Animal husbandry

For a more general overview, see Animals.

All animals in Rimworld can be tamed, providing certain benefits to the colony. Some animals can be trained, others require enclosed spaces (pen) to remain in the colony, and yet others can lose its tame state if left alone for too long.

Any animal that requires a pen to remain on the colony is considered a farm animal and can't be trained. Farm animals don't lose tameness due to wildness.

Taming

Wild animals can be tamed by a animal handler with sufficient Animal skill and available food. Tamed animals may be bred, trained, traded, slaughtered, or farmed.

Wild animals may be marked for taming using the Tame order.

An animal handler will attempt to tame marked animals using food fitting that animal's diet. The chance to tame an animal depends on the animal's wildness (displayed on the info window) and the handler's 'Tame animal chance' stat. This stat is determined by the colonist's animals skill, manipulation, talking, and hearing. When a handler fails to tame an animal there is a cooldown period of 30,000 ticks (8.33 mins), or 12 in-game hours, before another attempt can be made. There is also a chance it will turn manhunter and start attacking the handler and others. There is also a chance it will turn manhunter and start attacking the handler and others. The revenge chance is shown on the Wildlife menu. After a while the handler may drop unused food.

Tamed animals will wander around the map until they are lead to a pen with a pen marker, for pen animals, or restricted to a designated area, for all other animals. Restricting non-pen animal movement using areas is usually necessary to prevent unwanted food consumption and animal filth.

Tame chances

For the calculation details, see Tame Animal Chance.

Besides the animal handler's own skill, the wildness of the animals also counts.

Tame chances undergo a post-processing curve.

• An animal with 0% wildness has a x2 taming chance.
• An animal with 50% wildness has normal taming chance.
• An animal with 100% wildness cannot be tamed at all.

The net effect of the curve above is the expression 2*(1-wildness). The minimum value it can take is 0 at 100% wildness while the max is 2(duplicates chance) at 0% wildness.

Currently, the hardest to tame animal is the Thrumbo. Assuming 20 Animal skill, the base taming chance is 1.92%.

Animals with 0% wildness remain tame forever. If wildness is above 0% (shown on the wildlife tab), the animals requires maintenance to not revert into its wild state. Farm animals will remain tamed regardless of wildness.

Minimum skill

For the calculation details, see Minimum Handling Skill.

Most animal species have a Minimum handling skill stat which determines the Animal skill necessary of a handler pawn. The game will briefly produce a warning message if no colonist has enough skill to handle the animal.

Any animal with 0% wildness can be handled even with 0 skill. This list includes but is not limited to: Alpaca, Cat, Chicken, Cow, Dromedary, Husky, Labrador retriever, Pig and Yorkshire terrier.

The highest minimum skill required by any animal is 10, which is required by both the Megasloth(97% wildness) and Thrumbo(98.5% wildness).

Starting pets

For most scenarios, new colonies will include a random pet that is already tamed. These pets will have a random name and have a chance to be bonded with a pawn. The animals available are determined by the handling skills of the starting pawn(s), as the game will not provide a pet that cannot be handled by the colony. This rule is broken when all colonists have animal handling disabled, as the game will still provide animals that require periodic taming.

The chance of getting an animal is influenced by the "petness" stat, with a higher value resulting in a higher chance. The selection of animals also influences the chances, as a Husky has a 26% chance of being selected with the highest handling skill at 0, while at level 8+ the chance is only 12%. Hares, snowhares, capybaras and cobras are all under 1% chance due to the petness being so low and the animal handling being so high.

Animals that can be starting pets

Animal	Handling skill required	Petness	Chance (with 8+ handling)
Yorkshire terrier	0	1	12.06%
Husky	0	1	12.06%
Labrador retriever	0	1	12.06%
Donkey	0	0.6	7.24%
Yak	0	0.3	3.62%
Cat	1	1	12.06%
Horse	4	0.6	7.24%
Iguana	4	0.15	1.81%
Rat	4	0.15	1.81%
Monkey	5	0.5	6.03%
Warg	5	0.5	6.03%
Guinea pig	5	0.3	3.62%
Chinchilla	5	0.2	2.41%
Boomrat	7	0.2	2.41%
Fennec fox	7	0.1	1.21%
Red fox	7	0.1	1.21%
Arctic fox	7	0.1	1.21%
Hare	7	0.08	0.97%
Snowhare	7	0.08	0.97%
Capybara	7	0.08	0.97%
Cobra	7	0.05	0.60%
Timber wolf	8	0.1	1.21%
Arctic wolf	8	0.1	1.21%

Interactions

Some animal species can be trained by colonists. With Guard trained, they will follow their master around if designated to do so.

Some species may be harvested to produce milk, chemfuel, or wool. Still others passively lay frequent eggs.

