What are the best animals for what reasons?

[Vaperius]

Defense?Meat?Offense?Money?Materials?

I am genuinely curious which are the most efficient for me to be putting my money on.

[Rahjital]

Cougars for damage. Bears for overall combat effectivity (weaker attack than cougars, but even more durable). Huskies for hauling, they don't eat much and are fast. Alpacas and chicken for money - chicken reproduce really quickly and need only a pasture to live, and alpacas give lots and lots of wool that can be tailored into fairly valuable clothing.

[RazorHed]

Be careful in A13 with chickens if you plan to sell chicks off. I had a flock of 7 join me and I set them all to animal area 1 and forgot about them .  Then they turned into 50 chickens with no traders coming to sell them to . So animal area 2 became the rest of the map , but they started getting eaten out there and then a raid came and killed half of them .   hmm do frozen fertilized eggs stop the maturation process?

[SadisticNemesis]

Be careful in A13 with chickens if you plan to sell chicks off. I had a flock of 7 join me and I set them all to animal area 1 and forgot about them .  Then they turned into 50 chickens with no traders coming to sell them to . So animal area 2 became the rest of the map , but they started getting eaten out there and then a raid came and killed half of them .   hmm do frozen fertilized eggs stop the maturation process?

haha sounds amusing. to your egg question no it doesn't. I always keep them in the fridge so other animals don't eat them. Still hatch fine

[christhekiller]

Be careful in A13 with chickens if you plan to sell chicks off. I had a flock of 7 join me and I set them all to animal area 1 and forgot about them .  Then they turned into 50 chickens with no traders coming to sell them to . So animal area 2 became the rest of the map , but they started getting eaten out there and then a raid came and killed half of them .   hmm do frozen fertilized eggs stop the maturation process?

If you bought the eggs from a trader, however, you'll probably want to keep them out of the freezer (it'll be okay they don't go bad), they won't hatch as tamed chicks so they'll just wander around your freezer and freeze to death
haha sounds amusing. to your egg question no it doesn't. I always keep them in the fridge so other animals don't eat them. Still hatch fine

[ReZpawner]

Muffalo if you're playing on icesheet at VERY cold temperatures. Their wool offers (on a normal parka) -120C resistance, which should cover pretty much all cold-problems.

[Robovski]

Wargs hunt down game for you. Of course they have first choice of cut, but the leftovers can be hauled in and butchered.

[A_Soft_Machine_Man]

Wargs hunt down game for you. Of course they have first choice of cut, but the leftovers can be hauled in and butchered.

Problem with Wargs is that they're super-picky eaters and it can get bad if you are in a biome with lawn animal spawns or you don't get enough raids to supply you with corpses to keep them fed.

My personal favorites are elephants. They're durable, can haul a ton, and can eat just about anything vegetarian and actually eat that much for their size.

[Pickle]

Muffalo if you're playing on icesheet at VERY cold temperatures. Their wool offers (on a normal parka) -120C resistance, which should cover pretty much all cold-problems.

They're great but need a lot of vegetables, which are not that easy to get on ice sheet.

I like wargs, I put a bit of human meat in a corner and they dispose of it. And they are good to protect my colonists in close combat.

[Snownova]

I'm partial to alpaca's, their wool is almost as good as muffalo's, but a much prettier color (IMO) also they're adorable.

[Nickvr628]

Elephants because they can carry a TON of stuff and are deadly in a fight.

Too bad a full meal for them is like 30 kibble. I need to have a dedicated elephant feeder since I have 4 adults.

[Britnoth]

Yorkshire terrier, hands down.

Eats very little, can be trained in obedience for bonded animal mood, and is a 4 legged nuzzling machine.

Cat eats even less, and can kill vermin... but cannot be trained for the bonded mood and nuzzles less often even adjusting for its smaller upkeep.

The huge penalties to mood for losing bonded animals in combat make attack pets dubious indeed. 

[Vaperius]

Muffalo if you're playing on icesheet at VERY cold temperatures. Their wool offers (on a normal parka) -120C resistance, which should cover pretty much all cold-problems.

My icesheet can get down to -122 o.o

[Mathenaut]

If you can manage the hay consumption, having a group of 4-6 muffalo is good. Wool and Milk provide a steady income and food source over time, especially on ice sheets. (Milk also raises mood)

If temps are moderate, alpaca wool has the highest market value.

Huskies are great for hauling, and they spawn 2+ per litter which is a good few bucks if you want to sell them off.

The thing with chickens is that you need to set an X ammount for what you can manage easily. Kill the rest for meat.

[Robovski]

Chickens just explode in population if unchecked. This is good, in that lots of meat, eggs and/or saleable birds happen quickly; and this is bad in that you can have so many that the map is a desert bare of grass and your game slows down if you don't stop the population explosion.