Is it worth keeping cows, pigs, chickens for food?

[Polder]

My strong suspicion is no, but I have admittedly not tried to breed a large herd.

Why would you want to do this? To get meat for survival rations or pemmican, and fine meals. But hunting seems to be way better in most cases.

[Lancefighter]

A cow transforms about 18 tiles of haygrass (on 100% fert)(or, about 60 tiles of grazed grass) into .75 nutrition worth of milk, per day. This is about .042 nutrition per plot of farm land.

For comparison, rice is .067 nutrition per day per plot, and corn is .069 nutrition per day per plot, at 100% fert. 

Their bonus is that you get fine meals out of it, instead of simple meals. I personally dont bother, as its more effort in taming and growing than its usually worth.

[Mufflamingo]

I usually just make a pen and plant 2 zones of Haygrass. One for grazing and one for harvesting when winter comes. Iplay on Temperate forests so this is easy. Goodluck doing that on ice sheets though.

[Ukas]

My strong suspicion is no, but I have admittedly not tried to breed a large herd.

Why would you want to do this? To get meat for survival rations or pemmican, and fine meals. But hunting seems to be way better in most cases.

Cattle breeding used to make much more sense earlier, when hunting accidents happened all the time. Just to avoid them I used to have only two hunters, which worked in different shifts, and my colonies had separate pens for chicken & cows - that's how important they were.

Now hunting is easily more rewarding, as your riflemen can improve their shooting skills and hunting accidents are very rare, so in last games I've had only muffalos and boomalopes, for caravans and chemfuel, not really for food even though my muffalos are all females because of milk as a bonus. Also since b18 there seems to be so many big animal manhunter events, that sometimes I still have plenty of manhunter corpses from the previous event stored, when another one occurs.

[Kirby23590]

Chickens lay alot of eggs with chicks. Unless you know animal zones they could be a good food source if you have alot haygrass...

But i won't recommend it, i mostly butcher them unless someone tells me i'm wrong.

Cows i think, muffalos might be better though. I don't know i don't use cows that much and mostly butcher them for meat or train them for defending.

But Pigs in the other hand, i think they are alright with an good animal handler and pigs can haul stuff of course, they are omnivores meaning they eat meat or veggies including grass. Pigs can be a good supply of food and helpers in the colony for hauling and of course taking the bullets instead of your colonists. I would give pigs a score of 3.5/5 stars.

[Greep]

I think chickens used to lay a lot more eggs, but were nerfed for reasons completely unrelated to fine meals 

[zizard]

On higher difficulties meat is rammed down your throat with manhunter packs, which discourages animal products.

[MajorFordson]

It would be nice to see a re-design of many animals.

The reason you would keep things like chickens is they eat stuff we don't (grass, bugs etc) to turn it into meat. Grass in-game gets depleted very quickly, even by small animals. I'd like to see larger animals remain the same (need food, hay etc) and smaller animals be able to forage much more efficiently on almost any type of vegetation.

This bonus of low maintenance livestock could be offset by lower yields.

I think livestock could also be improved by making them wander, instead of intelligently staying where the player wants. Then resources would have to be invested in fences etc.

As it stands livestock seem to consume grass too quickly to farm reasonably for too little gain foodwise.

[Canute]

I think livestock could also be improved by making them wander, instead of intelligently staying where the player wants. Then resources would have to be invested in fences etc.

And you think that would be an improvment ?
Since attacker like to attack any colony pawn creature on sight you will loose faster your lifestock then before.
Fences keep the lifestock at place, but don't help much against attacker, you have to build real walls

[Lancefighter]

As it stands livestock seem to consume grass too quickly to farm reasonably for too little gain foodwise.

For a nice joke - the difference between harvesting a 100% haygrass and letting an animal consume it directly is .7 nutrition.  It harvests for .9, and can be eaten directly for .2. This difference feels kinda stupid.

For comparison - Rice, eaten from the ground, is worth .18, compared to its harvest yield of .3. For potatoes, .2 vs .55, and Corn, .3 vs 1.1. If you are going to grow a crop for grazing, it should be rice due to the low grow time. It takes about 40 actual tiles of grazed rice per cow.

Roses are a runner up (.033 nutrition/growday, compared to .045 of rice), and can be grown indoor with just a standard lamp which might be a consideration? I am not actually sure if animals can eat out of flower pots. This seems pretty cheesy, because you are still looking at near 60? flower planters per animal you are letting graze on roses. (wild grass, while not growable, has .15 nutrition on a 2.5 grow day timer. Technically better, if it could be sown.)

I feel like a plant, designed to not be harvested but instead directly eaten, that could be sown in a field (perhaps quickly?) would easily make having a pasture of animals reasonable. This also seems like a pretty easy mod to put together..

[Canute]

Yep, you are right.
The harvest yield only count the fruits of that plant. But animal eat the complete plant which include plant matter + fruit.
So basicly when you harvest a plant you should get hay + fruits.
But that's a part for suggestion.
Currently the gameplay reward you when you let the plant grow to a harvestable stage so you can invest pawn work to get the fruits, rather then to allow the animals to grass over your growing fields.

[MajorFordson]

I think livestock could also be improved by making them wander, instead of intelligently staying where the player wants. Then resources would have to be invested in fences etc.

And you think that would be an improvment ?
Since attacker like to attack any colony pawn creature on sight you will loose faster your lifestock then before.
Fences keep the lifestock at place, but don't help much against attacker, you have to build real walls

This hypothetical change would be to balance making animals a more efficient/viable food rearing option. It would cost the player resources, attention and space to make sure the animals stay somewhere and are protected for the return of turning grass into food, just like real life.

[Canute]

A mod called "Smarter food selection" let animal's use grass at first food option, and then they return to their sleeping spot at night.

[cultist]

Muffalo is the only animal I find to be worth the effort really. Milk, fur and lots of leather and meat if you need it. No other animal provides all of these benefits. The downside is that they eat a lot, but you don't need a huge herd. Just slaughter all males and buy/tame a new one if you ever need to.

[East]

Livestock problems are very difficult.
A large number is needed for livestock to produce food above a certain level. As the base grows, the amount of livestock required will be enormous. Then it becomes very complicated to manage it. It also causes a lot of lack.
So it is only in the secondary position as it is now.

I imagine. You can make buildings that raise livestock, and put livestock into them to make food that is produced at regular intervals. You can connect a container that can hold hay nearby. (like Nutrient paste dispenser Hopper) If you do not feed the food, the animal inside will die. This will reduce system resource consumption. But it may not be like Rimworld.