Chapter 312: Bamboo Rat

After dealing with the pig farm accident, Huo Xiong came to his office at the Animal Husbandry Corporation the very next day, then summoned his subordinates for meetings, drew up plans, wrote reports... He now urgently needed to organize a large-scale rotational training across the entire animal husbandry system, in order to raise the professional competence of the workforce.

However, blessings never come in pairs and misfortunes never come singly — just as he had finished laying out the plans, more bad news arrived: the bamboo rats they were raising had escaped...

Comrade Huo Xiong, furious and flustered, had no choice but to mount his Harley Motorcycle once again and head straight for the bamboo rat breeding plant.

In the mature farming systems of later generations, crops need to undergo secondary conversion before their value can be realized.

Farmers would first grow corn, then process that corn into feed, and ultimately that corn would gain added value... it would be converted into steaks and bacon, completing the final link in the breeding chain.

This farming model met with resistance among the Transmigrators: all the crops were being used to fill human stomachs, making it very difficult to expand the scale of animal husbandry, which could only develop slowly.

Under these circumstances, the bamboo rat, which feeds on bamboo, miscanthus, and plant stalks, entered the Animal Husbandry Corporation's line of sight — any comrade who doesn't compete with cattle and horses for feed is a good comrade, worth raising.

Because their diet consists of various low-energy crude fibers, bamboo rats, though they appear to be mammals, have meat high in crude protein that leans more toward "white meat"; in later generations they were sold as a health food, a hundred per catty, very expensive.

But the Transmigrators raising bamboo rats had no such fancy notions — it was purely for the meat.

Bamboo rats can directly convert bamboo into meat, a point of immense value in Tainan, where bamboo groves cover the land. In addition, bamboo rat pelts are quite good; the wealthy of the Yangtze basin were very willing to buy a rat-skin cloak to wear in the damp, cold winters.

Similar to other breeding sites, the bamboo rat farms were also scattered in scale.

Huo Xiong rode his motorcycle east from the Chikan District Government, traveling the Asphalt road until it ended, then the gravel road, and finally the Dirt Road. Only after nearly 20 Kilometers did he reach the bamboo rat breeding base, nestled in a stretch of hilly terrain.

This place was already not far from the Central Mountain Range, with continuous stretches of bamboo groves and Streams everywhere, very suitable for raising bamboo rats. Several large red-brick buildings were scattered across the nearby hills; at the sound of the motorcycle's Roar, the people inside came out to greet him.

"What's the Story?" Huo Xiong dismounted, and upon seeing the two people approaching, directed his question at a young lad of sixteen or seventeen.

This young man was called "Liuzi," a Refugee who had come from Jiangnan. The lad worked diligently, had a positive attitude, and even strove to learn to read and do arithmetic — he was a talent Huo Xiong thought rather highly of.

"One nest escaped!" Liuzi's face was full of frantic anxiety.

"Let's go see." Huo Xiong strode into the pen house.

The red-brick building covered an area of roughly a hundred square Meters. Inside, it was divided into individual compartments built from thin stone slabs. Since bamboo rats live underground year-round, the tops of these waist-high compartments were all covered with straw blinds to block out the light.

Casually lifting one of the straw blinds and peering down, what met Huo Xiong's eyes were five or six round, chubby sub-adult bamboo rats — the undisputed champions of rodent good looks, all roughly the same size.

The bamboo rat breed primarily raised by farmers in later generations is the Silver Star Bamboo Rat. Through many generations of artificial selection, this breed had developed traits of rapid growth and large size, making it very suitable for captive breeding.

The Transmigrators' great bamboo rat enterprise had also been developed from fifty "imported" Silver Star breeding stock.

Unlike later generations, here they not only had Silver Star Bamboo Rats; several other pens also housed Chinese Bamboo Rats and Red-cheeked Bamboo Rats collected from the Great Ming, including local Tainan bamboo rat breeds, all being bred here.

One must know that in later generations, species like the Chinese Bamboo Rat had already become protected animals and were generally not permitted to be sold.

After a cursory look around, Huo Xiong, led by Liuzi, arrived at the compartment of the nest that had escaped.

The straw blind atop the compartment had already been lifted. After coming over, Huo Xiong first stuck his head in to look, then reached in and felt along the bottom of the stone slab.

"The gap left at the bottom has been gnawed into a hole — how could they not escape?" Huo Xiong clapped the dust from his hands, then turned his head and asked, "Did you not notice the bamboo rats were gnawing the stone slabs?"

Liuzi, his face full of dejection, said, "A few of the rats used their bellies to block the stone gap — I didn't notice."

"Ah..." Huo Xiong shook his head. "Take me to the feed room for a look."

Because bamboo rats have a habit: they will automatically clean their droppings out of the nest, so a gap had originally been left at the bottom of every compartment.

Now that the gap at the bottom had been gnawed into a hole by the escapees, Huo Xiong's First Moment thought was of a feed problem: could they have been hungry?

After the three of them arrived at the adjacent feed room, Huo Xiong first inspected the various feeds in the room, then extended his hand: "Bring me the feeding records to see."

A rough-straw-paper notebook was placed into his hand.

The feed sources for bamboo rats are very abundant: soft and hard bamboo, bamboo roots, bamboo shoots, corn stalks, sweet potatoes — including Elephant Grass and Imperial Bamboo Grass brought by the Transmigrators from later generations — melon rinds, sorghum stalks; all of these could serve as bamboo rat feed.

