Animal Information Thread + Poll (A17 Updated)

[LouisTBR]

Yeah, but with 14 huskies your colonists will have more time to do other things,
provided the huskies are all hauling-trained!

IT LOOKS LIKE WARGS ARE TAKING THE LEAD HERE WITH 7 VOTES!

Personally, I think wargs are naff. They are near impossible to train, so it will be pretty late-on when they are actually of combatant use.

[Lady Wolf]

Personally, I think wargs are naff. They are near impossible to train, so it will be pretty late-on when they are actually of combatant use.

Until we have the ability to surgically repair animals after they lose limbs Wargs just aren't cost effective imho. With how long they take to train, and requiring meat for a food source, they're a iffy defense option that often fails to survive more than four or five raids before missing limbs or other surgically correctable conditions leave them next to useless. (For the price of a warg or two you can generally afford to buy/free a quality slave, which is a far more useful investment for the colony, both outside and in combat.)

For hauling and rescue however, canine pets are a huge asset to the colony, just not so much in the combat aspect.

[LouisTBR]

The best K-9 pet in my opinion is the husky. Good attack, great hauler, easy to train. The labrador is only behind due to the fact that its damage is slightly lower than the husky.

[Flubberj]

Husky: adorable, cuddly, easy to train, violent when necessary, omnivorous
Warg: pain in the ass to train, not cuddly, violent, scary looking, only eats meat

Husky for the win! I had to even it out when I saw how ahead wargs were.

[Flubberj]

Also, Lady Wolf, how do you keep your animals alive on an ice sheet? I've been attempting to make a pack of huskies led by a single colonist with prepare carefully but I can't feed them.

[Nickvr628]

I love elephants, they can do so many things, and are great at fighting too!

[zandadoum]

Husky. Easy to train and resilient hauler. breeds quick enough, easy maintenance. works well in cold weather (whereas labradors seem to stop hauling in snow weather)

followed by chickens. extremely easy breeding. imo they consume too much food for what they are TBH, but when you have 20 chicks and you keep the rooster away from them, you have a steady income of eggs, which are nice for mid level and high level cooking.

[Lady Wolf]

Also, Lady Wolf, how do you keep your animals alive on an ice sheet? I've been attempting to make a pack of huskies led by a single colonist with prepare carefully but I can't feed them.

One thing I use is the mod "hydroponic hay" which allows you to grow hay in the hydroponics bay, (which huskies can eat oddly enough) this hay is what I use as the foundation for my  farm once I get it up and running.

Mainly though with prepare carefully you might try landing not only with 4 huskies, but also with 2-3 cows (or muffalo, but I'm not sure if they can be milked) and a stack of hay. The cows can be milked to help provide some food for your huskies and colonist.

Also, try to land with around 30 days of meals for each food consuming creature in your group. (usually around 120-180 simple meals) if you have the points for it. (or turn off the point tally complete in prepare carefully and just choose a personal limit not to go over.)

On an ice sheet the simple meals will stay frozen just fine outside, and should keep your colony alive long enough for you to research hydroponics and get a crop of potatoes in.

(Also a parka and the cold lover trait should keep your colonist warm enough that a heater won't be absolutely necessary for every room, just in the barn for the cows, which is the same area you can build the hydroponics bay in too to make more efficent use of the heat & light.)

[Flubberj]

I got that mod and landed with 3 female huskies and 1 male. I landed with 60 survival meals and about 500 hay. I was rushing my hydroponics bay when I noticed I only had about 20 meals and 400 hay. The damn huskies were eating all my meals!

[FMJ Penguin]

Yerp pets get annoying when they eat everything in site regardless of what it's made of. Surprised they don't eat you pawns alive to be honest. Dogs seem to be true omnivores in this game sense they just eat whatever is closest.

You can make a lil dog house which is heated(huskies obviously don't need the heat) and away from your main storage areas and keep only food you want in that. Just make sure you pet's zones don't overlap your personal food storage and they shouldn't eat everything in site anymore. Although they may still leave the zone if they're starving... not sure about that part.

[LouisTBR]

Yeah, that is a very good tip Penguin! Also, anyone want anything added to the list? For details, read the top of the first page!

[zandadoum]

Yerp pets get annoying when they eat everything in site regardless of what it's made of. Surprised they don't eat you pawns alive to be honest. Dogs seem to be true omnivores in this game sense they just eat whatever is closest.

You can make a lil dog house which is heated(huskies obviously don't need the heat) and away from your main storage areas and keep only food you want in that. Just make sure you pet's zones don't overlap your personal food storage and they shouldn't eat everything in site anymore. Although they may still leave the zone if they're starving... not sure about that part.

i just made a pet zone that covers ALL MAP except my crops, fridges and chicken den... i just allow then to get to my fridge front door, so they can haul food into it and sometimes they eat something from there, but 99% of my food and crops and eggs are protected with the zoning tool.

also: if you make a living out of selling human meat (psycopath butcher) then you can feed that to huskies and wargs no problem.

another thing i have is 2 small feeding areas (1x3 stockpiles) with max. priority (even higher than my fridge) and with specific food like potatoes and hay only for chickens. that way your animals will kept feed without ruining your own food.

another thing i noticed in a test:
i have a chicken den in middle of a big hay crop area. the chicken would eat the hay before it grew 100% and ruin the crops.
then i added a 1x3 food pile and the chickens eat from the food pile instead of ruining the hay crop (as long as there is food on that stockpile)

works well for me.
1) zoning to restrict animal movement properly
2) small stockpiles to keep animals fed
3) bonus: keep the male chickens away from females once you have enough egg factory

[LouisTBR]

Good ideas. The thing about human meat is brilliant. Not only do the animals not care what sort of meat they eat, it goes for a pretty buck more than the other meat types, and if you add in the leather you're looking at 300 silver per raider! Now that is what I call income!

[TLHeart]

I have no problems with the animals eating the crops, or the food in the fridge. as Zanda said have critical stock piles in their barns for them to eat from... hay and corn work great since they will eat it all long before it spoils. If they are eating the crops, then I need more food in their storage....

My hay field is their allowed area also... takes a small amount of time and work to plant, and the animals eating the field is no problem, but what I intend to happen. And when I start getting a harvest then the field is large enough to support the number of animals I have.

Animals are a lot of work on your colonist.... feeding and cleaning up after them. And then the colonist that spends most of the day training.

Pigs and boars will eat every chicken egg they can get to. Have to keep the chickens and pigs apart.

[LouisTBR]

Thanks for the info on pigs, TLHeart!