Chapter 96: Nick's Endeavor (Part 1)

In the seed collection room of the farm’s biological laboratory, Hu Yicheng carefully sealed a glass jar full of semen and placed it into an enamel canister filled with ice cubes. It was to be sent for sperm motility testing shortly.

Ice was precious, made by a freezer. Freezers and refrigerators were super-luxury items now. Apart from the Fengcheng, only the demonstration farm and Bairen General Hospital had them.

However, the semen was even more precious. It had just been collected from a Tieling draft stallion, the only one of its kind in this time and space. The Ministry of Agriculture was preparing to use it to breed with the department’s mares to expand the herd. Yang Baogui scoffed at the idea of letting the animals mate naturally—the breeding efficiency was too low. So, the stallions had to endure the pleasure of “being masturbated.” For the past few days, everyone in the Ministry of Agriculture’s biology department had been doing this work, one moment with boars, the next with stallions, then with donkeys… Currently, only poultry like chickens and ducks had escaped this fate. A group of grown men desperately masturbating animals was not only depressing for the animals, but also for the men.

Since spring, Yang Baogui had been tirelessly working on increasing the livestock population at the demonstration farm. This was also driven by necessity. The transmigrators’ resources were limited. The cryopreserved semen of various fine breeds of livestock in the ship’s freezer could not be stored indefinitely. They had to find suitable surrogate mothers for them as soon as possible. The wombs of several local yellow cows were already nurturing Holstein-Friesian dairy calves. The days when the transmigrators could enjoy plenty of milk were not far off. Wu Nanhai was experimenting with growing alfalfa and corn on the highlands, which were unsuitable for paddy fields, to solve the fodder problem.

“Mr. Hu!” someone called from outside the laboratory while he was busy. This startled Hu Yicheng. No one here had ever called him “Mr.” before. They usually called him “Little Hu,” “Fox,” or the natives called him “Chief,” “Comrade,” and so on. To be called “Mr.” it had to be that Aussie. He went out to look, and sure enough, it was Nick, reeking of horse manure as usual.

“Your transfer order!” he said, stuffing a piece of paper into his hand. Hu Yicheng was dumbfounded. He hadn’t applied for a transfer. Life on the farm was quite comfortable. He wouldn’t go if they sent him anywhere else!

He opened it and saw it was an order to transfer him to the pharmaceutical factory. I’m not a pharmacy major, Hu Yicheng thought, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Fortunately, the pharmaceutical factory was also on the farm, so he didn’t need to move. He had gotten used to the comfortable life on the farm.

“Where’s Datie?” Datie was the name the Agricultural Committee had given to the Tieling draft stallion. The mare was naturally called Xiaotie.

“In the shed behind, he’s done,” Hu Yicheng said, stuffing the transfer order into his pocket. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then he thought, the pharmaceutical factory is a joint venture with the Ministry of Health. Maybe there will be plenty of opportunities to pick up nurse MMs in the future. Although they were native girls, after a few months of training and dressed in blue nurse uniforms, they looked quite good.

After delivering the notice, Nick hurried to see his horse. “Datie” was led out. The stallion didn’t seem tired after just being “serviced.” Seeing Nick arrive, it even snorted excitedly a few times.

He patted “Datie”’s neck and checked its body for any injuries before slowly leading it back to the stables.

Nick walked on the cinder-paved road, looking at the high A-frame roof of the stables in the distance and the herd of horses grazing and drinking on the pasture in front of it. He felt extremely content and couldn’t help but fall into a reverie:

It was not long after the farm was completed. Yang Baogui had gathered all the livestock that had been scattered in various places and brought them to the farm. Among them was his beloved retired racehorse, Alanci. Landian had died in the chaos of the initial landing. For this, he had even secretly cried for several nights.

Ever since he had handed over his horse to the Agricultural Committee for care, he had been worried about it. After Landian’s death, he would go to the temporary stables every few days. Now that he heard the horses had been moved to the Bairen farm, he hurried to see them.

With someone’s guidance, Nick quickly found the already sizable farm. In the simple stables, he saw his treasure and several other horses of various sizes and shapes, as well as Ye Yuming, who was looking at them with a troubled expression. It was clear that he didn’t know much about these large animals.

“This was already a trouble for others. I am very happy that you and Mr. Nanhai could find a place for him to stay. Thank you very much.” As a reward, he took out two boxes containing a total of 20 bottles of “Shidishui” from his bag and handed them to him.