Except during the nursing phase when mother rats need a bit of rice bran to boost nutrition, the rest of the time bamboo rats live on the coarse-fiber feeds mentioned above.

When Huo Xiong opened the record book, what he saw were the feeding records for the pens over the most recent period.

Liuzi was a very diligent worker; he had recorded in detail the daily feed amounts and types in the notebook. For some characters he didn't know how to write, he had even marked them with drawings, making Huo Xiong nod as he looked. "Liuzi, later on I'll sign you up for a sponsored training class. Go and properly learn some book Knowledge — that's the one thing you're lacking now."

Liuzi's face lit up with excitement. "If I go, who will raise the bamboo rats?"

"Anyone would raise them better than you!" Quicker than words could tell, Huo Xiong's face changed in an instant, and he began whacking Liuzi wildly over the head with the record book.

"Aiyo! Mercy, master!" Liuzi, under the blows, scurried chaotically around the room.

After venting his anger, Huo Xiong then grabbed Liuzi by the ear and began his interrogation. "You, why was the amount of hard bamboo feed Reduced?"

"Feed more concentrates and the rats fatten faster!" Liuzi spoke with confident assurance.

Huo Xiong rolled his eyes in fury again. "During the initial training, was it mentioned that those big front teeth of bamboo rats grow every day?"

"It might have been mentioned... I have Knowledge of it!"

"You know crap! If you don't feed them hard bamboo to grind their teeth, of course they're going to bite the stone slabs!"

"So that's how it is!" Liuzi was suddenly enlightened.

"Every bamboo rat must be fed one section of hard bamboo every day; the remaining concentrates can be mixed at random. Unauthorized changes to the diet are not allowed." Huo Xiong rapped Liuzi on the head again. "Your good intentions have done harm — a whole nest of my meat has just run off like that. Ah, you'll be the very first one I send to training when we get back!"

Liuzi then said with an apologetic smile, "Master, don't be angry. Tomorrow I'll go into the mountains and catch ten to make amends."

"Catch crap!" Huo Xiong grew even angrier at this: wild bamboo rats not only spread all kinds of Diseases, but are also violent in temperament and not easy to breed; they require several generations of scientific selective breeding before they can be kept as breeding stock.

After harshly scolding Liuzi, Huo Xiong ordered the two keepers to immediately inspect all the stone slab gaps, and to replace without exception any that had been used by the bamboo rats to grind their teeth.

After this bout of trouble, Huo Xiong had finally nipped the problem in the bud, preventing any greater losses.

After declining Liuzi's offer of a roast bamboo rat lunch, Huo Xiong was Intending to leave — he still had to rush to the bull stud farm for important matters, no time to roast bamboo rats. But speaking of bamboo rats, he still needed to take a few with him; a certain Transmigrator at the bull stud farm loved eating this stuff.

So before leaving, Huo Xiong found a bamboo cage and began selecting rats. "This one's been in a fight, it has wounds on its body — I'll take it away... Hmm, this one is limp and soft, probably has heatstroke — I'll take it... This one is rather thin, likely has depression — I must take it..."

And just like that, after Huo Xiong loaded several bamboo rats into the cage, the handsome Harley Motorcycle once again took on the work of a delivery driver, roaring off into the distance.

The bull stud base was located 10 Kilometers south of Chikan, close to the area of Kaohsiung. A few months ago, after the Army had launched a Cleansing Operation, they had "assimilated" the various native tribes north of Kaohsiung Creek; the lands they left behind were now already planted with all sorts of fodder crops and treated as farms.

After passing through the bustling area around Chikan, Huo Xiong's motorcycle ran another 10 Kilometers south. Cutting through several fields of purple Alfalfa and Elephant Grass, he spotted from afar the farm enclosed by a wooden fence.

Cattle are a type of livestock with the highest economic value, and also a type of livestock capable of exerting a profound influence on an entire society and an entire race.

In the Transmigrators' future Planning, their descendants would certainly no longer make pork their staple meat — the vast North American Great Plains and the Pampas Grasslands were meant for their children and grandchildren to herd cattle on and to grill tomahawk steaks.

Therefore, on this issue, the attitude of the vast Majority of Transmigrators was supportive: lay the groundwork early, reap the rewards early.

With this guiding principle in mind, the former Great Office... the current Cabinet, also gave a green light all the way on the matter of breeding cattle. The Import Goods requests put forward by Huo Xiong and his team were basically all fulfilled, without the common occurrences of being obstructed, mocked, insulted, or beaten up.

After arriving at the cattle farm gate, Huo Xiong stopped to greet the guard: this place held important property of the Empire, so a gun-toting patrol Security Team was specially assigned here.

After entering the cattle farm, from a distance he could see the long strip-shaped cattle shed standing on the grassland.

The cattle shed was built with red bricks and cement, tall and sturdy, with steel bars used at the top. The walls had large, newly manufactured glass windows for ventilation — clearly built without regard to cost.

Equipment including water pipes and a homemade circulating water cooler was all installed here. Apart from looking a bit rough, it was no worse than the color-steel cattle sheds of later generations.

"Roast bamboo rat..." Huo Xiong stopped his motorcycle in front of the cattle shed and shouted at the top of his lungs.

The next moment, a man with curly hair and fair skin, wearing a white lab coat, walked out of the cattle shed.

Wang Gude, one-quarter Mexican blood, the only professional veterinarian among the two hundred and fifty Transmigrators.