Animal Husbandry

[SilentP]

Hey all!  Absolutely loving this game!  I think I've logged a good 20 hours by now.  I've actually "won" a game by getting my survivors off world!

So I'm still playing in areas with year-round growing and I've taken to domesticating animals.  Do you have any tips / tricks to running a good farm?  I've tried chickens so far, and found my chicken population exploded exponentially!  My colony died because I had 300+ chickens hatch from their frozen eggs and they gobbled up my fields!

Currently I have four cows in a barn who are providing milk.  My female cows are pregnant and I'm anxious to see what I get.  Is it viable to continue to build up my ranch?  What do you typically feed cattle?  Right now I have HUGE fields of hay, but it's proving to be rather labor intensive.

Thanks for the help!

[chinothepony]

Omg that is a new one. Death by chickens! Wow! I can believe it with this game.

I too have a chicken and cow farm. What I did was create a nice big hayfield to be delivered to their coop, and then a large dandelion field for them to wander out in and pluck on their own. I also deliver kibble if I'm too behind in hay and the dandelions are plucked.

For chickens, what I did to control the insane pop was I started having my cooks prioritize lavish meals using fertilized eggs. My wargs (or w/e animals) would haul the eggs over to the stockpile spot right beside the cook and they would just go away at it. Presto! No rampant chickens devouring your fields.

Also one of the key things to do is to make an animal area that I call livestock. Within that area, it is very limited; they can eat and sleep in the coup or they can go out in the dandelion field. That's it.

If I let a generation of chickens grow and it becomes too much? Just slaughter or sell them 13 chicks at time to a trader.

[Serenity]

You can put them in separate zones by gender and only have for example 1 rooster for 20 or 30 hens.

The Colony Manager mod allows you to automatically set butchering targets to trim excess chickens.

[SilentP]

Segregating chickens by gender sounds like an excellent idea.  I thought you had to have a rooster around a hen to make her lay.

When I get home I'll provide a screenshot of my ranch.  Right now I have a 20 x 20 hay field right in front of the barn.  The cattle come out, eat the hay, then go back inside at night.  This is keeping them out of the refrigerator, but I have one poor bastard who's entire lot in life is to replant this hay field every day or so.  Do plants like hay and dandelions spread or do they have to be replanted every time?

I found it rather surprising that my entire clutch of eggs that were in a -2°F freezer still hatched.  Is there a way to prioritize ingredients for cooking (IE: Use eggs before meat) or is it strictly based on what's closest to the cook?

Thanks for answering all of my newbie questions.  Looks like this is a great community!

[BlueWinds]

To prioritize cooking with eggs, just make a bill that only allows eggs and put it above the other ones - your colonists prefer to work on the top bills, so they'll cook all your eggs before moving on.

If your cows are eating hey before it's grown, that's your problem right there. It's a lot more nutritious after its harvested (ie, cows eat less harvested hay than they do still-growing).

[chinothepony]

Yes you can. That's how I create lavish meals with them. I normally keep to fine as lavish is very heavy on ingredients for what I believe is 5 more pts on a buff. So if create a bill on your electric stove and check the ingredients within the bill, unclick all the meats and all the animal products except for fertilized egg. You can also prioritize it so it gets used up before they hatch.

It's funny because I had the same thing happen to me at first. I brought all the fertilized egg to my fridge and I kept seeing a group of chicks walking out towards my livestock zone. Didn't realize freezing them does nothing to prevent them from hatching  haha.

Also another thing for your hay. You should not let them grind on it like you would a dandelion field. Keep them out of it so you can harvest the hay and feed them on the bales. I believe you get a lot more out of it then. Animals munching on your crops before they are ready to harvest sucks. I had an elephant that always stole my smokeleaf and was even munching on my devilstrand shrooms.