Chapter 67: Once Confinement Is Over, It’s Time to Raise Chickens
Chapter 67: Once Confinement Is Over, It’s Time to Raise Chickens
Chapter 67: Once Confinement Is Over, It’s Time to Raise Chickens
Su Danhong and Xiao Renren almost woke up around the same time. Ji Jianyun had already made chicken soup and brought it over for her to drink. Then, he carried his son to change his diapers.
While he was changing his son’s diaper, Su Danhong drank a few mouthfuls of spiritual spring water before she slowly began to drink the chicken soup.
As Ji Jianyun was changing the diaper, he told her about Mother Ji’s idea. “Wife, do you want to raise chickens?”
Su Danhong replied, “Let’s do it. During winter, there’s not much to do.”
Ji Jianyun was happy, and Su Danhong gave him a sideways glance.
How could she not know what this man was thinking? He wanted her and their child to live a good life. It was a single-minded ambition, but how could she ask him to watch over them all the time?
When it comes to men, they should be allowed to fly and not be tied down too much. Of course, letting him fly depended on his character, as flying too much could result in being led astray.
“From now on, we can cook the chicken’s food at our place. We will use that stove that is rarely used for cooking to make the chicken's food,” Su Danhong said.
It would be easy to add the spiritual spring water if it was cooked at their home, otherwise it would be too conspicuous for her to go to the Lao Ji family’s on a cold day.
“We’re not going to cook it on the mountain? It will get cold if you send it to the mountain on a cold day,” Ji Jianyun said in confusion.
“It’s fine to cook it on the mountain, but we should use the water from our water tank. Our water is good,” Su Danhong smiled and explained.
Ji Jianyun smiled back and agreed without another word.
He also thought that the water in his house was good and sweet. He got the water from the ancient well in the village, so why was the water in his house particularly good?
His wife knew the answer to this question, but he was not going to ask.
Since his wife said it was good, then it was good. After Ji Jianyun took care of his wife and son, he went over to the Lao Ji family to find Mother Ji. He also brought over half a chicken.
“Why did you bring the food that’s for Danhong to eat during confinement?” Mother Ji said at once.
“Danhong can't eat it. She doesn't like it when she has to eat a drumstick and makes me eat it. I'm tired of eating it these days. Mother, if you don't eat it, then send it to father later for dinner,” Ji Jianyun said.
Then he brought up the topic about raising chickens. “Danhong said we can raise them.”
“Then that’s great!” Hearing this, Mother Ji could only say, “You go back first, mother will tell them to keep some of them for laying eggs, and the rest will be sold.”
Ji Jianyun just let her do as she pleased.
Mother Ji was very efficient and soon informed everyone. People could only raise so many chickens, so they were willing to sell them to her to earn some extra income.
An egg was about ten cents now, but a chicken was twenty cents. The profit would be doubled.
If a hen was broody, the probability of the eggs hatching was not 100%. If the egg did not hatch, then it could also be used as an ingredient or eaten like balut. But that wasn’t important. If the egg hatched, it would be profitable.
As soon as some people heard that she wanted chicks, they started choosing fertilized eggs for the hen to brood, even when they did not intend to make the hens brood.
It took a long time for hens to brood. Su Danhong calculated that it would be more than twenty days. By the time they start raising chickens, she would be out of confinement.
So she wasn’t worried about whether the chicks would grow well or not. As long as she was free, there would be no one who couldn't keep them alive.
In the days that followed, Su Danhong spent her confinement in boredom. It was so boring that she took a piece of paper and wrote down a lot of plans.
For example, next year, she wanted to start a garden on the mountain to grow medicinal ingredients.
This time she wanted to plant some rare herbs, such as ginseng, noble dendrobium, and thorowax root, and so on.
She was definitely going to plant ginseng, and thorowax root. She bought a little bit of noble dendrobium in the medicine shop last time. The effect was very good, but it was a little expensive.
So next year she was going to get some fresh ones and plant them on the mountain. If she wanted to eat it, she could pick some and cook it. Wasn’t that good?
Apart from these, there was indigo woad root, honeysuckle, rhubarb and so on to plant.
Ji Jianyun was once curious what plans she had written, so he leaned over to read it. Unexpectedly, he saw the medicinal garden idea and immediately smiled and asked, “Honey, are you going to open a medicinal shop?”
“I'm not going to open a medicinal plant. I'm going to plant it so I can use it for myself. If I can't use it all, then I can give some to the neighbors,” Su Danhong answered.
She wasn’t planning on doing more, but she found an empty piece of land below the orchard on the mountain that had not been touched by the spiritual spring water. Since she gave birth to a child, she had always been drinking the spiritual spring water. Now that she had an extra mu of land, she didn't know what to do with it. She had a dream one night, where she walked to that piece of land.
The land smelled earthy, which was out of the ordinary. However, she didn't understand why.
But because this mu of land had appeared, there was more spiritual spring water flowing out than she could use. Thus, it should be used to raise medicinal ingredients, especially ginseng. It was not easy to grow good ginseng.
Ji Jianyun smiled and supported her when he heard her say this, and asked, “Should I get the seeds and seedlings for you?”
“Okay.” Su Danhong nodded and gave him this task to do.
This winter, Ji Jianyun was planning to learn some things from Lao Qin. However, it was delayed since Su Danhong was going through confinement.
In twenty days, whether that period of time was long or short, Su Danhong was going to be out of confinement.
As soon as confinement was over, the first thing she did was ask Ji Jianyun to boil her three buckets of water so she could wash every part of her body.
Soon, she felt like her body was as light as a swallow and could fly.
With regards to her being like this, Ji Jianyun was helpless and amused. He quickly brought her into their room and got the hair dryer to dry her hair.
This hair dryer was brought back by Zhen Miaohong from Jiangshui City as a gift.
It was finally coming in handy. With a hairdryer, hair wouldn’t stay wet all the time.
With Su Danhong and Xiao Renren out of confinement, the chicks in the village also broke out from their shells.
Jianyun went to buy the chicks with Mother Ji based on the appropriate prices. He even bought all the ones that didn't look so good, but the price was reduced by half a cent. It was not easy to raise them when they looked so sick. Since the villagers decided to hatch chicks for him, he thanked them profusely.
The villagers are also very pleased by his words. There were many families who really wanted to earn some money.
In one family, six hens brooded, and there were fifty chicks. One chick was twenty cents, and fifty chicks cost ten yuan!
The family happily asked to be told earlier so that they would definitely breed chicks.
Other families had less and received one or two yuan.
All in all, Ji Jianyun received more than 200 chicks.
It cost dozens of yuan to buy a few chicks. Mother Ji was distressed, and had to mention that they had spent so much money when they had not made any money yet.
However, Mother Ji was just nagging a bit. She was going to become very busy because she was going to help Su Danhong cook food for more than 200 chicks.
In order for these chicks to grow well, Mother Ji sent their three hens that could lay eggs up the mountain and made them lead the chicks!