The Farmer and the Stork is one of Aesop's fables

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...

 and is numbered 194 in the Perry Index

Perry Index

The Perry Index is a widely-used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the story-teller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC...

. It appears in Greek in the collections of both Babrius

Babrius

Babrius was the author of a collection of fables written in Greek. He collected many of the fables that are known to us today simply as Aesop's fables .Practically nothing is known of him...

 and Aphthonius

Aphthonius

Aphthonius can refer to:* Aelius Festus Aphthonius* Aphthonius of Antioch...

 and has differed little in the telling over the centuries. The story relates how a farmer plants traps in his field to catch the cranes

Crane (bird)

Cranes are a family, Gruidae, of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...

 and geese that are stealing the seeds he has sown. When he checks the traps, he finds among the other birds a stork

Stork

Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family Ciconiidae. They are the only family in the biological order Ciconiiformes, which was once much larger and held a number of families....

, who pleads to be spared because it is harmless and has taken no part in the theft. The farmer replies that since it has been caught in the company of thieves, it must suffer the same fate. The moral of the story, which is announced beforehand in the oldest texts, is that associating with bad companions will lead to bad consequences.