Chapter 480: Chapter 480: Swine Fever Chapter 480: Chapter 480: Swine Fever “Dad, Dad, something terrible has happened! Come quick and see! There’s trouble with the pigs in the pigsty!” Wang Sanxi hurriedly ran inside.
Wang Sanxi wasn’t inept, just honest and simple-minded, lacking cleverness, but he was steadfast and obedient.
But being steadfast and obedient wasn’t going to solve anything.
Old Wang hurriedly followed Sanxi straight to the pigsty.
The pigs were due for sale in just two months.
Each pig weighed already 200 pounds and they were hoping that with another two months of feeding, they would reach at least 250 or 260 pounds, fetching a good price. After all the ups and downs of the year, they hadn’t made much money. In the first half of the year alone, treating the pigs in the sty when they fell ill had cost them a good deal in grains and medicine; money went into all of it.
That batch of pigs hadn’t fattened as expected. At best, each weighed slightly over 200 pounds. Adding to that, Sanxi didn’t have the knack for caring for them, and a few had died in the process.
They would barely break even after selling them.
They were counting on the end-of-year sale of this batch to make back the money for the year.
If something went wrong now, it would mean a year’s labor lost.
Upon reaching the pigsty, Old Wang was dumbfounded.
They had forty pigs at home, and now each and every one of them, big and small, was lying down.
Lying down wasn’t the issue; the problem was that they were all foaming at the mouth, a sign that things were not looking good.
In his panic, Old Wang yanked open the pen door and charged in, squatting down in front of the nearest pig to check its eyes and mouth.
A quick look was enough to set his heart aflame.
This was different; it was swine fever.
Not like diarrhea, colds, or the flu, which could be treated with medicine and the pigs would soon stand again.
But this time, it was swine fever, and clearly, the pigs had breath going out, with none coming in.
This was a matter of life and death!
Old Wang and Sanxi hastily brewed medicinal soup and, funnel in hand, force-fed it to each pig.
This was their ancestral secret recipe, highly effective for such pig diseases. Normally, one dose would somewhat revive them, and by the second dose, the pigs would be almost back to normal.
But by noon, Old Wang’s heart sunk as he checked on the pigsty from outside.
In the morning, the pigs had been foaming at the mouth and grunting, but now several pigs were already silent, clearly gone.
The remaining pigs seemed even worse.
Clenching his teeth, he and Sanxi administered the medicine again to the pigs, and they moved the dead ones to a shed outside the pigsty, grateful it was winter. If it were summer, the stench would have been unbearable.
Old Wang’s eyes bulged with distress; by one or two o’clock, twenty pigs had died. He could no longer hold back.
He stammered to Sanxi, “Quick, go find the technician from the epidemic prevention station. Hurry!”
Originally, the epidemic prevention station had required each pig to be vaccinated, but Old Wang had disagreed.
A single vaccine cost two yuan.
Two yuan could have been spent on their own medicinal concoctions for the pigs.
Besides, in his mind, he didn’t trust that vaccine; he believed his own herbal remedies were the most effective.
Now, his remedies had failed too.
At this point, he couldn’t care less about losing face. If he didn’t seek help, the remaining twenty pigs would meet the same fate.
Then, the entire pigsty would be wiped out.
Oh, his pigs!
The technician from the epidemic prevention station arrived and simply shook his head after examining the pigs.
“It’s too late; even injecting them would be useless now.”
It wasn’t that the technician was being petty; it just really was beyond saving at this point.
That evening, not a single pig in Old Wang’s home stirred anymore.