I've played Rimworld for a bit and all have farmed these animals. Which are the best? I plan to replace my simple meals with fine meals, and I don't know what to get. I want to get the chickens, but should I also get cows or pigs? I've seen pigs, and they grow relatively fast and reproduce somewhat quicker. Thing is that they output no milk or much meat. Cows are pretty good. They seem pretty sustainable. Am I missing something with cows or pigs? (My colony is in Boreal Forest, so I have a lot of grazing area)
You have alot of grazing area, and you have alot of wild animals too.
Why do you want to cultivate animal for meat, go and hunt them, you can train shooting skill too.
Pig got the adv. you can train them to haul.
That could be useful to get the milk from the cow's into your stockpile.
Chicken you shouldn't let them graze much outside, they are easy prey for even smaller predators. And it will be a daily pain to haul the scattered egg.
I think a mix of pigs and cows/chicken would be the best.
Thanks for the advice! I don't mind hauling the eggs, I have a few hauling dogs. As long as I can keep a consistent supply of fine meals.
Me, I just want to see the fight described in the thread title.
After Chickens got nerfed, I'm fairly sure that cows beat out chickens for protein production. You do have to go to the trouble of milking them. Actually, for eggs, I think iguanas might be better than chickens, at least according to the math I could find on the wiki. Although they might eat their own eggs, if you're not careful, I believe.
Pigs;
Do breed quickly and are more likely to have multiple births per pregnancy so with a lot of grazing space they can be a very simple self managing protein source. You will just need to wait until mature and then kill off the boys until you have the necessary breeding stock.
Chickens;
Can reproduce very quickly does not take long to be over run with chickens. will need to be in a walled area though otherwise they will get eaten by predators. Can be a real pain in the arse with adverse weather conditions like cold kills eggs and chickens don't have the temp range to not freeze to death during a cold snap. Even with the nerf on food consumption the will eat and eat and eat especially as their numbers grow fast. Eggs will not be automatically hauled unless the grazing area is also in your home area so watch out for auto forbidden eggs.
Cows;
Bread slow but 15 milk per day means you should never run out of protein and for the most part they are self sufficient given enough grazing area. Also Milking provides training for Animal Handling so if you want to get a pawns skill up just set them to be the one doing the milking it will take longer but it is an easy way to lift a skill.
Muffalos;
Yes not on the list but my personal favourite. 12 milk a day. Plus wool that is a sellable item means win win in my book. Just as easy to take care of as cows but bonus goodies. They also work as haulers for caravan purposes so having an extra few males around is handy. (don't use females for caravans pregnant females move slow).
Camels also fall into this win win category but are more valuable in colder environments as their wool insulates better. However you get less milk out of the females.
So in short use muffalos or camels and save your pawns time for other things.
didnt know chickens got nerfed...anyway, my go-to way of getting proteins is hunting via wildlife tab. second favourite is muffalo milk, as i have them produce wool for clothing and use them for caravans and as war beasts anyway. third is chickens, but it is kind of challenging to get them. gotta have luck. i once had a run where the only time i could have bought them i ran out of money. otherwise no chickens in over 6 years, only a rooster. lastly i guess culling livestock also works, be it eating pork or whatever. i just dont like doing it. doesnt seem very efficient to me, even with hay production and all...
by the way, camelhair is only good for hot climates. in the cold, use megasloth wool. but even in the heat alpaca wool is better. muffalo wool is medium-low quality wool in comparison to the others, but if you think about it any wool is already amazing at insulation, so no need to go the extra mile for alpaca or megasloth wool. hust get the allrounder of your choice (obv. muffalo) and you're good.
Pigs (and boars) double as haulers and are one of the best non-dog/wolf options out there. Pigs are a bit better for farming, boars for fighting.
For fine meal ingredients, cows win. When playing tundra, one sunlamp's worth of indoor hay growing can keep some muffalo around, but that's more so for the wool with milk as an added bonus. Chickens are quite bad in this setting because they're not very temperature tolerant, not sure about pigs/cows.
My current mix is
- about a dozen of huskies & wolves as haulers
- two bears as hunting companions/haulers (bears are great! They definitely provide for themselves, as they do their own hunting as well, big animals too)
- 9 Muffalos, I prefer muffalos over cows as they provide wool and can be used in caravans
- 10 chicken for unfertilized eggsies (1 egg = 5 meat, but stacks 75 units, so as eggs you can have 375 "meat" in one storage tile)
- 1 rooster in case I need more chicken, but other times I keep him in a separate space
- 1 boomalope for chemfuel milking. Might be a good idea to have more for selling chemfuel.
- As a passive protection to offer tempting targets for predator attacks there are also small animals, such as bunnies, running around freely in home area. It's an open colony. They don't eat much and if they save a colonist or a husky by sacrificing their lives or health, they have definitely earned their keep!
- I don't have other bonded animals than huskies and bears at the moment, but my colonists have had monkies and such, I'm very okay with them because of the mood bonus.
My colony is in boreal forest, and I dont use green houses, so every summer I grow about 20-25k hay for all these creatures. In previous versions I used to have a "bug farm" too, but bugs are definitely more harder to manage now.
Alright, I thought I'd leave a more detailed post because I actually spent a lot of time trying to work out an optimal set up.
First off, as for the most efficient way to turn vegetables into protein, chickens have a hunger rate of .35, cows of .85, but produce 15 milk every day, and chickens produce 1 egg (equal to 5 milk) every 1.7 days. So it's easier on your fields, and on your computer, to use cows. The downside would be the labor of milking them.
