[Guide] Animal Handling Manual

[khun_poo]

Growing grass depends on Biome in a tropical rainforest I had 50+ capybaras all foraging on naturally growing grass plus an elephant and rhino. In a desert you could do it but only with Modds that allow farmland improvement.

You're right. To be honest, I don't think we can make a huge ranch in Desert or ice sheet/sea ice biomes. Since sustaining a livestock require a lot in haygrass. I think rice is viable when plant on hydroponic basin but it will be a real pain.

For meat, I still loot for chicken though. Even if you need meat, just wait a while for egg to be hatched. Each chick give 5 meat when slaughter. No need to wait for them to grow since your chicken coop is limit. I actually limit chicken to be about 5 rooster and 30 hen.

The trick is create a stockpile for fertile egg with critical priority. Whenever your animal hauler carry some egg to the spot, forbid those egg. Not only colonist can't pick those egg to cook but also your animal can't eat it. Hauler still haul new fertile egg to the stack. The unfertilized egg go to fridge straight away.

Another source for meat can come from your animal hauler and predator combo too. Sadly, your predator are not really reliable source of meat since wild animal are not plentiful in winter. Their main task is to tank bullet, guard your caravan and chase those fleeing raider anyway.

[YokoZar]

Are you sure chickens are better than Iguanas for livestock?  Iguanas produce 3/4 as many eggs, but consume way less grass/hay.  They also give you leather when slaughtered and require slightly less labor (fewer egg hauling trips because the eggs come in clutches).

[kubolek01]

You reminded me of my A16 fox overload. Well I had a luck with Thrumbo there on other hand. Bonding on doctoring isn't impossible

[khun_poo]

Are you sure chickens are better than Iguanas for livestock? Iguanas produce 3/4 as many eggs, but consume way less grass/hay.  They also give you leather when slaughtered and require slightly less labor (fewer egg hauling trips because the eggs come in clutches).

Iguanas are omnivore. They eat their own egg too. We need to pay attention to harvest the egg. Egg have high nutrition than other animal food so they prefer the egg before hay or kibble.

[SpaceDorf]

I think you should add this mod Wildlife Tab to the suggested mods, it makes finding tameable animals much easier.

-Fighting style-
A gunman handler is viable too. I suggest choosing weapon that not burst fire and having high chance to hit like bolt action or sniper rifle is the best choice. When fighting, don't use release until the raider is fleeing. Since release in the middle of battle trend to get friendly fire. Unless you're ambushing raider from behind which is hard to do in base defend.

I Agree with brawlers being the best animal handlers, but I actually disagree with this fighting style for a shooting handler.

The most combat your handler will see is failed taming attemps. What he does in combat with Enemy forces is second to that.

Applying the same reasons why Brawler is such a good fit, the same goes for Trigger Happy Pawn with a PDW or Shotgun.
Combat will be sudden and close distance, you need to hurt or disable the animal as soon as you can, so your handler has the best chances to escape.
A face full of buckshot or a clip from a MP will do this a lot better than waiting for your pawn to aim a rifle.
If you prefer overkill you can also use grenades or miniguns.

2nd zone "Hauler"
Just use unrestricted area. You don't need to restricted hauler area.

But you can and should, when using different hauling animals.
Restricting Indoor and Crop Hauling to your Dogs instead of Pigs and Bears.
Keeping the dogs close to home and let the stronger and cheaper animals handle the offsite hauling.

You need an animal sleeping spot inside your base for predator to sleep too.

Make that a hospital bed, from which all other animals are excluded.

Important Animal Raid evacuation tactic.

I suggest Better Pawn Control
which allows you to set single-click orders for the described process.

[khun_poo]

Thank you for your information SpaceDorf. I'll add them to the main page.

Well, I've try Better Pawn Control already. I found an annoying bug so I suggest to avoid using it (for now). Most animal that train to obedience will apply the trainer to be its master automatically. After using the mod, the animal master will still apply the same way as vanilla but it will hidden in the animal tab. You have to assign animal master again to avoid this bug. This is really tiring when you have a lot of training hauling dog or boar.

Another reason is that this mod not synchronize well with Colony Manager .
Colony manager can assign the area to the animal automatically which is a big help when new animal is born. However, since it assign the animal area automatic, It is a real pain when raid coming. You need to disable your manager table to stop the auto assign animal area so you can manually move them to your animal safe zone. If you use Better Pawn Control, Your new born animal will be in unassigned area since they're not exist before you save the template. So, if you'll still need to manually assign area them anyway then I suggest not using it will clear your confusion.

By the way, If you're not planning to have a very big animal farm (That animal will almost born once per day). This mod is really big help though.

