Reborn in 1985: Starting from Contracting a Ranch

Chapter 67 Raising Deer?

The three of them squatted under a sheltered rock, not caring that their clothes were covered in snow, and stared excitedly at the deer in front of them.

It was a male deer, almost the most beautiful spotted deer Shi Zhang had ever seen since he started learning to hunt with his father.

Huge antlers, glossy fur, and a robust body...

Shi Zhang wanted to peel off the deerskin immediately.

Seeing the excited Shi Zhang, Shan Yaowen patted him on the shoulder, "Don't rush, we've only seen one male deer yet, we haven't seen the other fawns."

Logically speaking, if there were wild deer herds, there would definitely be female deer.

Shi Zhang suppressed his excitement and looked around for a moment, but he found no trace of deer, neither footprints nor anything else.

The stag seemed to sense danger, raising its head alertly and exhaling two thick plumes of white smoke from its nostrils. Then it lifted its feet, crossed the mountain ridge, and walked in the other direction.

Seeing the stags leave, the three men forgot about finding the fawn and quickly followed after them.

They had just seen it from the mountain. The stag was in the ditch, and the distance of five or six hundred meters was not suitable for shooting. Even Shan Yaowen was not confident of hitting it with his Mosin-Nagant rifle, let alone Lin Hao and Shi Zhang, whose hunting rifles could not reach that far.

Shi Zhang gripped the reins, leading the hunting dog behind him. He hadn't released the dog earlier for fear of alerting the enemy, but now he could only continue following.

Fortunately, the stag didn't spot them; it simply strolled slowly up the ravine without running away.

If it runs away, we'll have to let the dogs chase it.

Lin Hao exhaled a breath of hot air and trudged through the snow with difficulty. The snow was already above his calves, and each step required a lot of effort.

They followed the deer's hoofprints over two mountain ridges, relentlessly pursuing them. Heavy snow is a good time to hunt deer, as they can't run fast in the thick snow, their footprints are clear, and they often hide in sheltered, sunny mountain valleys to avoid the wind and snow.

"Little Deer!" Gou Dan called out strangely.

He was so excited he wanted to shout, but then realized it wasn't appropriate to speak loudly, so he quickly lowered his voice and made a strange sound.

Shan Yaowen also saw the fawns, but it was a little different from what he had expected, with a herd of mother deer. There was only one male deer and three fawns.

"Wait, where's the doe?" Shi Zhang asked, puzzled.

In a deer herd, fawns usually follow their mothers.

Moreover, the herd of deer, consisting of a male stag and three fawns, looks rather strange.

"Who cares, let's shoot first." Dog Egg eagerly pulled out his hunting rifle.

The other two didn't stop them and began to prepare.

For them, figuring out why there was a stag and three fawns in front of them wasn't the most important thing.

Solving cases is the job of detectives.

They came hunting, and their priority was to capture the prey in front of them.

"Let's work together to keep that big guy at bay, and let Gouzi chase after the smaller one. Try not to hit him on the body, though. This deer hide is worth a fortune." Shi Zhang was practically drooling over the stag's hide.

"OK."

"Brother Wen, you have good marksmanship and your shot goes far. You fire the first shot, and Brother Hao and I will ambush from the other two sides."

After setting everything up, Shi Zhang led Gou Dan and the dog around.

Shan Yaowen probed forward for several hundred meters, then stopped when he reached a position he was confident in.

He found a large rock, slowly crouched down, and rested the gun barrel on the snow-covered rock.

In the crosshair, the deer's body was swaying. It wasn't that his hand was shaking; the wind was making his entire field of vision tremble, and even with his eyes squinted, snowflakes were drifting towards him.

"This wind is really weird," Shan Yaowen muttered, still keeping his eyes on the stag.

It hasn't snowed yet, but there's a gust of wind that's blowing snowflakes everywhere, and it's quite cold.

The stag seemed to relax its guard, lowering its head to nudge the snow and nibble on the dry grass beneath.

