Underwhelmed by pig farming

[Shurp]

So I had a giant pile of silver, a bulk goods trader showed up, and he had pigs and muffalo for sale.  I thought, "Hey, why not start a pig farm?  And buy some muffalo in case I want to go caravanning some day".

Well, my three muffalo tore through my colony's food stocks quickly but I've started more greenhouses and I think I have enough hay to keep them going now.  But the pigs... I'm having a hard time seeing the point of the pigs.  Sadly, Randy isn't sending many human raids my way.  I have lots of plasteel from all the mechanoids that attack me but I ran out of corpses to feed my pigs.  So now what?  Do I just slaughter them all?  The 25 meat I get from the occasional piglet that pops out hardly makes keeping momma pig worthwhile.

[b0rsuk]

Unfortunately most of animal farming is strictly a hobby. If you breed animals for food, the only worthwhile ones are chickens. Good egg production rate.

Are you on ice sheet ? Bugmeat is genuinely good source of kibble. If you're not under a mountain, mine out and heat at least a single room to get infestations.

[Nuss]

Pigs are perfectly content with grass and only require extra attention during winter. They're not really feasibly in deserts or around the poles, of course.

[Boston]

Most animals are, by and large, "not worth it".

This is a problem because of how the game handles meals and food.

In my opinion, animals should give a hell of a lot more food: when they are slaughtered, when they are milked, etc.

[Hans Lemurson]

You can't let them give too much food though, otherwise you could end up with a pig farm fed entirely by pork.

In reality, animals aren't good food sources except in cases where they provide necessary protein to the diet or can grow eating food that humans cannot.

[Jovus]

In reality, animals aren't good food sources except in cases where they provide necessary protein to the diet or can grow eating food that humans cannot.

Which is practically all the time, historically speaking.

Ruminants excel at turning marginal or useless resources into human-useful resources. That's why you see pastoralists in places like mountains, deserts, great inland plains, forests, tundra, and practically any other land that's marginal for agriculture, either due to weather or the impracticality of building the necessary infrastructure for water delivery.

Unfortunately, Rimworld has no such restrictions on farmland, rendering pasture's greatest asset redundant.

[Hans Lemurson]

Maybe if Gravel could only grow Haygrass...

[Shurp]

I'm in Tundra, so yeah, letting the pigs graze outside isn't an option.  Herding probably works ok in Rimworld.  And chickens do too but the bulk trader hasn't brought me any yet. 

I do have lots of mountain mined out but only had one infestation turn up.  I guess I should have milked it instead of wiping it out, but the bugs did keep my pigs fed for a season. 

Feeding pigs with pigs raises an interesting question... just how long does it take for a pig to eat a pig carcass?

[Tynan]

Did you try just letting them out so they can feed on grass?

[b0rsuk]

Did you try just letting them out so they can feed on grass?

It works poorly in colder biomes (like temperate forest): you must stockpile food to feed animals in winter, or make a looooot of kibble. To make kibble, you must have vegetables. The best way to get plant food is planting them, and by far. If you're planting, you may as well plant a small patch of potatoes or rice and that will yield much more than animals. If you don't stockpile for winter, there's no way you will slaughter enough to last through winter, not in 5500 anyway.

I've played a colony with "growing disabled" in A16, and it was a dreadful experience largely because colonists kept eating into my berry supply instead of nutrient paste disenser. Nearly 3 times as much food used. I farmed chickens, I modified 'Crashlanded' to start with 4. It turned into a huge berry hunt, PAC-MAN style, because with no sowing plants wild berries are the only way to make kibble. Imagine what would happen with toxic fallout.

The situation would be better if the "Cut Plants" order produced hay. I think it would be a natural, intuitive solution, and Growing skill should have no effect on harvest amount, to make "0 Growing skill" colonies possible.

Ironically, animals are totally viable on ice sheet now, as long as you don't have too many (more than say 4 bears + 2  foxes). Animals turn bugmeat into regular meat. With a psychopath colonist, you can also turn human meat into kibble, and kibble into normal meat. Or just dump human corpses into your pig pen, they're not picky!

[Hans Lemurson]

Did you try just letting them out so they can feed on grass?

The wild grass has a pretty low nutrition density and doesn't grow back very fast.  A couple of grazers can strip their pasture bare fairly quickly.

[zeidrich]

I'm wondering why you expect an arctic pig farm to be a viable strategy. There's not much precedent for that.  If there's little to no ground cover to forage, animals in the arctic either migrate or eat fish or other animals that migrate or eat fish.

There's certainly no domestic pig farms grazing off lichen up in Gjoa Haven.

[Shurp]

I was hoping that I could grow food fast enough in my greenhouses to take care of my pigs... but they are hungry and grow slowly.  Chickens work much better.

And no, I didn't let my pigs out to forage... it's -33'C outside. 

But I just got attacked by tribal raiders.  So now I have two dozen corpses to get rid of.  So pigs do at least have one purpose in the frozen wasteland: body disposal.  I can keep three around for that (and eat any piglets that turn up while they're working)

Oops, I did run into a problem though: my pig pen is so stuffed full of bodies that my pigs can't move!  What will happen if a piglet pops out and wants a place to stand?

[b0rsuk]

I'm wondering why you expect an arctic pig farm to be a viable strategy. There's not much precedent for that.  If there's little to no ground cover to forage, animals in the arctic either migrate or eat fish or other animals that migrate or eat fish.

Because it works in Rimworld. (Raider) corpses are a better source of nutrition than pastures.

Shurp: most animals turn from 'baby' to 'juvenile' at 1 month. Maybe that's more profitable ? It seems optimal for selling, I would compare meet yield.

[makapse]

In reallife, i know that on an ideal case scenario, pigs only give 1/4th the weight of the food they eat. while chickens have it at 1/1.5. In rimworld, this ratio seems to be very wrong.
It would be interesting to know what the conversion rate in game is.

Source:-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio