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

[Scavenger]

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.

Don't camels also provide a lot of wool and milk?

[5thHorseman]

Don't camels also provide a lot of wool and milk?

Yeah, but they're not as common on maps. Mostly because most people (myself included) don't voluntarily play on desert maps. When I do rando-rando runs I will walk as far as needed on game start to get out of a desert.

[Scavenger]

I do see a lot of people like cold biomes, ice sheet as a particularly used challenge. Why no love for the desert?

[Syrchalis]

I sometimes keep cows, because converting hay or grass to milk is very good, even if at a nutrition loss, because you're getting "meat".

I never bread animals for meat, that's just too much effort for what it's worth. Chickens also got hit by the nerf bat too hard to be worth it, especially since they die very easily and eat a lot, because they waste a lot of nutrition when they eat grass etc..

So yeah... cows sometimes, muffalos nearly always, because wool, pack animal and milk... just too good. They also can take a shot or two, unlike cows and chickens, so they don't instantly die if some stray raider targets them.

Dromedaries are a perfectly viable alternative if in hot biomes.

[cultist]

Don't camels also provide a lot of wool and milk?

Camels are great too but like the other guy said, they are much less common than muffalo unless you prefer desert maps.

I do see a lot of people like cold biomes, ice sheet as a particularly used challenge. Why no love for the desert?

For me, desert maps lack defined seasons and interesting features. Extreme desert is ok because it's like a reverse arctic challenge but beyond that they're just not very fun. Very little vegetation, very few animals, nothing special going on except the same events you get in other maps. Dusters are mandatory. I dunno, it just feels bland. Arid Shrubland and Jungle have a lot more unique features and fauna, as well as unique animals.

[5thHorseman]

I do see a lot of people like cold biomes, ice sheet as a particularly used challenge. Why no love for the desert?

Ice sheet sounds hard but geo vents give heat for free and the entire map is a freezer that kills your food for you. One muffalo parka and you don't even mind the cold.

Deserts are resource-free unhappiness zones.

[Th3Eagle85]

Depending on the climate/terrain I keep wild boars and/or muffalo without trouble and some nice yields.

For the boars:
Build a pen that is connected to a freezer, dump all the human bodies in the freezer and limit their area to the pen and freezer. Keep an eye on the stock of corpses, slaughter boars if needed when the stock is low.

For the muffalo, build a shelter if needed (depending on the temperature), and let them graze the region supplemented with hay. You could use human meat and insect meat/jelly with hay/veggies to produce kibble. I usually don''t keep muffalo if they cannot graze a large part of the year as it will increase the workload.

For both only keep 1 or 2 males + multiple females. Kill of all the males when they are born (or let the grow for more meat) and limit the size of the herd to your licking. Colony manger mod can automate this if you are lazy

[Scavenger]

Are you really just fine with everything with a muffalo parka? There should be times during winter and cold snaps or so cold you also have to be inside and have it heated during it!

Arid shrubland land is on my list to try, I need biomes that have lots of animals and plants, because I love taming things! Haha. And that seems to be the only semi plentiful hot map that has a decent variety of animals to tame. We need hyenas too!

[Teleblaster18]

I really have no idea whether it's "worth it" from a net-gain perspective, but I do it anyway, every game I've ever played.

I try to get one breeding pair of every animal, actually...it's one of those personal goals/restrictions that I do every game.  If I understand the new way that wealth is calculated in 1.0, this is probably going to get me killed going forward, but...I'll have my animals to keep me happy in the meantime.