Chapter 869
It's Too Late
Li Wenhu glanced out the door, and after confirming the identity of the person, he ran out of the house to greet them.
"What a rare guest! Brother Feng, you have such a great reputation to invite Brother Feng here! It's an honor to have you here!" Li Wenhu said with a smile, showing his welcome to the distinguished guest.
Yue Feng knew Li Wenhu's true nature, but he was here today purely to broaden his horizons, not to cause trouble. So he took two steps forward and shook hands with the other party in a seemingly enthusiastic manner.
"Brother Li, how have you been! It's been almost half a year since we last met last winter!" Yue Feng said politely.
"Haha, long time no see, long time no see!" Li Wenhu was slightly taken aback when he heard Yue Feng address him, then smiled and nodded repeatedly.
"Alright, alright, you're two grown men, not young wives meeting. Why are you holding hands and reluctant to let go?" Feng Huanping joked with a smile.
Li Wenhu said, "Hehe, Chief Yue is a real expert. We have to thank Brother Feng for bringing him to our base. The basic construction is almost complete, and we're just in need of professional advice!"
Yue Feng: "I heard from Brother Feng that you guys have set up a great place and are also setting up a club, so I shamelessly came to learn from you! So, nothing important today, right?"
"No, no, nothing is more important than you and Brother Feng coming to inspect!" Li Wenhu waved his hands repeatedly.
"Then, Brother Li, would you please show us around?"
"Alright, let's take a walk first. If we get tired later, we can go inside for some tea and a chat! Xiao Peng went to inform Old Qian and Brother Chao that they'll be here soon!"
After saying this, Li Wenhu led the way, taking Yue Feng and Feng Huanping on a tour of the club.
To be fair, the objective conditions here are indeed higher than those at the Yaokeng Club.
The site is very spacious. The original cement ponds for raising fish fry can be transformed into a moderately sized raptor cage simply by opening up the partition between the two ponds and adding wire mesh around them. Walking on the planned central road, with these high-standard breeding areas on both sides, the first impression is very impressive.
As Li Wenhu led the way, he explained as needed: "These cages used to be breeding ponds! Now they've been converted into cages!"
Currently, our club has built 32 individual cages in the first phase, which are for use now. If we need to expand in the future, there are two more breeding ponds that can be converted into them!
Yue Feng was shocked by the other party's generosity, but he was also a little envious.
The raptor breeding cages at his farm in the mountains of his hometown are made of red bricks, red tiles, and wire mesh. They are much smaller and less well-built than the cages in front of him.
Even the cages at the club in the kiln pits in the south of the city were only barely on par with the other side. If you take into account the paved roads and the surrounding environment, the overall evaluation is still a bit lacking.
Yue Feng grinned and exclaimed, "Tsk tsk, you've renovated these cages beautifully, so spacious and well-organized!! With so many cages, you must have started raising eagles by now, right?"
"Yeah, just around the corner! They've got a few broods of fledgling eagles over there this spring, and they're almost all feathered!" Li Wenhu said, pointing into the distance.
Yue Feng was slightly taken aback when he heard that the other party had acquired a fledgling eagle. He grinned and said, "A fledgling eagle? That's a rare find!"
Whether it's rare or not, let's put that aside for now. Yue Feng's words were quite meaningful.
The breeding season for falcons is relatively early. They lay eggs and hatch them around March or April, and the eggs are basically fully grown by May. By mid-May, they are usually ready to fly away from the nest.
The breeding season for birds of prey like the goshawk is at least a month later than that of falcons.
For example, goshawks that breed in the forests of Northeast China will only start pairing up and building nests in April, and the chicks will only hatch in May. They will not leave the nest until around mid-June.
This created a time lag. Both clubs started raising raptor chicks in the spring to prepare for breeding stock. However, the falcon chicks at Yaokeng had already begun the second stage of flight training, while the goshawk chicks at Zhang Chaochao and Li Wenhu's club hadn't even grown their feathers and could fly yet.
"Hehehe, this thing may be rare in other people's eyes, but in your eyes, it's not rare at all! I heard from my brothers that the gyrfalcons have been breeding for several years at the breeding farm in your hometown!" Li Wenhu replied with a smile.
Yue Feng said in a serious tone, "Eagle chicks and falcon chicks are not the same thing! Although these creatures breed in our mountainous area, they are found in the old forests near the Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains. We haven't found any breeding nests near my home yet! Getting these chicks must have taken a lot of effort!"
As they spoke, the three of them arrived at the cage where the fledgling eagles were being fed.
