Animal Husbandry Questions

Because there are too many crafting/profession skills for each to have its own forum.
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Irylia
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Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Irylia »

I'm getting to a point where I'm almost ready to start buying sheep or goats for my farm (just trying to make that riln push), and I think a few others are nearing that point as well based on the build requests I've received in-game. I do have a few questions though before getting started and I have a feeling others might also.

1) Would it be possible to get more information about this skill/profession posted to the Wiki soon-ish?

2) Are there appropriate tools in-game already to support maintaining and feeding these types of livestock? I assume for sheep there are some things for sheering or other mechanics that might not be in yet. I haven't seen them available, but I'm also not entirely sure what I'm looking for.

3) How do we feed these kinds of animals? Would it be possible to get some kind of grass crop implemented for hay or are they meant to just graze on whatever farm land is available and don't need to be fed like chickens do? If the latter, do they need a certain amount of space in addition to the space the small animal shed takes up - like X number of field slots for grazing or whatever?

4) Is there a way to tell which animals provide what resources before buying so we know what to expect or what to harvest from them? For example: Sheep can be used for wool or mutton. Goats for milk or chevon. Cows for milk and beef. etc. Since animals are so expensive, are they not planned for meat consumption or is meat just really really expensive? I'm not planning to kill my livestock anyway, just wondering if that's part of the skill/profession or not.

5) For bees... is there any kind of instruction on how to harvest honey? Do I need special tools for that? How do I know if it's ready to harvest? Is it possible to split the "starter" honeycomb to share with other farmers so they can start bees too or is this not fully implemented yet?

If this is somewhat low-priority, just let me know it's not ready yet and I can find other things to keep testing out, I'm sure. Thanks for all the hard work so far! And if anyone else has questions, I encourage you to ask :)
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Irylia
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Irylia »

Bumping this with more questions/suggestions as I've been able to do more with Animal Husbandry and others seem interested in trying it:

First let me go through what I previously asked about since some of it has changed but there haven't been any updates here.

1) Wiki post and helpfile - this is still missing.

2) Tools for maintenance and feeding all seem to be in. Grass can be harvested from the plains using a scythe and if left on the ground livestock will eat it. Chickens can eat biscuits or other kinds of food as they won't eat the grass.

**Pro Tip** Be careful about room order as there's no way for animals to distinguish food other than what they won't eat. So if there's biscuits ahead of the grass in room order, the livestock will eat it all and the chickens may starve.

3) Feeding part answered above. Space part - there doesn't seem to be additional space requirements aside from the space the animal's specific shelter takes up.

4) Livestock currently seems to be for non-meat purposes only (though I haven't tried killing one because they're still pretty expensive). There still doesn't seem to be a way to tell what they will produce when ordering them from the Town Hall.

5) Bees question still has no answer from what I can tell. There's no way to harvest the honey that I'm aware of or to share the honeycomb. The hive seems to cap out at six large pieces, but still doesn't indicate that it's actually full - there's just no more produced at that point.

***

Now that that's out of the way, here's a few other things to consider:

1) There is currently no way to tell how much space a structure for animals will take up. The only time space is indicated is when you actually go to build the structure and then the space required doesn't match the actual field space available. For example: A farm can get up to 40 slots of growing soil. The large animal shed requires 16 "plots", but even if you have 24 open spaces of growing soil it's not enough for 16 "plots". So a plot doesn't seem to equal a growing space. This makes it difficult to tell how small a farm field has to be to make room for structures. Would it be possible to get a way to assess the farm for available space and also put something in the recipe info for how much space is required?

2) There is also no way to tell how many animals a structure can hold, if small animals can shelter inside a large structure vs a small one, how many of each type of animal can fit in any given structure. Being able to get this information would be very helpful with planning and space management.

3) It would be amazing if we could get additional livestock breeds or types added to the market for different kinds of produce.

- Different varieties of bird such as new breeds of chicken, doves/pigeons, turkeys, quail, pheasant, tropical birds that perhaps shed feathers in addition to laying eggs so they can be used for fletching, decoration of clothes or accessories, and cooking. Maybe once a day you find a handful of feathers from each bird type or whatever.

- Different varieties of fiber, hair, or wool producing animals for weaving of cloths or other uses - silk (worms), alpaca (llama/alpaca), angora (rabbits - though having them shed/sheerable would be preferred to killing them), bison (undercoat hair that sheds year-round instead of seasonally), cashmere (cashmere goat wool), mohair (angora goat hair), qiviut (muskox underwool that can be harvested year-round), camel-hair (from camels), horsehair (from the mane/tail, used for musical bows, brushes, decoration). Understandably some of these creatures may not exist and alternates to fit the universe would be neat.