Occasionally, some animals can nuzzle colonists, giving the colonist a mood buff. Animals can nuzzle anyone regardless of handling skill.

When injured, they will go to animal sleeping spots/ beds for rest and treatment.

Naming

Newly tamed or purchased animals are distinguished by numerical designations(“Muffalo 1”, “Muffalo 2”, etc.). When an animal forms a bond with a colonist, it is given a unique name. Names can be changed by the player from the "Training" tab in the inspect pawn pane. Names of tamed animals are not shown on the map unless the option is turned on, via Menu, Options, 'Show animal names'.

Animals may have a gender-specific name (i.e. hen, rooster, buck, doe), or a lifestage-specific name (piglet, puppy), or even a gender/lifestage-specific name (cockerel).

It is possible for animals which have been lost or sold to reappear later as part of a wild herd. This will only happen with animals which occur naturally on your colony's biome. They will still have the name you gave them (including automatic names like "Muffalo 2"), but will need to be tamed and trained again.

Bonding

Animals may bond with their handlers or doctors, and starting pets have a chance to start the game bonded with a random starting colonist. A bond gives a mood effects to non-psychopathic pawns. These include:

• A +5 mood bonus while assigned as a bonded animal's master. Note that this does not scale with the number of bonded animals.
• A −3 mood malus while not assigned as a bonded animal's master. Note that this does not scale with the number of bonded animals.
• A −10 mood malus for 60 days for a bonded animal being sold, stacking up to 10 times. This will also inflict an opinion malus on the pawn that performed the action.
• A −8 mood malus for 20 days for a bonded animal being lost, stacking up to 5 times for 5 unique animals.
• A −8 mood malus for 20 days for a bonded animal being killed, stacking up to 5 times for 5 unique animals. This will also inflict an opinion malus on the pawn that performed the action.
• A −5 mood malus for 15 days for a bonded animal being released into the wild, stacking up to 5 times for 5 unique animals.

All moodlets stack with each other.

Bonds can occur when:

• When an animal has its wounds tended by a colonist, there is a constant 0.4% chance that the animal will bond with the colonist, regardless of Animals skill. If the animal is wild, the animal will instantly self-tame, disregarding wildness.
• When tamed, an animal also has a 1% chance to bond with the tamer.
• When successfully trained, an animal has a 0.7% chance to bond with the trainer.
• Every 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs), if an animal is within 12 tiles and has line of sight to their master, there is a 0.1% chance to bond.
• For starting animals, the % to start bonded with an owner appears to be related to the innate wildness (i.e. horses and camels will start bonded more often than cobras or wargs). Domestic animals (wildness 0 - dogs, cats, some farm animals) will always start bonded.

Pawns with the Animal connection: Strong precept in their ideoligion have a ×2 multiplier on bonding chance. Pawns with the Bonding: Disapproved precept in their ideoligion cannot be bonded with, but they will not lose existing bonds, nor their mood effects, if the precept is added via a fluid ideoligion's reformation.^{[Conversion?]}

Bonded animals are also easier to train (5x multiplier on chance).^{[By Master or by all?]} Animals are given a unique name upon bonding.

On the death of the pawn an animal is bonded with, it can go into one of two animal mental breaks; manhunter, in which it will attack all nearby entities, or confusion, in which it will wander around, uncontrollably, similar to dazed humans.

Training

Tamed animals may be trained depending on their trainable intelligence. Click the animal's training tab to specify training targets and view progress.

The stats of the training pawn, including Animals skill or Global Work Speed, have no effect on how fast each training session is completed. Instead, increased skill improves a pawn's Train Animal Chance, resulting in the animal requiring fewer training attempts in the first place. After a training attempt on a tamed animal, there is a 6 in-game hour waiting period before that same animal can be trained again.

Once Guard is trained, they can be assigned a master which they will follow. You can configure when the animal will follow their master, by toggling whether or not the animal will follow while doing field work (hunting/taming), or while drafted, from the Animals menu.

Many skills require multiple steps to fully train. Guard has three steps, rescue and attack have two, and haul has 5. An animal also has five stages of tameness to maintain.

Animal skills decay over time. The speed at which skills decay is dependent on wildness of the animal. For many species, their wildness is high enough such that their tameness decreases over time and they may eventually return to the wild. For this reason, if you do not have handlers meeting the animal's minimum handling skill, it is best to sell or slaughter before your animal returns to the wild. Animals requiring a pen will never lose tameness.

