Chapter 104 (continued)

That day, Fu Meng personally rode his motorcycle to his ranch and asked, "Shi Wen, are your cows still producing milk?"

Shi Wen, "Oh, what happened? My sheep haven't been producing milk anymore. I'm taking care of them to prepare for this year's breeding."

Fu Meng: "Has the taste of your milk changed recently?"

Shi Wen completely bewildered. "What could have changed? If you really want to say something different about the taste of summer milk, is it a little richer and sweeter than last year?"

Fu Meng frowned. "The taste of my milk has been very strange lately. I wanted to ask about yours."

Shi Wen in bewilderment, "What's so strange about it?"

"It doesn't taste good." Fu Meng didn't know how to describe it. "The milk is freshly squeezed, but it just doesn't taste right."

Fu Meng: "I asked Sikewell to take a look, but he couldn't figure out the cause either. He just guessed that when I drove the cattle out to graze, they ate some grass with a strange taste, and suggested that I keep them in a shed for a while to see if the situation would improve."

Shi Wen, "So, did you put them in a stall?"

Fu Meng nodded. "We've put them in a stall, but the situation hasn't improved; the milk still tastes very strange. Do you have time? I'd like to ask you to come over and help me figure out what's wrong?"

Cows and sheep do produce milk with different flavors when they eat different foods.

However, the tastes aren't too different, so they won't be described as "very strange".

Shi Wen readily agreed, "Wait for me a moment, I 'Yan Kexing, change my clothes and then I'll go with you."

Fu Meng: "I'll wait for you outside."

After changing his clothes, Shi Wen rode his motorcycle with Fu Meng to his house.

Chang Qingqing was also at home. Perhaps because she was bothered by the strange smell of the milk, she looked rather gloomy. Even her forced smile to greet them couldn't dispel the worry between her brows.

Shi Wen immediately realized the seriousness of the situation. "Sister-in-law, do you have any freshly squeezed milk? I want to try some."

Chang Qingqing said, "Yes. Oh, how about I squeeze some out for you?"

Shi Wen, "Okay, then take me there to have a look."

The three of them walked together toward the livestock shed.

Fu Meng's family didn't raise many cows, only about sixty, all of which were dairy cows.

These cows can produce milk for eight to ten months each year.

Besides consuming the milk themselves, they also process it into various dairy products to sell, and sometimes into casein.

Milk is one of the important sources of income for his family.

Shi Wen them going into the livestock shed to check on the cattle.

The cow is doing quite well; it's standing there full of energy and doesn't look sick at all.

Shi Wen went over and examined it carefully, but couldn't find anything wrong with the cow, from its head to its hooves.

Fu Meng's cattle are clearly well cared for; he even bathes them occasionally. They look clean and tidy now. If it weren't for the fact that they said there was something wrong with the cattle, Shi Wen think they were even better than most cattle outside.

Fu Meng and Chang Qingqing looked at Shi Wen with anticipation.

Shi Wen shook his head, meaning he couldn't see anything.

Shi Wen, "What have you been feeding your cows lately?"

"Just the usual feed," Fu Meng said. "Before stall feeding, we drove them out to graze during the day and fed them hay and concentrate at night. Now they're stall-fed all day, on hay, beans, and soybean meal. Sikewell also checked the feed and said it's fine."

Shi Wen went to check the hay at his house and found nothing wrong, so he said, "Let me try the milk first."

Chang Qingqing brought over a milk bucket to express milk.

Shi Wen bent over to examine the color and texture of the milk. The color and texture looked fine, but the smell was a bit strange.

Ordinary milk usually has a fragrant or fishy smell, but the fishy smell is very faint. However, the milk that Chang Qingqing squeezed out had an indescribable complex smell, as if it had been fermented somewhere, and could even be described as having a slightly foul smell.

Shi Wen's first reaction was, "Are there bacteria inside?"

Fu Meng: "Sikewell said the same thing. Samples have already been sent to the lab, and the test results say it's just ordinary milk, with few bacteria and no toxins. Besides, even if one cow's milk has bacteria, it's impossible for the milk from so many cows to all have bacteria, right?"

Shi Wen, "Have you had any other tests done?"

Fu Meng: "We've done the basic testing, but we can't find the cause. We only know that something's wrong with the milk."

Chang Qingqing: "Actually, everything was fine before. We didn't change the feed or the way we raised them. It's just that after it rained a few weeks ago, the taste of their milk gradually changed. Now we dare not drink it anymore, and we can't sell it. We can only use it to make casein."

Shi Wen had already guessed that this batch of milk wouldn't taste very good, but in order to find out why, he still asked Chang Qingqing to heat up the milk and then took a small sip to taste it.

He almost vomited the moment his tongue touched the milk.

The milk tasted really strange, kind of like spoiled wine, it was just a jumble of flavors.

For someone with such a sensitive palate, the taste was even more unbearable.

Shi Wen rinsed her mouth with water. "No, I can't figure out why, but this milk is definitely wrong."

Fu Meng frowned. "If this doesn't work, we'll stop milking them and let the cows rest until they give birth to their next calf. Then we'll milk them again and see if there's any difference."

Shi Wen, "That's a huge loss. If we just raise them all year without milking them, how much feed will we waste?"

Milk is an important product of dairy cows. If you stop milking them and wait until the next calf, it will take about a year.

If one cow only eats and doesn't work during the year, they lose tens of thousands of yuan in feed costs. With more than sixty cows, that's hundreds of thousands of yuan.

Chang Qingqing: "That's what I said too. Raising them for a year for nothing is a huge loss. Otherwise, how about we see if we can sell them?"

Fu Meng: "If we sell it, we can only sell it as beef cattle. And now that it has a problem, we don't know what the problem is, or whether it can pass quarantine. We might not even be able to sell it as beef cattle."