A Hard Passage

I came across this in Genesis 30 today:

37 Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. 38 He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, 39 the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. 40 And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban's flock. 41 Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks, 42 but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. 43 Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

What do we do with this? Did the sticks really make a difference? I realize that the Bible is not supposed to be a science book, but what do we do with this? Do farmers do this with poplar sticks to encourage breeding in their livestock?

When I took Old Testament I last semester I don't recall my prof really saying anything about this. Someone may have asked and he just kind of dismissed it with a non-answer of some sort.

Of course, as I give this a more careful read, the passage does not necessarily give explicit causality to this. It is sort of implied, but there is nothing to say that the sticks definitely did anything. It just says what Jacob did.

If I've learned anything in seminary it is how to be a bit more careful in how I read Scripture. I am starting to get more out of conjunctions that I once did. I have heard for years from various teachers and preachers how conjunctions link things together. It is starting to really hit home with me now. It definitely makes my Tuesday morning Bible study better when I realize these things as we try to unpack passages.