Chapter 694: Cannibalism
After planting bamboo, it was already evening.
Xia Qing took the sheep boss and carried a bamboo basket to the breeding greenhouse to catch chickens.
After the weasel family moved out of the sheep shed, Xia Qing cleaned up the chicken coop and chicken pen at home. It was just in time to take advantage of the evening when the chickens were on the shelves to rest, and catch the big chickens that were not hatching eggs and without chicks back to the chicken coop.
As more and more chicks broke out of their shells, the chicken pen in the greenhouse, which was not big to begin with, became more and more crowded. If a batch of big chickens were not moved out, there might be a stampede.
And now it is mid-March, the daytime temperature has reached 20 degrees, and it will not drop below zero at night. The big chickens can be raised semi-free outside, and the chicken pen in the breeding greenhouse with a higher safety factor is left for the hens that are hatching eggs, the hens with chicks, the chicks, the pregnant rabbits, and the spring fish with a belly full of fish eggs.
The chickens are fine, but the female rabbits need a quiet environment for production. The black-feathered roosters start to stretch their necks to practice their voices at around four in the morning every day, which is too noisy.
In order not to disturb the rabbits and hens sitting on their nests, Xia Qing did not let the chickens make any sound when catching them.
How did she do that?
When she touched a chicken, she just pinched its mouth and wings to tie it up.
The first one Xia Qing caught was the evolved black-feathered rooster. Unexpectedly, after Xia Qing tied up this attacking rooster and stuffed it into a cage, the white-feathered hen was not satisfied and jumped out of the nest, clucking and trying to peck Xia Qing's hand.
It was very fast, but unfortunately the light was too dark and its night vision was very poor. Not only did it fail to peck Xia Qing when it rushed over, but it was also held down and tied up by her.
This chicken was sitting on its nest and could not be taken back to the chicken coop. Xia Qing put it aside and continued to catch hens that were not sitting on their nests.
The other green-light chickens were not evolved species, so Xia Qing easily caught all the ones she should catch and stuffed them into the cage for the sheep boss to carry home.
After Xia Qing untied the rope on the white-feathered hen, this advanced evolved chicken pecked her hand hard.
Even if a chicken has advanced evolution, it will not cause substantial harm to Xia Qing, who is wearing snakeskin gloves. She flicked the white-feathered hen's head, touched the Yishi particles on the chicken's neck, and let the chicken go.
"You little heartless one, continue to hatch eggs. If you can't hatch ten chicks, you will be sorry for the investment I made in you!"
After saying that, Xia Qing turned on the lights in the breeding greenhouse.
The white-feathered hen clucked and turned around twice before returning to her nest to continue hatching eggs. The remaining hens with nests or chicks have not moved since Xia Qing started catching chickens.
After Xia Qing added enough drinking water to the chickens, she turned to look at the mother rabbit in the rabbit cage. After confirming that it was all normal and not frightened, Xia Qing added enough water and grass to it, then turned off the lights, went to the planting greenhouse next door to pick two cucumbers, cut a handful of leeks, and went home to cook.
After walking out of the greenhouse, Xia Qing stopped and listened for a while, confirming that everything was normal in the breeding greenhouse, and then walked towards home.
She was so cautious because the pregnant female rabbit started plucking the hair on her belly this morning.
This made Xia Qing very happy. Because after the evolution of Blue Star, it was difficult to raise rabbits caught from the wild and successfully reproduce. So even if the wild rabbit was pregnant, Xia Qing was worried whether it could successfully give birth to and raise the little rabbits.
Now, the female rabbit began to pluck its hair to build a warm and comfortable nest, which means that it will give birth to little rabbits in the next two days.
This is really a very good sign. After having the second generation of chickens, her territory will soon have the second generation of rabbits!
Xia Qing hummed a little tune and returned home, and put the chickens in the cage into the chicken coop. The black-feathered rooster turned around the chicken coop arrogantly, then jumped onto the shelf to continue resting. After the hens rested, Xia Qing turned off the lights in the chicken coop and took the sheep boss back to the house.
Busy from morning to night, Xia Qing was tired and fulfilled. Listening to the chats and broadcasts of the lords, Xia Qing began to prepare dinner.
Because I was tired, I had to reward myself well. Xia Qing took out a few ribs from the refrigerator and made a ribs and bamboo shoot soup, fried eggs with chives and smacked cucumbers.
She picked two cucumbers in total, one for her and one for the sheep boss.
After eating her fill, Xia Qing listened to the agricultural knowledge broadcast, left the sheep boss to watch the house, and went out to patrol the territory.
The camera cannot cover every corner of the territory, so after the second boss left, Xia Qing would patrol the territory twice every night to feel at ease.
Everything was normal the first time, and when she walked outside the breeding greenhouse at 10 o'clock in the evening, she heard an abnormal creaking sound.
This is... the sound of carnivores gnawing on prey!
Xia Qing rushed in with a gun, and when she saw the scene in the rabbit cage clearly, Xia Qing pursed her lips.
Good news: the rabbit she raised finally gave birth.
Bad news: the mother rabbit was eating its newly born cubs.
Xia Qing put away the pistol, walked forward lightly, took out the little rabbit that was only half eaten, and put it in the packaging bag.
After confirming that there was enough water and food in the rabbit cage, Xia Qing stepped aside and watched the mother rabbit quietly.
The books on rabbit breeding she collected specifically introduced the phenomenon of mother rabbits eating newly born rabbits, which is called "eating children".
The reason for this phenomenon may be that the mother rabbit is undernourished, lacks water during childbirth, or is disturbed by noise and causes stress behavior. Another possibility is that the mother rabbit is not maternal.
First of all, excluding the reason of lack of water, because there is unpolluted spring water in the rabbit cage,
Secondly, stress behavior caused by being frightened can be ruled out. It has been four hours since she moved the chickens out. In the previous few hours, the rabbit had been very quiet and had no stress response.
The third is the nutrition problem. Xia Qing used green light plants to feed the rabbits. Worried that the pregnant rabbits were not nutritious enough, she also added a small amount of salt, wheat bran and corn to the hay of the mother rabbit according to the feed formula in the book. Under her feeding, the three rabbits grew fat and plump, and from the surface they did not lack nutrition. Whether they actually lacked nutrition or not, we have to wait for the test to know.
At present, the most likely reason for the mother rabbit to eat the cubs is that the mother's maternal instinct is not strong.
This made Xia Qing somewhat helpless.
Ten minutes later, after the mother rabbit gave birth to the second little rabbit, she began to lick the little rabbit, which is normal behavior.
But while licking, Xia Qing heard the newborn little rabbit make a weak "squeak" sound and rushed over immediately.
When she took the little rabbit out, she found that its skin had been licked by the mother rabbit.
Xia Qing frowned, immediately disinfected and applied medicine to the little rabbit, and placed it in a small basket prepared in advance.
From the third, fourth, to the sixth little rabbit, without exception, the mother rabbit licked first and then bit. So, Xia Qing's big little basket had five more little rabbits that were injured at birth.