking method is usually to fry steak directly. Grain-fed beef is rich in fat and soft.

But if you use Chinese cooking methods, grass-fed cattle have the upper hand—grass-fed cattle have a long growth cycle, so their flavor substances accumulate more, the meat is delicious, rich in beef flavor, and full of fiber.Although there is less fat, it also means that it is easier to taste, especially suitable for quick stir-frying, and it is also very suitable for eating hot pot.

A few recipes flashed in Xia Dongli's head in an instant, and he silently added some beef that he would go to buy in a few days to add to his notepad. Although his mind was racing, he continued to communicate with the little boss in a serious manner on the surface.

"If you want to try grass feeding, the grass here may not meet your needs." Xia Dongli said matter-of-factly.

The food intake of a cow is about 8% of its body weight, and it will be more if it eats grass.Although I don't know which breed the little boss wants to raise, it is certain that a cow needs thirty to forty catties of fodder every day.Xia Dongli's family currently has more than ten acres of grass planted land. According to this data, he estimates that one acre of land can supply two or three cows.

This is still a situation where pastures are harvested continuously, but next year his pasture land is still going to be planted, and it is impossible to provide uninterrupted supply throughout the year.

Seeing Xia Dongli's hesitation, the little boss hurriedly explained: "It's not what you think, I'm going to experiment in a small batch, buy a dozen or so and raise them for a few months to see the situation. If the effect is really good, then cultivate them." one time."

Because it is raised in small batches, the cost of purchasing large quantities of forage grass from the northern pasture area must be relatively high, and the freshness of long-distance transportation is not enough. Even the tender grass dried by high-tech is definitely not as good as freshly cut grass.

The little boss has done the math. It takes more than an hour to drive from the slaughterhouse to Xiaojin Village. Counting harvesting, transportation, and feeding on the feed rack, it takes up to two hours. The freshness and nutritional value of pasture are the highest during this time period, so The little boss thought over and over again, and he was still going to buy fresh pasture from Xia Dongli.

The most important thing is that he has already heard the rumor that Comrade Xiao Xia plans to engage in organic farming, and he has invited many experts.

The small boss also has some understanding of this aspect. There are quite a lot of approval standards for organic farms, which means that the establishment of the farm cannot be completed in one step.

In order to apply for the certificate, Xiaoxia must have to spend a lot of money.And during the period before the certificate is issued, the selling price of things is not the price of organic crops.

It's a good time to buy something with good quality and low price!

The behavior of the little boss can't be called a calculation, it can only be said to be a normal trade-off, and of course Xia Dongli is not at a disadvantage!He also took the opportunity to ask the little boss for some excrement of cattle and sheep to make compost.

Before signing the order, he made a phone call to the manager of the dairy farm.

In summer, he brought a lot of cow dung from the dairy farm and came back. At that time, the other party made an appointment with him for the pasture for the coming year with a smile. Although the contract was not signed, the verbal agreement must be abided by.

Xia Dongli planned to confirm with them the amount of grass they will need next year, and then determine the supply with the little boss after subtracting it.

Dairy farms buy forage as an auxiliary material for promoting milk, and they have familiar forage suppliers. They buy oriental goat beans just to add a snack to the cows, and the demand is not very large.

However, the other party was quite happy with Xia Dongli's attitude, and the expression of this mood was to directly ask Xia Dongli if he wanted cow dung!

Xia Dongli was silent for a moment, mourning for his image in other people's hearts, and then he said cautiously: "Well, do you have urine over there?"

In the end, Xia Dongli took away a calf in addition to a few barrels of manure from the farm.

As soon as the calf arrived at Xiaotupo, it was surrounded by small animals, because the calf looked so strange.

The calf's body is covered with black and white cow-colored patterns, but its head is tan, which makes it look like two cows joined together.

But in fact, it is true. This cow is the result of a "one-night stand" of a cow on the farm. The other half of its blood should be a Holstein cow.

Holstein cattle are the most famous breed of dairy cows in the world, and they are also the original main breed of dairy cows in the farm.

