ebookland Chapter 164 The Falcon Gets Beaten Up, Watch Li Ju'an's Hunting Dogs Eat Meat
Chapter 164 The Falcon Gets Beaten Up, Watch Li Ju'an's Hunting Dogs Eat Meat
"That's right, otherwise it wouldn't fall from the sky or be picked up from a pit."
Without saying a word, Li Ju'an immediately admitted it, which amused Lu Zhiqiang. Li Ju'an glared at him, and Lu Zhiqiang immediately chimed in, "Of course! To hunt these deer, look at how snow got into the back of my neck, and my back is still freezing cold."
After dragging the deer out of the snowdrift, the two men marked the area on tree bark to let other hunters know that the area had been marked, the game was claimed, and it was ready to be taken back by sled. Many hunters travel through the Xing'an Mountains, and to avoid conflicts over prey, they mark their territory on tree bark.
Old Zhou, a hunter from Yingtun, looked at so many deer and found it unbelievable, but he still stubbornly said, "It's just a few deer. For a young man to be able to go into the mountains and hunt so many deer in one go, he is really lucky. May the mountain god bless him."
Suddenly, Zhao Pao stared at the old sled tracks left in the snow and said, "You just ran into the Tiger King?"
Lu Zhiqiang said, "Four heads. We killed them all. If Lao Qian hadn't put his coat on me, I'd be wearing a tiger skin and chatting with you guys right now."
The hunters of Eagle Village were taken aback. They looked closely at the drag marks on the ground and realized that four sleds had indeed been pulled at the same time.
Zhao Pao still didn't believe it, but Li Ju'an said, "I reckon by now, Lao Qian and the others have already taken Hu Pizi to Lao Tang's duty room."
The falconers trembled, exchanged glances, and looked at each other in disbelief.
Old Zhou whispered to Zhao Pao, "These two lads aren't just bragging. If they beat up Tiger King, what will our team do then? How will we explain it to Captain Wang of the ranch?"
Zhao Pao remained calm, lit a cigarette, took a deep breath, exhaled a smoke ring, and said, "What's the rush? There's still one left."
They were told by the ranch that there were five Siberian tigers in the mountains behind the ranch: one male, one female, and three sub-adults. They could get a share of the money if they killed all five tigers.
Old Zhou thought it made sense. There was still one left. If they could take down that one too, their trip wouldn't have been in vain, and they would have given Captain Wang an explanation.
Li Ju'an crouched down to examine the red deer that had been gnawed by the wolves. Of the eight red deer, only one large stag and two females were intact and hadn't been attacked by the wolves. The remaining five red deer, being relatively smaller and with tender meat, had been torn apart and eaten by the wolves. The disemboweled red deer had their hearts and lungs ripped out, and their intestines had fallen onto the snow, where they froze in the melting snow.
He used the tip of his knife to pick up the torn-out internal organs, glanced at Da Hu, and said, "You tell me how to feed him."
Big Tiger showed no mercy and snorted twice at Ma Lu Xin.
He gave the deer heart to the first dog, and the liver and the best cuts of meat from the belly to the remaining four dogs. He discarded the intestines and lungs.
Zhao Pao and the falconers shouted commands, ordering the eagles to return to their arms to forage for food.
The seven falcons circling overhead were trained in their youth to shed their wildness, and then underwent "training." This involves getting the falcons used to perching on their owner's arm. Next, they learned "rope running," which means training them to obey their owner's call and fly back to their arm.
Before releasing their eagles, falconers in Yingtun control the eagles' weight through methods such as "feeding the eagle's saddle" and "weight-feeding" or "shaking the saddle," keeping the eagles within an ideal range. As for being well-fed? That's wishful thinking on the part of the eagles. Hunting eagles are not fed to satiety; if they are fed to satiety, they lose their motivation to hunt and gradually their temperament is worn down.
