Sikewell

Biodata

Background / History

Local Veterinary Work

Sikewell has worked in the pastoral region for decades and knows the local herding families well. His colleagues regard him as fair, highly skilled, and the best choice to captain their free veterinary clinic team 487.

He comes from a large local family. His household includes his wife, parents, son, daughter-in-law, grandsons, and granddaughters, who live together in a locally styled ethnic building 486 487.

Meeting and Mentoring Shi Wen

Fu Meng introduces Sikewell to Shi Wen during a government-funded livestock vaccination visit. With the two men helping restrain the animals, Sikewell vaccinates and ear-tags all thirty-seven sheep in less than half an hour. He explains the registration requirements and tells Shi Wen to monitor the tagged ears for injuries 15.

When Shi Wen proposes buying sick cattle cheaply and nursing them back to health, Sikewell initially considers the plan dangerously inexperienced. Rather than merely arguing against it, he invites Shi Wen to accompany him as a veterinary assistant and learn through household visits 35.

Their work takes them to cattle suffering from mucosal disease. Sikewell treats the animals despite the stench and severe lesions, but warns that mortality can reach ninety percent once symptoms appear. After Shi Wen buys three sick cows, Sikewell and Tang Duohai remove one that dies and disinfect its housing. He later identifies the surviving cows’ alarming behavior as normal heat, congratulates Shi Wen on their recovery, and explains their breeding options 35 36 37.

Sikewell subsequently artificially inseminates the recovered cows and helps Shi Wen locate five more sick pregnant dairy cows to purchase. By the time Shi Wen has nine cattle, seven have been acquired with Sikewell’s help 38 46 47 164.

Recognizing the Ranch’s Livestock

Sikewell becomes increasingly impressed by Shi Wen’s husbandry. After examining two newborn heifers and their mothers, he photographs and films them—with permission—to demonstrate healthy postpartum condition and calf care to his group. He urges Shi Wen to raise better-quality cattle and promises to help find suitable animals after the New Year 164.

He later arranges publicity photographs of Shi Wen’s fat-tailed sheep, judging them even more representative of the breed than the animals in his textbooks. He agrees that the pregnant ewes must not be overworked during the shoot 272.

Free Clinics in the Mountains

Sikewell’s team makes annual trips into remote summer pastures, where herders have limited access to veterinary care. He invites Shi Wen because of his ability to identify sick animals at a glance, particularly useful when the team cannot bring diagnostic equipment. The planned journey lasts roughly seven to ten days 224.

The party leaves on May 17 with Sikewell, Shi Wen, Tang Duohai, another assistant, and a guide. Their supplies include approximately one hundred jin of medicine for livestock and people. Alongside veterinary treatment, Sikewell leaves common household remedies and water-purifying agents with isolated families 225 226.

After the trip, Shi Wen donates 50,000 yuan toward future clinics. Despite their exhaustion, Sikewell insists on immediately issuing a receipt and recording expenditures properly, explaining that following rules is necessary for the work to last 227.

Injury and Return to Work

Sikewell breaks his leg when his horse steps into a mouse hole and they fall. Unwilling to cancel a long-arranged clinic whose patients are already waiting, he asks Shi Wen to take over as captain. He has already consulted his qualified assistants, Tang Duohai and Ban Lei, who support the choice despite Shi Wen’s lack of formal certification 486 487.

During recovery, he continues advising Shi Wen by telephone. When the pregnant sheep-pig sows lose their appetites in hot weather, he recommends soupy, easily digested cooked feed; their eating improves after Shi Wen follows his advice 517.

Sikewell later returns to oversee farrowing and examine pregnant mares. His leg is mostly better, although windy or rainy weather still causes discomfort, and he declines a mountain-climbing outing to avoid aggravating it. Subsequent appearances show him traveling to remote herders again and attending Shi Wen’s lambing with both assistants 533 563 564 568 572.

Personality

Sikewell is usually mild-tempered, practical, and more inclined to act than make speeches. He remains calm around severely ill animals and difficult births, reassuring Shi Wen while working. His patience has limits: during Deng Yanma’s cow’s difficult delivery, he angrily scolds the owner and orders him to bring feed and sugar-and-salt water for the exhausted mother 36 125 171 426.

His concern extends beyond paying veterinary work. He initially refuses payment for treating the rescued Wolf King and accepts only the cost price after Shi Wen insists. He also carries medicine for isolated herders, explaining that without his team, nobody else would make the journey 146 225 226.

Sikewell combines friendliness with professional accountability. He jokes with Shi Wen about livestock care, readily enjoys meals at the ranch, and warmly acknowledges Shi Wen and Yan Kexing’s relationship. At the same time, he refuses to postpone issuing a donation receipt, even after an exhausting trip 37 146 227 298.