However, the owner of the farm does not know when the two cows saw each other, because when the farm was transformed, there was a period of time when the two cows were raised at the same time, but the time period was very short, no more than a week, and it was not The cattle are in estrus, so there was some negligence in management at that time.

It can only be said that the efficiency of that bull is really high.

The calf was born this summer and is a boy.

In order to obtain more milk sources, dairy farms will intentionally extend the lactation period of cows. Some farms use the method of injecting hormones, so calves, as opponents for milk sources, generally have to fight with cows shortly after birth. separate.

However, this farm makes full use of the cow’s maternal love for the calf. They raise the calf next to the cow to stimulate the cow to secrete milk, and then adopt a combination of artificial feeding and breastfeeding to feed the calf. The cow's demand for mother's milk is minimized, and the calf's consumption of mother's milk is minimized.

Of course, this method is adopted not only because it is more humane, but also because the farm is still in the period of expansion of the Jersey cattle population. In order to obtain healthy calves, breastfeeding is also a very important part.

This calf was an accident.As the first generation of cattle bred by this batch of Jersey cattle in China, it has attracted much attention. When it was still in the womb of its mother, it caused the veterinarians a lot of trouble because it was a bit too big.The veterinarians still wondered why the fetus grew so much under the same feeding conditions, and the truth was not revealed until it was born-this is the cub of Lao He next door!

The Jersey cow is a small cow, while the Holstein cow is a medium-to-large cow. As a mixed breed, the calf is not as big as the father, but it is definitely bigger than the mother.

And because of its size, its mother needed to rest for a long time after giving birth, so the calf was raised entirely by hand.

Cough cough, I would like to add here that in order to improve the efficiency of reproduction, today's large farms use artificial insemination, that is, humans inject the bull's sperm into the cow's body instead of bringing the bull to the cow as before. Date the cows.

So the people in the farm didn't think about the method of Old Wang next door at all at first. Although they found out later, although they were a little dumbfounded, they didn't take it too seriously. They just planned to send it to the beef cattle farm next door according to the normal breeding process—— Dairy farms generally only keep a small number of bulls as male parents, and the weaker calves are sent to be beef cattle.

It's just that this little boy's appearance is too strange, some people said to stay to see what this mixed-race boy will look like, so he stayed until now.

But this is almost the limit. The calf has started to eat grass now, and it will become a big eater if it continues to be raised, so the original plan of the farm was to send it away. As a gift for buying cow dung and urine, I gave it to Xia Dongli-this kind of mixed-breed cow is generally not sold for a price.

Both Jersey and Holstein are specially bred breeds of dairy cows. They are naturally weak and docile, and their feed conversion rate is not in the direction of growing meat, so whether they are beef cattle or farming cattle It's not qualified, and this mixed race doesn't know if there will be any genetic problems, so it's a human thing.

So, that's why Xia Dongli brought home a male cow that couldn't produce milk.

"...So, what's the use of it?" Suan Ni who walked over just happened to listen to the origin of this cow. He grabbed a tomato in his hand and was gnawing on it. The sour and sweet taste immediately attracted Xiao Niu Calf's attention.

Maverick raised his head, only to feel that the taste of the fresh grass he was chewing just now was no longer delicious, his big eyes looked expectantly and longingly at the big red tomato in Suan Ni's hand, "Moo..."

A calf at this age is about the same size as a big dog, and has no nose ring. Xia Dongli used to control it by the rope around its neck, but the rope was not tied tightly, and the calf was in a daze. There was a little gap, and the big head leaned towards Suan Ni.

Suan Ni looked at the tomato in his hand, then at the calf, and said thoughtfully, "Don't tell me, this cow is quite discerning. Tomatoes and beef brisket really go well together."

"...I don't think that's what it means." Xia Dongli was speechless for a moment. He patted the cow's head and said to Xun Yu, "Let's raise it. Anyway, we don't lack the feed for the cow here. I I just searched and found that although the cows are not physically strong, they are not incapable of doing farm work after training. If they really can't plow the land..."

He pushed his glasses, looked at the little cow who was chasing the dog who was teasing it with tomatoes, and said in a deep voice, "Then we can only put it together with the tomato."