Orders Table

Orders		Training intelligence required	Steps	Description
Guard		Simple	3	An animal trained in guard will follow its master and attack nearby aggressors. An animal's master is listed on the Training tab and on the Animals menu. Multiple animals may be assigned to a single master. Note that assigning an animal to the pawn it is bonded with will give that pawn a permanent +5 moodlet, and if a bonded animal is not assigned to its bonded pawn, that pawn gets a permanent −3 moodlet. Mood effects stack with multiple bonded animals, and one pawn can have both the positive and negative moodlets from two bonded animals
Attack		Intermediate	5	Using the 'attack' command, animals may leave their master's immediate area to attack enemies. When the 'Animals Attack' command is turned off, animals will guard their master and only attack enemies nearby.
Rescue		Advanced	2	Animals trained in rescue will rescue its master as well as nearby colonists in a radius of 75. Only species of sufficient size can rescue.
Haul		Advanced	7	Animals trained in hauling will haul just as colonists do, although each species has a specific carrying capacity according to its size. Only species of sufficient size can haul, but this requirement is lesser than for rescuing. Animals will perform hauling intermittently with an MTB of 1.5 hours. Apart from being able to move, animals also need an intact jaw in order to haul. Animals will only haul within their allowed area if they are assigned to one. Animal Move Speed Carrying Capacity Haul Throughput Wildness Hunger Rate Filth Rate Juvenile Age Maturity Age Min Temperature Max Temperature Arctic wolf 5 64 320 85% 0.29 2 12 30 -55 40 Carrier 2.4 50 120 0% - 1 - - -50 50 Cougar 5 75 375 80% 0.32 2 15 30 -25 40 Elephant 4.8 300 1440 75% 2.57 24 18 39.96 -12 50 Grizzly bear 4.6 161 740.6 80% 0.56 4 12 30 -40 40 Husky 5 65 325 0% 0.8 1 15 30 -50 40 Labrador retriever 5 56 280 0% 0.64 1 15 30 -30 40 Megasloth 4.8 300 1440 97% 1.6 24 19.98 40.02 -55 40 Megaspider 3.6 90 324 40% 0.56 1 1.8 12 -40 60 Panther 5 75 375 80% 0.32 2 15 30 -8 50 Polar bear 4.6 161 740.6 85% 0.56 4 12 30 -55 40 Spelopede 3.65 60 219 30% 0.4 1 1.8 12 -25 60 Thrumbo 5.5 300 1650 98.5% 2.8 8 45 79.92 -65 50 Timber wolf 5 64 320 85% 0.29 2 12 30 -40 40

Combat

Once Guard is trained, animals will gather around their master upon drafting, and will attack nearby threats, or (unintentionally) block ranged attacks for their master. This is configurable and can be disabled by disabling follow during drafted.

With Attack trained, animals can be released to attack threats from a distance. Even colonists incapable of Violence can send their assigned animals into battle.

Animals can be downed during combat, and can be rescued by colonists or other animals capable of Rescue.

Slaughtering

Tamed animals may be slaughtered selecting the animal and clicking the Slaughter button, or by using the Slaughter tool from the Orders menu. An animal marked in this way will be slaughtered by an animal handler. The handler need not be equipped with a weapon but must be capable of violence. This job takes ???^{[How long?]} to perform and instantly kills the animal - the animal will not resist, flee, or fight. You can also set up an auto-slaughter order in the animals tab, configurable to limit the amount of male, female, and pregnant animals in a pen.

Animals killed through damage suffer a 66% multiplier to Meat Amount and Leather Amount. Slaughtering, throat slitting a downed-but-not-injured animal as a hunting task, the "euthanize by cut" operation, and the Animal Sacrifice ritual all result in a careful slaughter and avoid the 66% modifier.

If you try to slaughter a bonded animal, the game will warn you about it due to the mood impact this has on the animal's master.

Auto-Slaughter

Via the Animals button on the bottom bar is a "Manage auto-slaughter.." option. Auto-slaughter allows the player to automatically cull animals above a defined threshold.

Total Animals, Male/Female Adults, Male/Female Young are all definable amounts that the player can set. If the current animal count exceeds any of the defined amounts in any of these columns the eldest allowed animal of that exceeded type is slaughtered. These 5 left-most columns function as OR operators. The two rightmost columns allow the player to allow the slaughtering of pregnant or bonded animals if desired.

Other Interactions

Caravans

Main article: Pack animal

These animals can graze, meaning they don't usually require food during a caravan. (This may not be true when traveling across cold or inhospitable biomes, like tundra or deserts, or in winter in general.) When carrying items in their inventory, they will appear to have packs on, which disappear when unloaded.

Release to Wild

Unwanted animals can be released to the wild using a command next to the slaughter button. Releasing bonded animals also causes a mood debuff to master of the animal.