4) Would it be possible to set up a feeding system that's a little more sophisticated than just dropping grass and biscuits on the ground for animals to munch on? Maybe being able to put the food into the animal's shelters so they eat what's theirs and not what's another animal's. Looking at the shelter could show how much food is it it and how much room for more livestock there is. This would help clear up ground clutter as well. Obviously very low priority and all that, but it would be a nice addition I think.

Thanks for reading!
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Lexx416
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Lexx416 »

Just some idle comments!

Angora rabbits don't actually need to be sheared IRL, and wool can be spun right OFF of them without hurting or stressing them. It's pretty neat.

As for chickens, it was actually very uncommon for a very long time for chicken to be consumed as a protein, until a hen stopped laying eggs. The price of chickens in game probably reflects this, and it'd be nice if the actual price of chicken meat on the market reflected this as well! Until around the 1950s or so in fact, poultry was a luxury food.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
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Irylia
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Irylia »

Well I'm not planning to kill them anyway, haha. I realize the price is high due to the permanent nature of the animals and I'm ok with it. The prices already had a 0 dropped so that's good. Thanks for the info!

While I was on the rampage with all the crafting posts I thought I might also suggest that maybe candle-making could go combined under both Bushcraft and Animal Husbandry. This would mean that bees would need to have the wax harvested in addition to the honey, but I think it could be doable.
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Lexx416
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Lexx416 »

Irylia wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 6:50 pm While I was on the rampage with all the crafting posts I thought I might also suggest that maybe candle-making could go combined under both Bushcraft and Animal Husbandry. This would mean that bees would need to have the wax harvested in addition to the honey, but I think it could be doable.
That would be pretty neat! Soap making and candle-making could both probably fall under Animal Husbandry and (to a more primitive extent) bushcraft. Bushcraft could probably produce more limited, rough variations (see my rush-light example in the Bushcraft thread) that cap at average quality, while animal husbandry is when stuff could get fancy, and provide morale boosts in the case of soaps for instance, maybe even scented candles.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
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Rias
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Rias »

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of some crafts falling under Animal Husbandry. While I don't want it to intrude on other dedicated skills (like weaving for utilizing wool), I think it's cool to have husbandry include things like making candles from beeswax, as suggested. Any other ideas in that vein? And yes, I'll happily hybridize them into other skills when it makes sense (like adding some to Bushcraft as well).
<Rias> PUT ON PANTS
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Irylia
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Irylia »

If you want to add candles, maybe weavers could get braided cotton wicks as a recipe. We could also add tallow from animal fat. Hunters/Bushcrafters could get it pretty easily.

Beeswax uses:
- Sealant to make leather water resistant
- Wax writing tablets
- Making soaps
- Lost-wax casting
- Furniture polish/sealant
- Shoe polish
- Medical salves

Milk uses:
- Cheese
- Yogurt
- Heavy cream
- Sour cream
- Whipped cream
- Buttermilk
- Soured milk/kefir
- Cottage cheese
- Clotted cream
- Cream cheese
- Custard
- Eggnog
- Ghee
- Paneer
- Whey
- Silver polish
- Remedy for itchy skin
- Shoe shine (patent leather)
- Stain remover (ink)

Horsehair uses:
- Upholstery fabrics and stuffing
- Ropes/cords
- Paintbrushes
- Instrument bow-strings
- Fishing line
- Wigs
- Hats
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Lexx416
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Lexx416 »

A nice use for beeswax would be waxed papers. Taking a sheet of paper and impregnating it with beeswax creates a sheet of material that helps lock in or keep out moisture. This would be a great thing to wrap baked goods (cookies, tarts, bread), sandwiches, etc. In, to keep them from spoiling quite as quickly.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
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Irylia
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Irylia »

Would it be possible to review the food consumption rate of rabbits. They seem to eat as much as the larger animals but their food sources have fewer bites so you need far more of them to sustain the lil guys. I tried some of the larger vegetables in the hutch to see if that would help and they wouldn't touch them so they just spoiled. I don't mind them being a little more high maintenance, it was just a little surprising how much they go through in a day.
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Rias
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Re: Animal Husbandry Questions

Post by Rias »

Whoops. I knew I'd forget something when adding new animal types. Rabbits have had their food consumption volume needs updated to be more rabbit-like.
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