The Numbers Behind Feeding Hay (and why you maybe shouldn't)

[b0rsuk]

It bothers me that a bunch of hay (200) takes one tile to store, but a hauler must make 3 trips to transport it. Elephants are difficult to come by.

[LittleGreenStone]

Cooking meals is already time intensive, even for simple means. If you're going to cook even for your animals, it's going to require a full time cook... or two! It's not better, you're trading pawn time for food.

It's also a bit unfair to not use hay's fertile soil advantage. When I plant hay, I plant it quite far from colony, wherever the rich soil is. Unless it's directly on the way of raiders, they probably won't bother.

So the advantages of hay are:
+ very little plant/harvest time
+ easy to store
+ no need to cook
+ hay growing zone doesn't use much space

That doesn't mean I wouldn't give meals to animals. But it's not viable in a colony full of animals. If you absolutely want to minmax, Nutrient Paste Dispenser is unbeatable. I believe animals eat NPD meals too, they just aren't smart enough to use the machine. This may change because I proposed "NPD training" for animals.

By planting them afar, you waste as much, if not more of the time of pawns, but in your case it's not the cook's time, but the grower's AND hauler's also. They have to run around growing and hauling from the other side of the map.

Simple meal upsides:
+less space required (hay may stack up to 200, ~15+ is needed for one animal/meal, while one simple meal is enough for them AND offers more nutrition, so certain animals will eat less frequently)
+overall less time of pawns required
+not much needed to store / harvest to have the same result
+corn yields more than hay and is useful for pawns as well, raw or cooked
+corn doesn't take up much space either (less, even)
+cook(s) will be full-time cook(s) most likely (yes, that's a PLUS!): cook reaching lv20 damn fast, decreasing cooking time, increasing meat yield from butchering, decreasing food poisoning chance.

I've been feeding my livestock with simple meals ever since my boar ate one (why didn't I think of that before) and after figuring out the hows, it's much easier.

Aaaand I have not tried nutrient paste dispenser yet (WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT BEFORE).

[Regret]

nutrient paste dispenser is a good idea, though rotating biodomes remove the need for 90% of the hauling if you leave the hay or corn, i haven't tried çorn in a biodome yet. The tripled growing time might make it more succeptible to the spreading of harvest times of the individual plants due to the inconsistent behaviour/timing of farmers. That causes the animals to eat the young plants before they are harvested.

[keylocke]

most of my animals are carnivores. they're perfectly happy eating the huge surplus of human meat. though i wish they can directly eat corpses, so i don't have to bother butchering raiders. such a hassle.

my people just wanna watch netflix and chill... and then feel so sad and depressed about their half-empty royal beds.

[skullywag]

I think i modded the nutritional value of hay on day one of a12 after seeing 10 muffalo chew through 8000+ over a 2 month period They ate roughly 40 a day each. So 400 a day.

[stigma]

What about kibble though? Doesn't that raise the nutrition value too like other cooking?

-Stigma