Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 975 - 525 How much does it cost to feed a tiger_3

Chapter 975: Chapter 525 How much does it cost to feed a tiger_3

After leaping up, he saw that what had fallen from the sky was a dead rabbit. Just as he was about to speak, he caught the gaze of two Golden Eagles circling down, and he held his tongue.

There really was nothing to say; wild creatures were simply incomparable to those in a zoo!

These were the real deal, lively wild predators. Those in the zoo were famished, listless creatures that couldn’t be more different—they were like the Bichon Frises that city folks were fond of keeping these days.

Once they had calmed down, Yan Fei said with a smile, "A tiger can be fed with forty or fifty catties of beef at a time, but that would only last a day or two. If you want to feed it more at once, it can eat over a hundred catties in one meal and that would last for several days."

"Forty or fifty catties? And beef at that?" The young man gaped in disbelief. "Those in the zoo are fed twice a day, just three or four chicken carcasses each time, and some big chunks of meat on occasion..."

"That’s why your tigers don’t move an inch all day. We pay for a ticket, make a fuss outside the cage, and the tigers couldn’t care less," laughed Yan Fei, beginning to understand where this young man was from. "They don’t dare to move; if they stay still, they can keep the hunger at bay, but once they move, they get hungrier. They don’t even know what it feels like to be full. Try putting yourself in their shoes!"

Old Wang and the young man felt a pang in their hearts upon hearing this and were just about to nod in agreement when Yan Fei added, "What I just mentioned is for one tiger, not for three tigers together. I didn’t even count the two black bears. How do they compare to your zoo’s? One of mine is worth two of yours, right? They have fruits, vegetables, fresh fish, and beef all year round. The two guys up on the roof and these three little Sables too—they’ve all become fussy eaters, only liking fresh meat, and won’t even touch frozen..."

Upon hearing these words, the young man and Old Wang felt as if the migratory African savannah had come alive in their minds, with a million wildebeest thundering across, chased by lion prides and hyenas, with crocodiles lurking in the waters and cheetahs hiding in the brush...

Yan Fei had a knack for talking people to death, and seeing the two speechless before him, he stroked the big tiger’s head with a smile, waiting for them to speak again.

They did indeed take a long time, over ten minutes, before Old Wang gritted his teeth and said, "Regardless of how much you feed them, there’s a price. How much have you spent feeding them so far? Tell us!"

Yan Fei looked at him with a mischievous smile. "Heizi and I had thought about cooking the books a bit when feeding them, so we could scam you when you came to take the tigers. But after feeding them, we realized there was no need for that. Even if we calculate at the cost price, I bet you can’t afford it. Didn’t I say it all before? Don’t you have an idea of how much it is?"

They absolutely did!

The expressions on Old Wang and the young man’s faces changed rapidly as they grimly calculated the cost. According to Yan Fei, these fierce beasts with bottomless stomachs could eat up a hundred catties of beef in a day. If calculated at two hundred catties, considering the cost of beef to be six or seven yuan per catty, it would amount to thirteen or fourteen hundred yuan a day.

How much would that be a month?

Both men subconsciously ignored the question and began to think about other things.

And that was just the beef. Black bears were omnivores, eating more than just meat.

My goodness...

Before they could finish their mental calculations, they lamented inwardly. Could they ever clear this debt? Even if they sold themselves, they wouldn’t be able to afford it!

Yan Fei, enjoying the drama, added, "I calculated the price based on regular beef for you. The beef from my ranch, which sells for several times the price of ordinary beef in Hong Kong, is considered high-end. Even the military district is considering purchasing our beef at a cost-effective price, not daring to go for the high-end. Sometimes when we run out of cheaper beef, we even feed them the expensive kind..."

Do you even want us to live?

If it weren’t for considering the difference in firepower and the watchful eyes of several ferocious beasts at the side, the two were at the point where they wanted to strangle him right then. One minute you say you’re not scamming people, and the next, what’s with these words?

However, they quickly calmed down.

Why?

Biting insects don’t itch anymore when they’re plentiful; debt doesn’t worry you when it’s huge, eh! After all, whether it’s ten thousand, a million, or ten million, we can’t pay it regardless. Since it’s already unpayable, what does it matter if the amount goes any higher?

Old Wang composed himself, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, picked out a few, and handed one to the young man, then gestured toward Yan Fei. Originally, it was just a polite offer, but Yan Fei’s refusal almost made him throw the cigarette pack in frustration: "I don’t smoke, and they don’t like the smell of smoke either. They feel like jumping around whenever they smell it. Can you hold off for a while?"

I’ll hold back! I’ll keep holding back! I’ll continue to hold back...

Old Wang stuffed the cigarettes back into the pack, and the young man, who had already put a cigarette in his mouth, quickly took it out after hearing Yan Fei’s words. Not finding a place to put it, he first clamped it behind his ear, then upon considering the "little guys" that Yan Fei mentioned staring at him, he decisively shoved the cigarette into his pocket.

"Speak up! Uncle Wang, what exactly did you come here to do? I really don’t believe you actually want to take them back," Yan Fei said, turning serious after having his fun.

Old Wang glanced at the young man: "Xiao Qin, why don’t you tell him?"

The young man didn’t hesitate and spilled the beans: "There’s a female tiger in the zoo, isn’t there? She’s only four or five years old. This year, another zoo inquired whether we had any tiger cubs. This made some folks interested. They suggested finding her a mate to produce a litter of cubs, which, if we couldn’t raise, we could sell to other zoos and make some money."

"Initially, the plan was just to find a mate, but then somebody remembered that you have several tigers here, and these tigers were said to be in your custody. They thought of a way to spend less money and get a male from you instead so that the tigers could keep breeding and continuously produce cubs to sell!"