[Guide] Animal Handling Manual

[YokoZar]

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.

What's the data source?  This implies what I said about Iguanas being great isn't true (wiki says they have 3-5 eggs per clutch, your spreadsheet says average is 1.5)

[XeoNovaDan]

What's the data source?

Core's own XML files; guaranteed up-to-date information.

(wiki says they have 3-5 eggs per clutch, your spreadsheet says average is 1.5)

Yeah, the wiki's an anecdotal source; the 3-5 eggs per clutch must be a pre-A17 number. When I sourced the numbers for this sheet, iguanas laid 1-2 eggs per clutch.

[TheMeInTeam]

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.

How big is "huge" wrt ranch size?  In extreme desert it should be possible to sustain 20+ alpacas on haygrass while still having food for 15-20 people.  In regular desert you still have normal soil and a lot more arable land so we're talking double these numbers at minimum, probably more, if using arable land to potential.  It's actually harder to get animals on extreme desert in the first place, you only have dromedaries and fennec foxes(very rare), megascarabs and iguanas naturally.  Desert has more variety and really is only a little harder than the "easy 3" (temperate, shrubland, boreal) due to early wood pressure requiring to plant poplars.

The cold maps are so much worse for animal farming.  It's not a matter of just planting a few hundred tiles of hay and hauling it (often with the animals you're sustaining after a while) to a barn.  All food grown comes with extra resource cost in electricity for heat and light, or for places like tundra you're just getting less food/year.  The cold biomes make wolves a lot more attractive.  They eat less than most animals, and you don't need power to keep your corpse stockpile cold for them :p. 

[khun_poo]

How big is "huge" wrt ranch size?  In extreme desert it should be possible to sustain 20+ alpacas on haygrass while still having food for 15-20 people.  In regular desert you still have normal soil and a lot more arable land so we're talking double these numbers at minimum, probably more, if using arable land to potential.  It's actually harder to get animals on extreme desert in the first place, you only have dromedaries and fennec foxes(very rare), megascarabs and iguanas naturally.  Desert has more variety and really is only a little harder than the "easy 3" (temperate, shrubland, boreal) due to early wood pressure requiring to plant poplars.

The cold maps are so much worse for animal farming.  It's not a matter of just planting a few hundred tiles of hay and hauling it (often with the animals you're sustaining after a while) to a barn.  All food grown comes with extra resource cost in electricity for heat and light, or for places like tundra you're just getting less food/year.  The cold biomes make wolves a lot more attractive.  They eat less than most animals, and you don't need power to keep your corpse stockpile cold for them :p. 

hmm... huge in my definition should be something like 30+ hauler, 50+ farm animal and hunter/fighter animal for the rest (just 10 is fine). This should sufficient for sustaining food demand and hauling everything up to 20 colonists. You got the point about biomes though.

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.

Holy crab! That's god send for me. I'll treasure it. Thank you very much 

About the wolf hauler, I usually use them as animal hunter because of their high wilderness. Their role is on par with the bear but they breed and run faster. They're carnivorous which make them the best crop field hauler too in term of efficiently. I'll put them on the list just in case.

I'll still loot for dog as the best hauler. Since hauler need 7 times to train which is really a real pain. Dog got 0 wilderness, so that everyone can train it. They'll need to train rescue later too. Rescue animal really a great help when you have a lot of casualties either human or animal. They're also pet animal so that they're not produce filth. That's mean they'll reduce your janitor work. Lastly, hauler main job is to haul not to fight. Training release and haul on the same animal is not a good idea later in the game. Hauler animal that lose leg is just a drag in the hauling process.

Actually, elephant shouldn't be in the list at all because they're worst as hauler. But like I mention about mod, when combine the use of StackXXL. 3-4 elephants can finish haul harvested field of crop within a day. Without the mod, I don't recommend taming it to be hauler though.

Cobra do great in combat. They hit hard and make an enemy shoot each other in the confusion. However, it can't be your main fighter because its toughness is low. There'll always be casualties aftermath all the time. So, you need a lot of them to swarm your enemy. This may caused your game to lag since you'll need a lot of farm and hauler animal too.

[blightmoon]

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.

How was the food consumption mulitplier of 1.5999 arrived at?

[XeoNovaDan]

How was the food consumption mulitplier of 1.5999 arrived at?

RimWorld.Need_Food.BaseFoodFallPerTick

Code Select Expand

private const float BaseFoodFallPerTick = 2.66666666E-05f;

That's 0.0000266666666 nutrition consumed per tick baseline. 60,000 ticks in a day.