[XeoNovaDan]

I've actually made a very in-depth spreadsheet on animals a fair while back, which I reckon most people here have missed. For those that want to view it, here she is.

A few key points though:
Chickens aren't what they used to be Pre-A17 - They only lay 1 egg at a time, they yield little meat, and they also eat a lot. Chickens are still OK, yes, but they're far from the best. The most efficient animals to farm for meat-type nutrition (going by hard numbers), from 1st to 5th are:
* Dairy Cows - 55.1% efficiency
* Hares and Snowhares - 39% efficiency
* Rats - 35.4% efficiency
* Squirrels - 34.4% efficiency
* Wild Boars and Pigs - 33% efficiency

Hauling capacity over 75 doesn't matter - Well, the only cases that it does matter are for drugs, and haygrass. Elephants can probably be ruled out of the top 5 since they're slow, demanding on food, and don't carry any more than a dog in most cases. Also, you never mentioned wolves? They hardly eat; they're actually more efficient than foxes in terms of food consumption to carrying capacity, and they move faster.

I'd say wolves deserve the top spot for hauling because they also don't eat veg, which means they can haul rice... unlike them greedy dogs which'll eat it, which is a huge waste of efficiency. Oh, and dogs also eat nearly 3x as much as wolves, and they're worse in combat.

Cobras are the most food-efficient combat animal in the game - and the emphasis goes on efficiency here. Cobras have the lowest hunger rate out of any animal in the game, and their reproduction isn't bad either, and they have a fairly good DPS for what they are. They're also fast, and small body size means that bullets won't hit them as often. One cobra won't do much, but a lot certainly will... and they'll barely leave a mark on your food supply. Another animal goes overlooked.

Bar these really outstanding issues that I have with the lists... not bad.

[SpaceDorf]

Well, I've try Better Pawn Control already. I found an annoying bug so I suggest to avoid using it (for now). Most animal that train to obedience will apply the trainer to be its master automatically. After using the mod, the animal master will still apply the same way as vanilla but it will hidden in the animal tab. You have to assign animal master again to avoid this bug. This is really tiring when you have a lot of training hauling dog or boar.

I don't like the auto assign feature myself, so I never noticed the clash between those two.
The Bug you mention only exists if you don't create a template for your animal assignment and leave it on auto.
If you do this, BetterPawnControl works equally to vanilla and animal children will be assigned to the same zone as their mother.

Having successfully managed three digits of Minions, Caravan, Food and Wool Animals that way I still think BetterPawnControl roxx 

Oh, and Fluffies Birds&Bees if you want birth control.

[ColonistGirl]

Neat, a lot of stuff I didn't know about taming animals. Good read.

My current colony is really flourishing right now, with 15 colonists (started with the single rich explorer), a huge colony tucked away in an easily-defended valley in the mountains, tons of farming, and a huge valley next door for grazing. I had a couple of muffalo self-tame, so I've been trying to breed them, and running around trying to tame a few more each winter when some come wandering in.

I just realized that all that grass is going to go away when winter hits, though, so this guide reminded me I need to make a TON of kibble, or plant a huge field of haygrass.

[SpaceDorf]

I just realized that all that grass is going to go away when winter hits, though, so this guide reminded me I need to make a TON of kibble, or plant a huge field of haygrass.

No harm in doing both

[Bolgfred]

I just realized that all that grass is going to go away when winter hits, though, so this guide reminded me I need to make a TON of kibble, or plant a huge field of haygrass.

No harm in doing both

I am still looking for a good solution in making animals eating hay first and kibble second. And, No, putting a Trump into my barn is not an option.

When I set up two stockpiles and having hay in the first row and kibble in behind, doesn't work always.  And putting kibble in a separate room with doors locked and sealed, seems a little bit over the top.

[ColonistGirl]

Yeah, just had a big raid come through last night (about 30 tribespeople), but between the switchback I built to stagger them out, and the gunbox setup combined with my colonists with ARs, we cut them down pretty fast. Got a nice pile of bodies for my psychopath cook to chop up into kibble.

Planted a huge hay field out in the valley as well, and since I'm playing with "climate cycle" turned on, this latest winter ended up being really mild (never got below 45), so didn't have to worry about it snowing.

Now I just need some more muffalo!

As far as the animals eating hay vs kibble, yeah, I don't know of any way to force them to eat one or the other without simply putting the kibble out of reach. I'll experiment with it a bit and see if I can come up with something.

[SpaceDorf]

Animal Zones ?
Herbivores, Carnivores, Kibble 

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

Is it just me, or can foxes really haul? Last time I played (5 mins ago) they were not able to be trained to haul.

[SpaceDorf]

Might be a mod thing, that changes the Intelligence of Foxes.