Guarding Chickens with Geese

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)

有一农夫在山上养鸡，眼看即将出栏，鸡却接二连三地死亡或丢失。经过一番观察，原来是蛇和黄鼠狼在作怪。在山上，白天经常会有蛇出没，咬死鸡。一到晚上，黄鼠狼出洞，鸡就成了黄鼠狼的下酒菜。

农夫想了很多办法都不奏效，眼看鸡一只只死，一只只不见，损失惨重。无奈，他向一位有经验的前辈请教。前辈想了想说：“你去养鹅专业户那里买几只凶狠的鹅回来，把鹅和鸡放在一起，与鸡同吃同睡。”

“让鹅为鸡站岗？”农夫非常惊讶。他半信半疑地去养鹅专业户那里买了几只鹅回来，与鸡放在一起。

鹅来了以后，经常追得鸡到处躲藏，甚至那条大黄狗也被鹅追得到处跑，鸡飞狗跳，乱成一团。特别是那些鹅铜锣般的鸣叫，让人讨厌。不过，鹅来的这段时间，农夫发现鸡真的没少一只。

他感觉不可思议，找到前辈请教这是为什么，前辈的解释让农夫恍然大悟。鹅是一种很机警的动物，一有动静就会嘎嘎叫，见到敌人也很好斗。

而且，鹅的眼睛呈凸透镜结构，物体进入它的眼睛后会缩小，所以，一条蛇在它的眼睛里好像是一条蚯蚓，黄鼠狼在它的眼睛里好像一只老鼠，鹅当然不把这些小动物放在眼里了。♦

鹅为鸡站岗

文/倪西赟 译/于兰

（摘自《安徽商报》2017年7月30日）