Chapter 1455: The Carrier Pigeon Out of Control

However, the supervision of such Slaves might be a problem; after all, this place is quite remote and can be considered a wilderness. As long as they want to run, it is very easy to escape, and if they steal a cow or a sheep, they can survive in the wild for a long time.

Grazing is not like planting, which keeps everyone confined to a relatively small area. Now, the Western Development Group's grazing teams are so far away that standing on a mountaintop, one cannot even see where they are. This is the price that must be paid for expanding the scale of animal husbandry.

Because livestock need Grass, the more livestock raised, the more water and Grass are needed. Last year, the number of livestock raised was still limited, so grazing nearby did not cause much damage. However, as the livestock have multiplied more and more, by now, it is not as simple as just doubling.

The gestation period of a cow is about the same as a human's, only one calf per year, and basically a single birth, so the reproduction speed of cows is not particularly fast.

What is fast is sheep; sheep have two litters a year, or three litters every two years, and a litter starts at two, with three being quite common. Now that the living environment is good, with no shortage of water, Grass, or salt, the sheep grow fat and fast, so their desire to reproduce is stronger, to the extent that the reproduction speed of sheep is very fast.

It has now reached the point where everyone cannot count how many sheep they are grazing at all. Perhaps one day when they want to drive the sheep back to the pen, they find that the ewes are bringing two or three lambs that are not yet walking steadily along with the flock.

One point where sheep and cows differ is their feeding habits. The grassland grazed by cows can recover quickly because cows bite the grass off, while sheep eat in a way that can gnaw down to the roots; the grazed grassland is like being plowed once, and it cannot recover for a long time.

This is also a situation discovered by the herdsmen. In order to protect the pasture and ensure that there will be Grass for the livestock to eat in the future so that everyone can continue to graze, they have to start this kind of nomadic life to give the grassland enough recovery time.

If it were not for the pressure of reality, who would be willing to leave sturdy houses and places with convenient living conditions to graze in the wilderness?

These are all problems discovered by Ce during the work process here. If the Western Development Group wants to develop further and more sustainably, and truly become a city, the planting industry must be grasped. But the problem now is still the population; the labor force is seriously insufficient.

Although Huaxia City is very large, the main land has been reclaimed as arable land. Only some saline-alkali land that cannot be planted has been designated as Pasture. However, how could that small area of Pasture be enough to support such a huge number of livestock?

Baifeng had long ago given the answer: build Breeding Farms early. The Pasture is just for the livestock to move around and get some fresh air so that they can be healthier, grow better, and give the herdsmen time and space to clean the breeding pens.

Their main food is various kinds of straw. The grain planting area of Huaxia is too large, and the harvested straw is actually not of much use. If you talk about burning it for fire, there is no shortage of firewood now, not to mention coal. Who would be willing to use that kind of thing that burns out quickly?

Throwing it away feels okay, so what the cows cannot eat or do not like to eat is used as a supplement to firewood for starting fires, and every household keeps a small woodpile.

Most of the rest is returned to the fields. After a fire burns through, the insects in the soil die, the wild Grass Seeds are burned to death, and the ash fertilizes the fields. What the cows and sheep like to eat and can eat is baled, sent to the Pasture, chopped up with a large Knife, and fed to them.

Not to mention that there is also bean dregs, which can be used as feed. Feeding cows in this era seems extremely luxurious, but Huaxia is not short of food now, so under various conditions, Huaxia City can support so many livestock.

The only ones that can run wantonly and have stable, high-quality pastures are the horses. Now the number is too small to meet the requirements for forming a Cavalry, so it has not been able to show the effect it should have in Huaxia.

But Baifeng knows its importance. Even if it is losing money or subsidizing it now, it must be taken care of. This is the foundation of Huaxia's future. Even if Huaxia is fully equipped with modern Weapons, horses cannot be abandoned, unless you can build an internal combustion engine in this era.

After all, the role of horses is not just in the military. The only thing you can find that can be ridden and is fast enough is a horse. Donkeys and mules are fine, of course, but they are not as good as horses. Huaxia only has horses now, and it must value horses in the future. In this way, the communication time between various cities can be shortened by half in the future.

Like between Huaxia City and the Western Development Group, if there is a decent road, just riding a horse might take seven or eight days to arrive. If you change horses but not riders, like an eight-hundred-mile urgent dispatch, it might take two or three days to arrive, and the speed of communication can be raised another notch.

The instability of communication by carrier pigeon has already begun to show signs, because there have been several cases where pigeons taken from Huaxia, after staying by one's side for a long time and then being released, some pigeons will not return to Huaxia, but will return to the pigeon coop where they are now; they have gotten used to the new nest.

At the Huaxia Embassy in Xuanyuan Tribe, three cases have occurred this year. This is not good news. Baifeng is very afraid that the communication method he trusts most now will lose its effect in the near future.

The one-way communication itself already has great drawbacks. If you add a bit of instability, is this method still worth trusting?

Baifeng also summoned Changxu to ask if something had happened to the pigeons, but Changxu, who had been raising pigeons in Huaxia, did not know about this. After Baifeng's description, Changxu also felt the seriousness of the matter and could not help but frown.

Finally, the possibility he considered was that the wildness of the pigeons had been worn away generation after generation during so many years of domestication.

This is a good thing, but as a carrier pigeon, it cannot be considered a completely good thing, because without wildness, they are more affectionate to people, which means they are more likely to recognize a new home and a new nest, and are no longer persistent about returning to their original nest.

This is the theoretical basis for Huaxia using pigeons to deliver letters. If the pigeons abandon the idea of returning to their old nest, the letters naturally cannot be delivered. After all, they have no way to communicate with the pigeons and say: "Pigeon, pigeon, hurry up and send this letter back to Huaxia, it's urgent..."

The pigeons will at most coo back at you twice. In their eyes, it was you who caught them, and now they want to escape back. As for what you tied to their legs, that is not important.

The wildness is gone; you give me food and drink, and I am living here, so you are my new master. Why would I go back to Huaxia? You let me out, I will go to exercise my wings, and then I will come back.