60,000 * 0.0000266666666 = 1.599999996 nutrition consumed per day baseline

[blightmoon]

How was the food consumption mulitplier of 1.5999 arrived at?

RimWorld.Need_Food.BaseFoodFallPerTick

Code Select Expand

      private const float BaseFoodFallPerTick = 2.66666666E-05f;

That's 0.0000266666666 nutrition consumed per tick baseline. 60,000 ticks in a day.

60,000 * 0.0000266666666 = 1.599999996 nutrition consumed per day baseline

That's interesting. So hunger rate is the multiplier, there being another number which is the baseline.

As to behavior though, would you know whether animals waste nutrition by overeating? When do they eat? When do they stop a "meal" of hay? How does nutrition consumption vary between newborns, juveniles and matures?

Your worksheet is great, BTW. I learned that chickens and hares are best euthanized as juveniles. Bears are imba because of a hunger rate like a chicken's. Cows are without a doubt, the best meat source.

Also, do male cows produce milk? That would be gross, if you know what I mean.

[SpaceDorf]

Also, do male cows produce milk? That would be gross, if you know what I mean.[/color]

Oh the funnies that could be made ...

But the short answer is : Nope.
Only females are milkable. Cows, Muffalo and Sheep ( I think.. or was this a mod again ? )

[TheMeInTeam]

Also, do male cows produce milk? That would be gross, if you know what I mean.[/color]

Oh the funnies that could be made ...

But the short answer is : Nope.
Only females are milkable. Cows, Muffalo and Sheep ( I think.. or was this a mod again ? )

Sheep are not in vanilla.  Dromedaries, caribou and elk are milkable in vanilla.  Other than cows the rest kind of suck at it.  Cows give 8 milk/day/cow, all other milkable animals give 6 per 2 days (3/day).

You would need 20 female caribou just to get milk for 12 fine meals/day.  That's a lot of food!  10 cows gets you 16 fine meals/day.

Of course milk isn't the primary reason to use muffalo or dromedaries.  Their value is as sheering animals that are also usable on caravans, though I prefer alpacas for that when possible.

[Snafu_RW]

I was pretty sure Alpaca were milkable too in A17, but I may well be wrong.. can't check atm However the wool bonus from them should outstrip food cost fairly quickly provided you have someone to trade with (& in sufficient quantities ofc)..

[Vlad0mi3r]

Nope no milk from alpaca in A17.

[Rei-No]

How do I get one big Cow ie muffalo, that is house broken to not eat the best meals in the house.  my colonists just went thru a monkey raid. I spent 3 days couped up and to help the colonist bounce back I sent the chef all over the place to get the materials to make several fine meals. I'm playing a scenario of a tribe that  was wisked away from there own tribe with next to nothing. accept one god shined on them for an instant and they got a great bow, but they nearly lost all there food and the medical herbs poofed along with it they have much less lumber to start to boot.  I've had a very good play thru until I had a money mankiller pack of one monkey,  but my tribe has had little raiding since the start long ago so its still 5, and I was to worried the monkey would infect one or two them them.  I had already survived a bit that nearly took the leg. but it was saved ..  anyway as soon as I had the meals done this stupid cow walked by and ate half of them in a very brief period, I nearly slaughtered her, but somehow managed to rein in my  temper..  she ate half teh fine meals that had just be cooked.  is there a mod that stops this?  and while i'm at it  what is the name of the mod that add 1-9 to the priority list. I can't find it for the life of me.

[Vlad0mi3r]

How do I get one big Cow ie muffalo, that is house broken to not eat the best meals in the house.  my colonists just went thru a monkey raid. I spent 3 days couped up and to help the colonist bounce back I sent the chef all over the place to get the materials to make several fine meals. I'm playing a scenario of a tribe that  was wisked away from there own tribe with next to nothing. accept one god shined on them for an instant and they got a great bow, but they nearly lost all there food and the medical herbs poofed along with it they have much less lumber to start to boot.  I've had a very good play thru until I had a money mankiller pack of one monkey,  but my tribe has had little raiding since the start long ago so its still 5, and I was to worried the monkey would infect one or two them them.  I had already survived a bit that nearly took the leg. but it was saved ..  anyway as soon as I had the meals done this stupid cow walked by and ate half of them in a very brief period, I nearly slaughtered her, but somehow managed to rein in my  temper..  she ate half teh fine meals that had just be cooked.  is there a mod that stops this?  and while i'm at it  what is the name of the mod that add 1-9 to the priority list. I can't find it for the life of me.

Setup an animal zone for the cow that does not include the area where you store your meals. Set the cow to that area and you will not loose any more meals. It is not a mod just zone management that is built into vanilla.