Li Wenhu opened the locked iron gate of the cage and displayed the fledgling eagles in the basket inside to Yue Feng and the others.
As soon as they saw people enter the cage, the four eaglets in the basket immediately tucked in their feathers, their beaks wide open, resembling a hen lying on its nest, their eyes filled with fear and vigilance.
The four fledgling eagles from back then have grown about 80% of their feathers, and it is estimated that they will be fully feathered in another week.
Well, the falcon chicks raised by Xiao Dong and Ming Kai are so loud that they could deafen people, while the goshawk chicks that haven't even left the nest yet are completely silent and wary of strangers.
"Few strangers come here, and the eagles are a bit afraid of people!" Li Wenhu explained in a low voice upon seeing this.
Yue Feng nodded without speaking, but in his heart he had already sentenced these fledglings to death.
“They are indeed a bit scary. Look at these little guys, their feathers are all sticking to their bodies! Xiao Feng, are the fledglings okay in this state?” Feng Huanping chimed in.
Yue Feng said, "No problem. After seeing more people and getting used to the new environment, you won't be afraid anymore! How many days has this brood of eagles been hatching?"
Li Wenhu scratched his head: "I can't say for sure which day it is, but it's been more than half a month since we got it back! These days, Xiao Peng and I have been taking care of it every day, and Old Qian comes to check on it every few days!"
Upon hearing that it had only been brought back for a little over half a month, Yue Feng nodded slightly.
No wonder this nest of eaglets is terrified of people; they were too late in raiding the nest.
Wild goshawk eaglets that breed naturally take 38 to 40 days to grow from hatching to leaving the nest.
During the first week after hatching, eaglets are kept warm and grow under their parents' bellies. This is the golden period for raising wild eaglets that have been captured from their nests.
The reason is simple: at this stage, the eaglets' eyes are not fully developed, so they have a very shallow impression of their parents. They can easily find food on the ground after digging out the nest and are not afraid of people at all.
By replacing the parent birds with artificial feeding, the eaglets can be properly imprinted. Once the imprinting is successful, the eaglets will not show obvious fear of people.
Judging from the condition and timing of the brood of eaglets in front of us, they likely came down from the tree about two and a half to three weeks after hatching. They are already half-feathered, with their feathers still covering their bodies.
At this stage, the fledgling eagle's eyes are nearing maturity, and it has passed the optimal period for imprinting.
Even if it is fed normally in a human's hand, it will continue to regenerate.
When they are kept as breeding birds in the future, it will be a lot of trouble, as it is difficult to artificially pair them up like breeding birds that have been marked.
In simpler terms, even if these eagles are raised with great care and effort by humans, their habits remain similar to those of juvenile eagles caught in the wild in the fall. Artificial breeding relies entirely on a low probability of natural pairing. Furthermore, the average intelligence level of the goshawk is significantly lower than that of larger falcons like the saker falcon or gyrfalcon, making the probability of natural pairing even lower when kept by humans.
"Young Master Yue, how are these eaglets doing? Are there any obvious problems?" Li Wenhu asked casually when he saw Yue Feng staring at the eaglets.
Yue Feng grinned and shook his head: "I don't see any major problems! Apart from being a little afraid of people, everything else is fine!"
"I have a question that I've been struggling with, and I'd like to ask you for advice!" Li Wenhu continued.
Yue Feng looked calmly into the other person's eyes: "Why be so polite? Just say what you need to say!"
"Look at the feathers of these eaglets. I feel like there's something wrong with them! When I look at them from the side, there are these inconspicuous marks on the feathers!"
Is this normal feather color, or is there a problem with the food or something else?
Yue Feng had noticed the light marks on the feathers on the backs of these fledgling eagles long ago, but he hadn't brought it up.
Now that Li Wenhu has asked in person, Yue Feng doesn't mind saying a few more words.
“These are pressure marks!” Yue Feng replied.
"What are stress lines? Is there a problem? They look a bit ugly, like unsightly spots on the feathers!"
Yue Feng explained, "Stress marks are slight imperfections in the feather development of fledgling eagles caused by fright or hunger during their feather growth and development!"
This pattern can actually be seen occasionally when raising adult eagles! It's even more common during the rearing of fledgling eagles!
"Damn, does that mean an eagle with these pressure lines is basically useless? Will it retain these lines after it molts?"
Yue Feng shook his head: "It's not that serious. Feathers grow little by little from the quill, and growth takes a certain period of time! During this process, if they are stimulated or affected by hunger, these marks will appear!"