The eagles in the sky obeyed the commands to run the rope, flapping their wings and following the sound of the commands back to Zhao Pao's arm to forage for food.
Zhao Pao took out some dried venison from his pocket and fed it to the falcon piece by piece.
He also knew that the best food to feed the falcon was fresh, hot meat. If it was fresh, cold meat, it should be soaked in hot water before feeding. But the conditions in the wild weren't right now. The falcon preferred to eat venison, but the elk meat at his feet was from prey that Li Ju'an had hunted, and it contained tree bark.
The eagle spotted the hunting dog eating deer heart on the snow at a glance.
The tiger chewed on the deer heart with relish, cradling it in its forelimbs and tearing at it with gusto, its neck arched back as it ripped off the chewy pieces. The offal itself had a strong odor, and the deer's stench assaulted the eagle's nostrils, a ticklish smell that the eagle could hardly resist.
The eagle's cry was sharp, and even the seven falcons couldn't resist the churning of their stomachs. Their piercing eyes were fixed on the deer entrails lying between the hounds' mouths. The eagle, bold and decisive, flapped its wings, ready to swoop down and snatch the food from the tiger.
Zhao Pao fastened the shackles, then swung his hand and lightly slapped the man across the face, scolding, "You little beast, you've grown wings and your temper has gotten too big."
The falcon got beaten up, while Li Ju'an's hunting dogs ate meat.
The seven falcons of Eagle Village stared longingly at the tiger and the dogs as they frantically devoured the venison, looking rather pitiful with their greed.
Seeing the amusement, Li Ju'an said, "There's so much wolf meat on the ground, let's cut it up."
Zhao Pao said, "These sly wolves weren't killed by eagles, so we can't feed them. We'll have to tame them and let them hunt wolves before we can feed them to them."
Each time the falconer feeds the falcon, he follows the hunting training method, constantly reinforcing its existing hunting reflexes. Besides stimulating the falcon's wild instincts, it also needs food rewards, ideally sharing fresh meat from its hunted prey. However, the morning fog had obstructed visibility, causing the falcon to perform poorly, so there was no wolf meat to share.
Li Ju'an didn't want to argue with the hunters from Eagle Village every time they met. Since the falconers had come to help, he couldn't turn on them later and seem petty.
"Zhao Pao, you'll get a share of the venison."
He cut off a piece of the fawn's hind leg and handed it over. Zhao Pao hesitated, a struggle appearing in his eyes. He wanted it, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He looked at the steps that were being handed over and hesitated whether to take them or not.
Old Zhou, a straightforward man, saw the steps approaching and quickly stepped down, exclaiming, "Oh my god, young brother, you've really hit the nail on the head! How did you know we brought a basket of loose liquor? We don't need the venison, just some deer blood will do."
They went into the mountains to hunt tigers, and they were very well prepared.
Once the falcon is released, even if it doesn't find any tigers, it will find traces of gazelles, sika deer, and red deer. Old Zhou took out an empty flask, a funnel, and a loose basket containing half a barrel of loose white wine, intending to make deer blood wine.
Deer blood wine has significant medicinal value, but it requires preserving the deer blood in old forests by mixing it with bulk white liquor of 50 degrees or higher. This slows down the coagulation of the deer blood, preserving its freshness and preventing nutrient loss.
But these deer had been dead for quite some time and were frozen solid.
He called for people to gather firewood and start a fire, then placed several deer on a pile of stones. Once the frozen deer had warmed up a bit and their bodies had softened, he cut them and took blood from the back of their necks.
After bleeding the deer, he put all the blood into a wine pot and mixed it with five catties of wine at a ratio of one catty of deer blood to five catties of wine to make deer blood wine.
The remaining lanterns from the deer were thrown onto the tree branches.
Old Zhou stared at the stag's head with envy in his eyes, clicking his tongue and saying, "Li Pao'er, you've had a great haul. These antlers are really beautiful. If you could get the velvet, you could sell it for a thousand or eight hundred."