By Ni Xiyun Translation by Yu Lan

Guarding Chickens with Geese

By Ni Xiyun Translation by Yu Lan

A farmer found his chickens were always dead or missing right before they were fully grown. After scrutinizing the scenes,he found out the cause was snakes and weasels.During the day, snakes slithered in and killed chickens with their fangs. At night, weasels crept in and took chickens as their snacks.

The farmer tried a lot of methods but none of them seemed to work. He suffered great losses and his chickens died and disappeared one after another. Desperate, he asked an experienced farmer for help. The farmer suggested that he should buy some fierce geese and raise the geese together with the chickens.

“Guard the chickens with geese?” the farmer asked in surprise. Doubtful, he bought a few geese,and put them in with the chickens.

After the geese came, the chicken coop was in chaos. Geese chased chickens and even the watchdog everywhere. The sound of the geese was also unbearable. However, he hasn’t lost any more chickens since then.

The farmer found it incredible, so he consulted the experienced farmer for the reason. The latter told him that geese are vigilant and aggressive.With eyes constructed like convex lenses, things look shrunken in their eyes. They saw snakes as earthworms and weasels as rats, and certainly would not be afraid of these little animals. ?

(From Anhui Business Daily, July 30, 2017)

有一農(nóng)夫在山上養(yǎng)雞，眼看即將出欄，雞卻接二連三地死亡或丟失。經(jīng)過(guò)一番觀察，原來(lái)是蛇和黃鼠狼在作怪。在山上，白天經(jīng)常會(huì)有蛇出沒(méi)，咬死雞。一到晚上，黃鼠狼出洞，雞就成了黃鼠狼的下酒菜。

農(nóng)夫想了很多辦法都不奏效，眼看雞一只只死，一只只不見(jiàn)，損失慘重。無(wú)奈，他向一位有經(jīng)驗(yàn)的前輩請(qǐng)教。前輩想了想說(shuō)：“你去養(yǎng)鵝專業(yè)戶那里買幾只兇狠的鵝回來(lái)，把鵝和雞放在一起，與雞同吃同睡?！?/p>

“讓鵝為雞站崗？”農(nóng)夫非常驚訝。他半信半疑地去養(yǎng)鵝專業(yè)戶那里買了幾只鵝回來(lái)，與雞放在一起。

鵝來(lái)了以后，經(jīng)常追得雞到處躲藏，甚至那條大黃狗也被鵝追得到處跑，雞飛狗跳，亂成一團(tuán)。特別是那些鵝銅鑼般的鳴叫，讓人討厭。不過(guò)，鵝來(lái)的這段時(shí)間，農(nóng)夫發(fā)現(xiàn)雞真的沒(méi)少一只。

他感覺(jué)不可思議，找到前輩請(qǐng)教這是為什么，前輩的解釋讓農(nóng)夫恍然大悟。鵝是一種很機(jī)警的動(dòng)物，一有動(dòng)靜就會(huì)嘎嘎叫，見(jiàn)到敵人也很好斗。

而且，鵝的眼睛呈凸透鏡結(jié)構(gòu)，物體進(jìn)入它的眼睛后會(huì)縮小，所以，一條蛇在它的眼睛里好像是一條蚯蚓，黃鼠狼在它的眼睛里好像一只老鼠，鵝當(dāng)然不把這些小動(dòng)物放在眼里了。?

鵝為雞站崗

文/倪西赟 譯/于蘭

（摘自《安徽商報(bào)》2017年7月30日）