Like tree rings, they record the details of the feather development stages. Once the feathers have molted, if you take good care of them, the new feathers won't be noticeable!
Hearing Yue Feng say that it was nothing serious, Li Wenhu breathed a sigh of relief.
"That's good! I've discussed it with Mr. Qian and the others a few times, but we weren't quite sure what was going on. Oh, I see! You know so much!" Li Wenhu flattered him.
"Is this the only nest? Are there any others? Let's check the other cages!" Yue Feng nodded and continued to ask.
"And there's more! There are two nests of goshawk chicks, plus a nest of peregrine falcon chicks! Up ahead!"
Hearing that there were two more nests of goshawk chicks, Yue Feng wasn't particularly affected. After all, the other party didn't even know the basics of raptor imprints. If the timing of raiding the nests was wrong, the chicks would be much more difficult to breed later.
Upon hearing about baby peregrine falcons, Yue Feng's mind began to race.
Peregrine falcons are very closely related to saker falcons and gyrfalcons at the genetic level. Under artificial breeding conditions, they can hybridize, and the resulting hybrid falcon offspring can reproduce normally.
Before Yue Feng could speak, Feng Huanping couldn't help but ask, "A peregrine falcon's fledgling? When did you get it? It wasn't here when I came last time!"
"Hehe, I just got it back yesterday! It's still a white-haired little thing!" Li Wenhu said proudly.
"It's already June, the timing doesn't seem right, does it? Peregrine falcon chicks that normally breed in the wild should be leaving the nest by now!"
When Yue Feng heard the other party say that it was a white-haired brat, he frowned slightly.
Li Wenhu explained, “I heard from Chao’s friend that this brood of peregrine falcons is a late-harvest brood. The previous brood had already hatched. When they were taking the eagles down from the nest, the bag containing the eagles fell off the cliff, and the eaglets fell and died!”
Then the eagle laid its second brood, and that's how time got to this point!
This kind of creature isn't very common in our northern breeding grounds; we only found this one spot this year!
Hearing this, Yue Feng nodded.
This makes sense; after losing their eaglets, the peregrine falcon couple might pair up again to try to breed, which would delay the birth of the eaglets considerably.
So, this is the first litter they tried to take but failed because the chicks fell to their deaths. Then, when the second litter hatched, they took them too!
Shearing wool from the same pair of birds is unlucky for the parent birds too.
"Let's go check on this peregrine falcon chick!" Yue Feng urged impatiently.
"It's just ahead!" Li Wenhu led Yue Feng through three cages and opened the door to a partitioned room next to the ordinary cages.
On the table in the partitioned room was a warmer made of an incandescent bulb covered with a cloth cover, inside which were four peregrine falcon chicks that looked to be only six or seven days old.
A fledgling falcon, just one week after hatching, has tender light blue eyes, nose, and claws. It has already opened its eyes and has no feathers at all; it is covered in white downy feathers and looks like a little fleshy lump.
Using incandescent lamps to keep seven-day-old fledglings warm is quite an expert approach. At this stage, fledglings cannot maintain their own body temperature. If they are not kept warm, the large temperature difference between day and night can easily lead to hypothermia and other problems.
Based on the details of the color of the eaglet's beak and claws, combined with the structural proportions of its skull, Yue Feng was able to basically determine that this was a nest of eaglets from a common subspecies of peregrine falcon.
In terms of lineage, this creature is far superior to the large black-headed falcons bred in the south and the peregrine falcons from Xinjiang. It is considered by expert falconers to be the subspecies with the highest potential.
“It’s a peregrine falcon, it’s been out of the nest for about a week!” Yue Feng said with certainty.
“Yes, today is the eighth day!” Li Wenhu replied.
Feng Huanping chuckled and said, "This little thing is quite nice. It looks plump and cute, much more so than those fledgling eagles with all their feathers grown out!"
"This incubator is well made, but we have to keep a close eye on it. The eagle is too small. If the light bulb goes out or the power suddenly goes out, it is easy for it to lose its temperature in the middle of the night!"
Such a small eagle should be taken indoors and kept there until it grows a bit bigger before moving it into a cage!
Yue Feng's gaze remained fixed on the fledgling eagles as he casually remarked on some precautions.
"Okay, I'll do as you suggested from now on! This thing wasn't easy to come by, so I can't let it be ruined!"
Li Wenhu glanced at Yue Feng and said something meaningful.
Just as a few people were watching the eaglets in the eagle house, the sound of a horn honking came from the entrance.
Yue Feng's heart skipped a beat; someone was coming. (End of Chapter)