Animal Incest

[CannibarRechter]

Hi,

I noticed that my rabbit farm was no longer producing rabbits. So I watched, and noticed none were pregnant, nor mating. So then I searched the net. It appears that animals won't mate with their siblings? The disadvantages of this feature are large. I can't fathom the game play that it is supposed to add to the game. Anyone have any ideas? Am I supposed to get out a piece of paper and meticulously record family trees so I don't slaughter the wrong animals? That's my fun?

WEIRD.

[submarine]

Yea  I was thinking the same when I seen that in the patchnotes, then I figured well I keep the oldest male and female alive but that is only working for so long.

[CannibarRechter]

Yeah, I just went an applied the mod that undoes this, but this is a really dubious change to the base game.

[SimpleMachine88]

It forces you to periodically refresh the bloodlines.  Go tame some wild rabbits.

[eadras]

I noticed this in an earlier game with my chickens.  I had 2 original roosters which I kept separate from the hens, and they both got frostbite due to my inattention and had to be put down.  I only realized later on that this meant I couldn't expand my chicken population without a new rooster.  Kind of annoying with an animal like a chicken, but I can understand that it may be implemented for game balance issues due to the power of larger animals like bears and wolves.

[mumblemumble]

I think it was a dumb move, animals are already pretty costly for food costs, cleaning, and labor to get them

[kaptain_kavern]

Fluffy has a mod addressing this bug/features : https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16120.0

[CannibarRechter]

It forces you to periodically refresh the bloodlines.  Go tame some wild rabbits.

This is textbook begging the question, as I now have to track the very animals I just tamed, to make sure I don't slaughter them and undo the taming I just did. Your recommendation was the only one in the thread, and good on the surface. But given the obvious flaw in it, I think we're saying the whole concept is fatally flawed.

[mumblemumble]

This is textbook begging the question, as I now have to track the very animals I just tamed, to make sure I don't slaughter them and undo the taming I just did. Your recommendation was the only one in the thread, and good on the surface. But given the obvious flaw in it, I think we're saying the whole concept is fatally flawed.

pretty much this

[lorebot]

A lot of animal species have no concept of incest and aren't affected by it in the short term. I personally don't think it's a big deal to allow them to breed incestuously since it's how the majority of animals are bred in captivity in real life. What I would suggest is that since the game is already tracking bloodlines why not add a condition for 'seriously inbred' or something similar that gives animals that are inbred for 5+ generations mental issues or sterility.

[mumblemumble]

Heh, this actually raises a VERY interesting question : how far out must family be before the risk is nearly gone? I mean, EVENTUALLY, with great enough cousins, incest would hold almost no risk. Obviously direct blood, mother and son, father and daughter holds HIGHEST risk, then brother sister, aunt and nephew, uncle and niece, ect, all in lowering risks from increasingly different genetics. So wheres the point where the risk becomes negligible? Sadly, doubt this can be answered, as people don't like the idea of studies on incest....if I'm wrong, and there's a study, someone please correct me.

[lorebot]

Inbreeding in animals is something that's been extensively studied, especially among farmers and livestock breeders. I wouldn't be surprised to find papers written on the subject. I'll see what I can find

Inbreeding in humans is something that I doubt you'd find much information on other than having less than 1 order of separation is socially unacceptable, but in most cases is perfectly viable for breeding purposes. The human genome isn't very resilient in that regard and we're prone to physical deformity and mental illness if we don't get some diversity in breeding stock every 3rd or 4th generation.

Edit:
wikipedia's article on inbreeding:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding

another site I found with a lot of good info on inbreeding animals, specifically cats:
http://helorimer.people.ysu.edu/inbredgen.html

[CannibarRechter]

> Inbreeding in animals is something that's been extensively studied,

The pros and cons of the science of inbreeding aren't really relevant. This adds nothing to the game, and takes things away. It's an annoying mechanic, without merit.

[SpaceDorf]

Inbreeding in animals is something that's been extensively studied, especially among farmers and livestock breeders. I wouldn't be surprised to find papers written on the subject. I'll see what I can find

Inbreeding in humans is something that I doubt you'd find much information on other than having less than 1 order of separation is socially unacceptable, but in most cases is perfectly viable for breeding purposes. The human genome isn't very resilient in that regard and we're prone to physical deformity and mental illness if we don't get some diversity in breeding stock every 3rd or 4th generation.

Edit:
wikipedia's article on inbreeding:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding

another site I found with a lot of good info on inbreeding animals, specifically cats:
http://helorimer.people.ysu.edu/inbredgen.html

Well there was this long term study in the middle ages called royality

[RimJimMcGee]

Yeah, it's a really irritating mechanic. It's also particularly odd given that in the same update, the colonist AI was apparently changed to allow incest. Like, animals famously don't give two shits about incest (maybe primates are an exception?), whereas humans, at least a great deal of the time, do. But as it stands farm animals that are related to each other won't mate, and humans that are related will. That just seems backwards, in addition to being a lot of unfun work keeping track of "breeder" animals.