Generally, I'd avoid letting the cows wander. It's less labor intensive to let them eat the haygrass as it's growing, but you'll get far less yield out of your soil. I prefer to put them in a barn adjacent to the kitchen. Anyway, you'll have to go track down the cows to milk them otherwise. To haul the hay to them, pigs/boars or dogs. That way you don't have to haul anything, just milking, sowing, and harvesting. As haulers, pigs have the advantage that they can eat hay, but produce more filth and can browse on the crops in your field. But if you zone them appropriately that shouldn't be a problem. The best thing to feed either boars or dogs, however, is certainly raiders, if you've got a cold place to store them and an appropriate sense of the macabre.
However, I've heard that the increased nutritional value of cooked food means that a field of corn, cooked into simple meals, then fed to your livestock, will produce maybe 30-40 percent more nutrition per acre. Assuming you're up for some cooking labor. Although I've never tried this myself.
As far as wool, Alpacas can be sheared for 100 wool every 15 days, and have a hunger rate of .45. Muffalos can be sheared for 100 wool every 25 days, and have a hunger rate of .85. They also produce 10 milk every 2 days. But if you look at it, a herd of both alpacas and cows has a much higher yield in milk and wool than muffalos. And Alpaca wool is more valuable.
The set up I usually go for is a herd of cows and alpacas, then some dogs or boars to look after them. I dunno, if anywhere my thinking is off let me know.
Other animals produce milk now too. I discovered elk do on a random self tame. The wiki says caribou do as well.
Quote from: SimpleMachine88 on February 27, 2018, 02:05:41 PM
Alright, I thought I'd leave a more detailed post because I actually spent a lot of time trying to work out an optimal set up.
Thats a good post, thanks. Got to think about getting a cow or two. Only thing is, can't use alpacas in boreal, winter's too cold - well if theres cold snap in spring or autumn it can be too cold for them as well. I had one earlier in the game for it's wool, I kept it in a warmed cattle house where I keep all cattle animals.
If all you're interested in is the food for fine meals, then I'd still go with chickens.
They're the least labor intensive of the bunch if grazing outdoors is a bad option (to due events or weather). Feed them with harvested hay for best results.
Their only weakness, really, is their low temperature tolerance, so in cold climates I'd keep a bit of wood stockpiled in the barn to quickly build some campfires if the power to the heaters goes out.
@simplemachine: yeah i also once did the math and all you said is good and all, but in the end you dont have any animals for caravans, which at least in my eyes is one of the most important points about animals. and no, alpacas are too weak for fights on caravans, also they start to freeze. the only alternative are dromedaries and they have their own set of up and downsides. in direct comparison to muffalos they have a bit more attack and a bit less hp. they walk faster but carry less. not sure about eating and dirt producing habits, but they reproduce slowly and are overall rare animals.
all of this is just not my cup of tea. i usually just tale muffalos and two kinds of haulers: 1 are dogs of various breeds. whatever, as long as they dont eat the hay they take to the barn for the chickens or the plants whose harvest they need to bring in (like devilstrand and cotton and drugs). wargs work best because they dont even eat veggies, but they are rare. second type of haulers are just the biggest ones available, be it bears, megasloths or elephants. they double as war beasts. in the beginning wargs double as both types of haulers.
but really, the real problem with "perfect setups" is the rarity of some animals. like elephants, megasloths, wargs, chickens, cows, but even muffalos. in the end you just have to tame whatever you can and see what sticks and what traders bring. maybe also go out to other parts of the world looking for them, but i guess it is better to try and save some after a manhunter pack attack.
ps: as soon as i see rhinos and thrumbos i try to tame them. if i run out of time i just shoot them down. if they die i have their fur anyway, if they survive i can train my medics on them and maybe they even bond. otherwise, rinse and repeat
Always throw your animals into a tiny squalid stone hut as close to the fridge as possible; they won't mind. Haygrass is too cheap and grows too fast to use a grazing method, it also makes collection of animal products easier as others have said while keeping them safe from predators and murderous raiders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hiPlCbxMY
Quote from: Hans Lemurson on February 26, 2018, 07:38:34 PM
Me, I just want to see the fight described in the thread title.
It shall be named "Burger King Standoff" - and a Muffalo will sing the Theme by Ennio Morricone
The Chicken looks deeply into the eyes of the cow...
The pig spits into the sand.
The cow is shooting.
The pig is shooting.
The chicken ducks under the shot away.
The chicken shoots back and hits the pig's cowboy hat (lizard leather).
The pig jumps onto the chicken with an excellent quality Kung Fu move (89%), knocking the chick unconciousness.
The duck shoots the pig in the back and teleport away.
The cow jumps on it's horse and rides in the sunset.
The scenery is calm and peaceful. Everything is of the highest quality...
Animal husbandry is also an interesting theme for me too. and this is too basic questions, because Im embarrassing, but...
The most interesting question for me now, how much each animal eats food or does not need food? Now I can see the List of animals from http://rimworldwiki.com, Hunger Rate can use for index of it? Are there other figures to keep in mind? is weight?
...and if here theme is what am i order, I order a plate of hamburger and chicken steak with Teriyaki sauce. Of course, a hamburger and a pig and a cow are joined together. (All of them are favorite things)
oops, it make me hungry... (now 23:45 in japan)