After seeing the signals from Gou Dan and Shi Zhang, Shan Yaowen placed his finger on the trigger.

"Bang!"

"Woof woof woof~"

"Yo yo~"

After a gunshot, the dog suddenly darted out, the stag let out a mournful cry, and the three fawns panicked and ran away, calling out.

Dog Egg and Stone Camphor followed Dog out and fired shots at the buck.

The hunting dogs from the Shizhang family pounced and pinned down one of the fawns, while the other two, which tried to run away, were also pinned down one by one.

"This thing is huge!"

Dog Egg completely ignored the fawns, grinning broadly as he looked at the fallen stag.

Looking at the stag that had crashed to the ground, creating a large crater in the snow, Shan Yaowen clicked his tongue. "This guy must weigh at least two hundred pounds!"

"About the same. Although it's not as big as the red deer I hunted before, it's not small either. Most importantly, this one is a spotted deer, and every part of it is valuable."

Shi Zhang is now in high spirits, having shaken off the gloom of the past few days.

He had originally planned to take Shan Yaowen and Gou Dan hunting to repay a favor, but to his surprise, they didn't even see a single roe deer, which made him start to doubt whether he was suited for hunting.

Today, this spotted deer has completely vindicated him.

Although it was discovered that it was Shan Yaowen's eagle, and Shan Yaowen fired the first shot, he also contributed to the attack.

"Enough talk, let's process the game first. We still have to go back, so we can only sell it in town tomorrow." Shan Yaowen rubbed his hands together.

Upon hearing this, Lin Hao and Shi Zhang didn't waste any words and began to deal with the large deer on the ground.

Watching the two guys rush to kill the big deer, Shan Yaowen shrugged and could only deal with the smaller one.

To his surprise, the three fawns were very resilient, and the hunting dogs hadn't killed them. The three little ones were still alive and struggling in the snow, with the hunting dogs guarding them.

"Good dog." Shan Yaowen reached out and patted the hunting dog's head.

"Brother Wen, aren't you going to kill him?"

Shi Zhang was dealing with the Bucks when he saw Shan Yaowen's actions and was taken aback.

At this moment, Shan Yaowen was tying up the deer with rope, not disposing of it immediately, seemingly intending to bring it back alive.

"I won't kill them. I'll take them back and raise them." Shan Yaowen nodded. "By the way, I'll take these three fawns. You two can share them."

Shan Yaowen also happened to remember that there were many sika deer farms around him in his previous life. Anyway, the three fawns didn't have much meat, and he didn't know how they ended up with this male deer in the middle of winter.

He plans to try raising them and see if it works; if it does, it could be a source of income in the future.

After all, every part of a sika deer is valuable. Not to mention selling venison, there are also deer antlers, deer antler glue, deer blood, deer penis, deer tendons, deer hides, etc. If you really want to sell them, raising deer is no cheaper than raising cattle and sheep.

As for whether it will sell well, in the food category, as long as it's not extremely unpalatable, there's no worry about it selling at this time.

Moreover, in certain situations, sika deer are associated with aphrodisiacs, and many people buy them.

Upon hearing this, Shi Zhang waved his hand and said, "It's alright, we'll split it together. What are your three little creatures worth? If you want to raise them, take them back with you. You'll get a share of the deer too."

"That's right, we're like family. At worst, you'll get less deer meat, but I can't not give you any at all." Gou Dan waved his hand. "But don't even think about the deer blood."

After saying that, he winked at the stone camphor tree.

Shi Zhang chuckled. "Brother Hao, you want deer blood? You've got a sweetheart now?"

"What's wrong? Can't I try it if I don't have someone I like?"

"I'm afraid you'll be too hot to sleep at night."

"..."

After talking for a while, the three of them packed up and hurriedly led their prey down the mountain.

With such a large deer, the three stopped looking for roe deer. On the other hand, the silly bird caught a nearly frozen pheasant on its way back.

Shan Yaowen was carrying three fawns on his back, but he couldn't carry them all, so he had the silly bird hold onto them and take them home first.