Abilities & Skills

Preventive Veterinary Care

Sikewell handles routine immunization, identification, parasite control, and disease-prevention duties 15 37 225.

• Vaccination and ear-tagging: Efficiently vaccinates sheep and newborn calves, changing needles between sheep during his first ranch visit 15 164.
• Disease-response procedures: Documents livestock deaths, arranges carcass disposal, and disinfects affected housing 35 37.
• Parasite treatment: Uses ivermectin injections and amitraz spray against livestock lice; also administers meat-flavored deworming pills to puppies 225 352.
• Pasture hazard identification: Identifies poisonous drunken horse grass with Shi Wen, asks herders to remove it, and collects samples to warn others 428.

Diagnosis and Husbandry Advice

His experience covers cattle, sheep, horses, camels, pigs, dogs, poultry, and the rescued Wolf King 15 146 221 298 351 352 475.

• Pregnancy examinations: Uses a portable veterinary ultrasound machine for ewes and examines cattle and mares for pregnancy health 46 76 351.
• Digestive treatment: Treats Fu Meng’s cows with rumen-flora medicine, after which their milk returns to normal the next day 247.
• Nutrition and recovery: Advises on feeding animals in heat, postpartum care, trace minerals, and heat-related appetite loss 37 426 442 517.
• Avoiding unnecessary medication: Declines to prescribe pregnancy-support medicine for healthy mares and ewes 351 426.
• Animal behavior: Advises Shi Wen not to impose human moral expectations on breeding animals and recognizes that visiting wolves are likely socializing with the ranch dogs 273 426.

Obstetrics and Newborn Care

Sikewell manages difficult births, corrects fetal positions, coordinates assisted delivery, and revives distressed newborns 125 171 394.

• Calving: Directs four men pulling a malpositioned calf, alternating traction with positional adjustments to protect both mother and calf 125.
• Lambing: Repositions a lamb that Shi Wen cannot turn, assists its delivery, and revives it after birth 171.
• Foaling: Works with Shi Wen through six mares’ deliveries, including two difficult births; all six mares and foals survive 394.
• Physical limits: His age reduces his stamina during prolonged emergency handling; Shi Wen takes over holding a distressed foal while he continues directing treatment 394.

Breeding Procedures and Instruction

Sikewell teaches through demonstrations and supervised practice, explaining both technique and aftercare 37 125 475.

• Artificial insemination: Inseminates Shi Wen’s recovered dairy cows using frozen local brown-cattle semen 38.
• Semen collection: Demonstrates hygienic boar-semen collection to Shi Wen and Tang Duohai, using an insulated cup to preserve viability 475.
• Pig breeding: Successfully inseminates two black sows after collecting sufficient semen, though he acknowledges limited experience with the particular breeding outcome 477.
• Poultry surgery: Castrates young Bresse roosters with Tang Duohai and Shi Wen 298 299.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Medical kit — Carries diagnostic tools, medicines, syringes, gloves, and treatment supplies on household visits and mounted journeys 15 146 475.
• Portable veterinary ultrasound machine — Brought to examine pregnant ewes 76.
• Stethoscope — Used during cattle and horse examinations 46 351.
• Ear-tag applicator and vaccination tags — Used for livestock identification following vaccination 15.
• Breeding equipment — Includes frozen semen straws, a dummy sow mount, a non-slip mat, and an insulated semen-collection cup 38 475.
• Motorcycle and riding horse — Uses both for travel between the village, ranches, and remote grazing areas 45 146 225.

Relationships

• Shi Wen — Veterinary client, pupil, friend, and eventual substitute clinic captain. Their relationship develops from basic livestock instruction into a trusted working partnership 15 35 394 486 487.
• Tang Duohai — Qualified veterinarian and assistant. Commonly accompanies Sikewell when treating livestock belonging to Han herders and receives further practical instruction from him 37 475 486.
• Ban Lei — Qualified veterinarian and assistant who more often accompanies him to ethnic minority herders’ households 486.
• Fu Meng — Introduces him to Shi Wen and assists with the first sheep vaccination visit; later receives treatment for his cows 15 247.
• Yan Kexing — Familiar with Sikewell through ranch visits and shared meals. Sikewell responds warmly to his relationship with Shi Wen 146 227 299.
• Wife and extended family — Lives with several generations of relatives. After seeing Shi Wen reunited with Yan Kexing, Sikewell jokes that he wants to go home and hug his own wife 227 486 487.

Notable Quotes

“If we didn't come, no one else would.” 226

“Giving a receipt for a transfer is the rule. Things can only last if we follow the rules.” 227

“Don't look at these animals from a human perspective. No matter how intelligent they are, they don't have human morals.” 426