Chapter 202 Cattle Farm Construction
Zhang Jun roughly estimated that if the current 100 Flying Dragons, 100 Flying Dragons, and Allosaurus are calculated according to 10 large dinosaurs, the average daily meat eaten by dragons can reach about three or four tons, the weight of adult bison is about one ton, and the weight of strong bison can reach one and a half tons.
According to this food calculation, the dragon herd needs to eat three adult bison a day, and about a thousand adult bison a year, and an average of 1,000 calves need to be bred every year to ensure the need, and the maturity period of bison takes two to four years, and according to the calculation of three years, the first batch of raised bison can grow up after three years.
The area of the cattle pen required to raise 1,000 bison is very huge, the amount of work is very large, and many construction processes still need to be discussed, after all, the dragon herd only has the experience of building a dragon's nest, and has no experience in building a cattle farm.
If, after a few years, the Allosaurus population remains the same, and the number of Leaping Dragons and Wyverns increases tenfold, it will take 4,000 bison a year to meet the demand, and the scale of breeding will continue to expand as the population increases.
If we look at the rate of expansion of human numbers, in the era of cold weapons, due to hunger, disease, and war, the population did not expand quickly, but after the twentieth century, in just one hundred years, the world's population expanded from two billion to seven billion, only because of the improvement of medical and living conditions, the number of wars decreased, resulting in a sharp expansion of the population.
Although Zhang Jun has a modern sense of thinking, he cannot change the current situation of backward medical conditions, and war is also a huge factor that cannot be controlled in the barbaric era, and disease and famine will definitely break out and spread in a certain period, and wars will be seen everywhere, so the population growth rate will certainly not be comparable with that of the 21st century.
However, Zhang Jun hopes that in the next 1,000 years, the number of dragons will be expanded by a hundred times compared to the current number, that is, the total number will be expanded to about 20,000, which should not be a difficult task to complete, as long as there are no genocides and extermination events in the process, even if there is disease and famine, this goal can be achieved.
In a thousand years, the intelligent creatures on the earth will also change a lot, the strong will become stronger, and the weak will be excluded and compressed, and finally whether it will form a monopoly or a situation where a hundred flowers will bloom, it is not controllable, at least now human beings and the sword tiger have the potential to exist as the strong, not counting other intelligent creatures that Zhang Jun has not discovered.
The expansion of populations requires territory and resources, and the collision of civilizations will in most cases lead to war, and fighting for profit is a common mode of competition in barbaric times, and the law of the jungle will be played out everywhere.
Therefore, whether Zhang Jun can complete the task, or exceed the task, these are still unknown, and it needs to pass the test of time before we can see the future prospects.
Regardless of the road ahead, Zhang Jun had to solve practical problems first, so he told all the dinosaurs about his plan at a dragon gathering, and asked half of them to spare half of their labor to carry out his breeding plan.
In the early stage of this plan, there was only investment, and there was no benefit, and the dragon herd could not directly raise the big bison in captivity, because they were full of wild surnames, and they were caught in large quantities and driven into the cattle pen, which was almost a difficult task to complete, so raising bison must start with calves, and they needed to find a thousand calves to breed collectively, which was not an easy task, not counting the number of premature deaths caused by diseases in the future.
Bison and people are almost the same, only one litter is born, and the evolved dinosaurs are not much different, due to the reduction of food, the mother dinosaur now basically only lays one egg at a time, but the hatching rate of eggs is much higher than in ancient times, and the eggs will basically be protected by all dinosaurs in the tribe, so there is no need to worry about being eaten by wild beasts.
So at least 1,000 breeding cows must be pregnant every year to meet the minimum requirement, and the number must be higher than that, because the number of calves that die unexpectedly has to be eliminated. In this way, the number of cows in the farm must exceed 1,000, preferably more than 2,000, and a large number of breeding bulls must be trained to breed and make the cows pregnant.
This amount of work is already very staggering, requiring a lot of manpower to complete, and if the breeding is successful and promoted on a large scale, the dinosaur species is likely to lose its wild surname and no longer rely on hunting for a living, but only rely on artificial breeding to meet the food demand.
This is the same as the process of human evolution, the body of the human ancestor Australopithecus was much stronger than that of humans, they were good at climbing and chasing prey, quick reactions, fast speed, and rapid movements, these traits are no longer found in humans, and the human brain is becoming more and more developed, but the strength and mobility of the limbs have been degrading.
With the birth of breeding civilization, dinosaurs seem to have to face this problem, their various physical abilities such as running, jumping, and strength will slowly degrade in the process of evolution, while the brain will become more and more intelligent.
Therefore, to a certain extent, to maintain the strong physical fitness of the dinosaur family, it has also become a thing that must be considered, in order to maintain the wild surname of the dinosaurs, for the time being, they must also maintain a half-breeding, half-hunting lifestyle, and they cannot be completely turned into professional breeders.
Regarding the construction of the cattle farm, this is not a task that can be completed in one or two days, and Zhang Jun must personally take the lead in this matter, because he has studied mechanical drawing and has a certain understanding of architectural drawings.
So then Zhang Jun took a few ancestors, as well as Dashan, Gray Soil, Nanxiong, and a few sub-unit commanders to study the site planning and construction of the cattle farm, and Zhang Jun began to plan the construction of cattle pens, troughs and other equipment on the drawings.