“I’m very sorry. If it were normal times, I would be embarrassed to offer these things, but this is all I can do now. These are very effective for preventing and alleviating heatstroke. As people who work under the scorching sun every day, you will definitely need them. Also…” He suddenly remembered something and took out a few small bags from his luggage. “These are the bean seeds, oat grains, corn, and radish seeds I brought. They are essential feed for horses and pigeons. I’m not an expert in farming, so I’ll have to ask you and Nanhai to plant some for them as well.”

“Well…” Ye Yuming looked troubled. It wasn’t that he was bothered by the trouble or anything else, but he knew nothing about raising horses. To have him take care of these few horses would be a death sentence for them. Yang Baogui had said that horses were very delicate animals.

“Actually, I think you should just come and raise the horses,” Ye Yuming suggested. “Only Dr. Yang here knows a little, but he’s a veterinarian and can’t take care of the horses every day. You wouldn’t be at ease if others took care of them either.”

That was true. Among the more than five hundred people, Nick was really the only one who knew how to raise horses. “But—” he hesitated, “I’ve already agreed with the military committee to be their riding instructor and to form a cavalry.”

“Riding instructor?” Ye Yuming said. “With just these few horses, what kind of cavalry can you form? Our priority now should be to have the mares give birth to more foals and expand the horse population.”

Nick thought about it and agreed. So he went to the Executive Committee again. In addition to his position as “Chief Riding Instructor,” he was given a new title: “Superintendent of Horse Husbandry.” He spent more time at the farm than with the New Army, tirelessly running around for the sake of the horses. Some of the more cynical guys called him “Horse Maniac” behind his back.

Nick was specifically responsible for raising the horses, which Wu Nanhai was more than happy about. He had been worrying about what to do with the pair of Tieling draft horses and the two donkeys, not to mention the horses captured in battle.

Nick soon discovered that the farm was a good place. It had everything and abundant resources. More importantly, it wasn’t as chaotic as the beach camp or the main Bairen City. He built himself a plank house next to the stables. The location, according to most people, was not good—you could always smell the horse manure. But from the back window, he could see the stables. Next to the house, he built a pigeon loft. Among the animals brought on the Fengcheng, only he had brought dozens of pigeons. In the chaos after D-Day, he had not only lost a horse but also several pigeons, including a homing pigeon named “Fengchi’er,” which he suspected had ended up in some greedy person’s stomach. It was better to keep these little guys under his own watch.

In the stables, besides the pair of Tieling draft horses and his Alanci, there were also three captured Dian horses. He checked the condition of the horses and found that almost all of them had lost weight to varying degrees. Horses are very sensitive animals and take a long time to adapt to a new environment. They had not been well cared for during this period, which made Nick’s heart ache.

The condition of the three Dian horses was even worse. They all had skin diseases of varying degrees. From the unique deformity of their front hooves, it was clear that these horses had never been shod, which meant they could not withstand high-intensity labor. During the recent mass migration and transportation, the transmigrators, who had no idea how to handle horses, had caused severe wear and tear on their hooves on the rough roads.

For this reason, Nick had to announce a temporary suspension of using the horses. While Yang Baogui prepared traditional medicine to treat the horses’ skin diseases, he took out his hoof trimming tools from his luggage—his luggage allowance was filled with many such items. By candlelight, he spent the night trimming the hooves of these unfortunate creatures. Not just the native horses, but also the horses he had brought with him had not had their hooves trimmed since they landed.

The next day, he fought off the personnel from the Planning Committee who came to requisition the horses for transport. Nick, holding a large club, declared that anyone who wanted to take the horses would have to step over his dead body. The nickname “Horse Maniac” immediately spread like wildfire.

That night, he caught someone trying to steal and eat his pigeons. He was about to hand him over to Ran Yao, but then he discovered that the person was a high-level military leader in the Executive Committee. After repeated assurances that he would give the horse husbandry industry the greatest support, Nick had no choice but to release him.

Nick worked from dawn to dusk every day. He used a special stable wheelbarrow he had brought with him to clean up horse manure and transport hay. He went to the East Gate Market to find miscellaneous grains to feed the horses. He searched everywhere for suitable grazing land. He didn’t know how to shoe a horse before, so he had to ask Yang Baogui for help. To avoid troubling others, he simply became an apprentice and learned it himself. When he wanted to install a separate drinking trough for the stables, he ran to the construction department many times and supervised the work on site day and night. When the supply of miscellaneous grains was most difficult, he even reclaimed a small piece of land himself and, with someone’s guidance, planted soybeans and corn.

His dedication moved many people. “Horse Maniac” gradually became a nickname with a hint of praise. Everyone admired him. A person who used to play with racehorses and live a privileged life in Australia could still do this in such a materially difficult place. It was truly not easy.