Although he had experience in building a dragon's nest, Zhang Jun also had to change the design a lot, building a cowshed with a combination of building materials such as stone and wood, as well as taking into account the needs of rainproof, clean and hygienic, and wild animal prevention.
In the following months, the leaders discussed together for a long time, and after practical tests and experiments, they finally put forward the architectural plan of the cattle farm, and the basic architectural drawings were formed.
At this time, the technical conditions were backward, so Zhang Jun used stones to build a guardrail to prevent the bison from escaping the cattle farm and prevent wild beasts from invading, and then used wood to build a cowshed to build a spacious and bright cowshed, and the roof of the cowshed could only be covered with thatch to protect from the sun and rain.
On the whole, the construction of the cattle pen is similar to the cowshed in the modern countryside, simple and simple, and Zhang Jun can't think of the technology of replication for a while.
After the implementation of the plan, the construction of the cattle farm began, the first cowshed was chosen to be built on the side of the valley, and batches of flying dragons and flying dragons were sent to the valley in turn, which was the first time they experienced the hardships and benefits of collective labor, and they had never experienced the scene of collective labor for a long time before.
The dragons then began to hunt part of the time and build cattle ranches part of the time, and due to the increase in manual labor, the amount of food of the dragons also needed to increase correspondingly, and the amount of predation also increased by more than ten percent.
The division of labor among the dragons gradually became clear, with some dinosaurs responsible for wood cutting and processing, some for stone collection and cutting, some for soil mixing, and some for building wooden sheds and thatching for other types of work, and a preliminary division of labor in construction appeared.
In modern architecture, the most common classification of workers is the specific classification of masonry, carpentry, bricklayer, etc., and at this time, the dragon group also began to take shape.
In addition, some of the dragons are sent out to find suitable cowboys, forcibly take them away from the cows, and by the way, find a group of young cows, control them, bring them back to the barn to breed, and of course catch some strong bulls, so that the bulls and cows mate during the annual estrus period.
Normally, the bison breeding season is in September and October, after which the dragons will look for pregnant cows, and the following year, the calves will be captured and taken to the barn after the lactation period is over.
In the cattle farm, a special breeding area has been built, and during the estrus season, cows and strong bulls will be driven into the estrus area, where they can mate and increase the number of mating they may have to ensure that the pregnancy rate increases.
In short, all matters related to cattle raising are gradually unfolding in the cattle farm, and dozens of dinosaurs will be seen busy in the cattle farm every day, and the construction of the site is not an easy task, Zhang Jun estimates that if he can raise 2,000 bison, it will take more than three years to complete the construction.
Three years may seem like a long time for the dragon herd, but for Zhang Jun and several ancestors, it seems to be a negligible time, they have become accustomed to waiting patiently, waiting for the results of the cattle farm to show, they will also appear near the cattle farm from time to time, inspect and guide the labor of their subordinates, and several ancestors are also the strongest, so some of the carrying work needs to be completed by them.
Zhang Jun walked on the grass of the cattle farm, accompanied by several ancestors to inspect, more than half a year has passed, the construction of the cattle farm has gradually advanced, the first planned breeding area in the south of the valley near the mountain rock, here has already built a large cattle shed, is specially built for bison mating construction area.
When bulls and cows are driven into the breeding area, during the estrus season, they will look for plenty of opportunities to mate, which is much more successful than mating in the wild, because they are mated without any interference, one bull can mate with many cows at the same time, and after completing the task, another strong bull will continue to mate.
The breeding area has always been handed over to the management of the gray soil, and the gray soil is leading his men to work in the breeding area, and it is now September, the weather is still relatively hot, and they are busy sweating profusely.
In addition to the breeding area, the cattle farm has been surrounded by large boulders, more than a meter high and more than half a meter thick, all of which are made of relatively thick stones buried under the ground, and the bison are not very bounced, so they cannot cross such a high fence at all.
The construction of the barn is only a fifth of the way through, and from one end of the valley to the other, and along the edge of the valley, a ring of cowsheds will be built, and only enough space will be built to accommodate thousands of bison to breed.
The bison that are now kept in the cattle pen are all forcibly captured by the dragons, mainly the smaller ones, and the cows are the mainstay, and the bulls that are too big are too strong to be tamed. The number of bison in the pen is currently less than 200, and the scale of breeding needs to be expanded in large quantities.
Not far away in the cowshed, there are a lot of flying dragons and flying dragons are working, they are building cowsheds according to the experience accumulated before, reinforcing guardrails, building troughs and other facilities, from time to time to let out a soft roar, that is to cheer for themselves and their teammates, their cooperation has been more tacit at this time, some of the dragons are flying around near the roof of the shed, some are walking back and forth on it, they are responsible for the construction of the roof of the shed, to the roof of the shed to lay dry thatch, the thatch also needs some animal skins to pave underneath, and the top also needs to be pressed with heavy objects, Also keep some rope or something on the hook in case the wind can tip over the roof.
Looking at the busy subordinates, Zhang Jun and several ancestors are very pleased, in the past six months, they have changed from the initial ignorance to skilled workers, the skills are more reliable, and the construction speed is gradually improving.
Just as several ancestors were walking towards the breeding area where the ash was located, there was a sudden shouting sound at the entrance of the cattle farm, Zhang Jun turned his head and saw that Dashan was carrying a dozen leaping dragons, forcibly dragging a big black bull that seemed to be difficult to tame with a few thick ropes, walking towards this side.