Social

Each animal has a Social tab that lists that animal's human bonds and familial relations. Clicking an entry jumps to that bond's counterpart on the map. Animals, even wild ones, have a small chance of bonding with a colonist everytime they interact. Bonded animals are given a unique name by their Master. Animals assigned to Guard a bonded human will give their master a permanent +5 mood thought. Humans who are not the master of their bonded animal receive a -5 "Not bonded animal's master" thought. Animals do not have a mood meter. Humans may have more than one bonded animal, but animals may only have one human bond.

Trade goods

Tamed animals may be sold to traders. Animals purchased from traders will be already tamed. Bulk goods traders offer pets and farm animals while exotic goods traders carry most of the wild species. Traders offering animals will attempt to at least carry a breeding pair of a core farm animal.

Products

Certain tame animals produce milk, wool, or eggs. Milking and shearing sometimes fail, indicated with a brief "product wasted" message.

Eggs

Animal	Fert. Egg	Unfert. Egg	Nutrition per Egg	Avg Eggs per Clutch	Laying Interval	Avg Eggs per Day	Egg Nutrition per Day	Needed Males / Female	Daily Hunger Rate	Daily Egg Nutrition per Hunger
Cassowary		N/A	0.5	1	3.33 days	0.3	0.15	0.33	0.6	0.25
Chicken			0.25	1	1 days	1	0.25	0	0.22	1.14
Cobra		N/A	0.25	1.5	10 days	0.15	0.04	0.11	0.12	0.31
Duck			0.25	1	1 days	1	0.25	0	0.28	0.89
Emu		N/A	0.5	1	3.33 days	0.3	0.15	0.33	0.6	0.25
Goose			0.5	1	2 days	0.5	0.25	0	0.45	0.56
Iguana		N/A	0.25	1.5	5.661 days	0.26	0.07	0.19	0.38	0.17
Ostrich		N/A	0.6	1	3.33 days	0.3	0.18	0.33	0.89	0.2
Tortoise		N/A	0.25	2	6.66 days	0.3	0.08	0.17	0.15	0.49
Turkey		N/A	0.5	1	1.333 days	0.75	0.38	0.83	0.82	0.46

Milk

Animal	Milk Amount	Milking Interval	Milk/Day (Average)	Milk / food consumed per day	Nutrition / food consumed per day
Caribou	10	2	5	11.36	0.57
Cow	14	1	14	16.28	0.81
Dromedary	18	2	9	10.47	0.52
Elk	11	1	11	12.79	0.64
Goat	12	3	4	11.11	0.56
Yak	11	1	11	12.79	0.64

Wool

Animal	Wool Amount	Shearing Interval	Daily Wool Average
Alpaca	45	10	4.5
Bison	120	15	8
Megasloth	200	20	10
Muffalo	120	15	8
Sheep	45	10	4.5

Chemfuel

Animal	Chemfuel Amount	Milking Interval	Daily Chemfuel Average
Boomalope	11	1	11

Raising animals

Feeding animals

The simplest way to feed non-strictly-carnivorous animals is to create a large pen where animals can graze on the wild grass and brambles. The pen marker will show the number of animals the wild plants can sustain (measured in cows, goats, and chickens. When the weather is too cold or too hot though, plants grow slower or even stop growing. Furthermore, plants become totally inedible when the temperature drops below -10 °C (14 °F), because they all are considered leafless, grass as well as trees. This mechanic is not explained in-game, and is quite puzzling to unaware players. It looks like animals starve on top of good-looking grass. See Plants#Temperature for more info.

Animal	Diet	Tameness Decay Interval (Days)	Produces	Produce / Day	Produced Nutrition / Day	Males / Female	Baby Slaughter			Adult Slaughter
							Meat Nutrition / Day	Consumption / Day	Overall Nutrition Efficiency	Meat Nutrition / Day	Consumption / Day	Overall Nutrition Efficiency
Alpaca	herbivorous	–	Alpaca wool	4.5	–	0.17	0.23	0.51	0.452	1.05	1.23	0.856
Alphabeaver	dendrovorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.13	0.24	5.42	0.043	0.74	19.99	0.037
Arctic fox	carnivorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.11	0.19	0.18	1.066	0.66	0.53	1.244
Arctic wolf	carnivorous	6.9	–	–	–	0.11	0.24	0.32	0.754	1.02	1.23	0.835
Bison	herbivorous	–	Bison wool	8	–	0.17	0.5	1	0.502	2.52	2.25	1.119
Boomalope	herbivorous	–	Chemfuel	11	–	0.17	0.42	1	0.969	2.1	2.39	1.11
Boomrat	omnivorous grazer	7.5	–	–	–	0.13	0.22	0.25	0.855	0.48	0.8	0.599
Capybara	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.19	0.29	0.43	0.67	1.16	1.29	0.901
Caribou	herbivorous	–	Milk	5	0.25	0.17	0.23	0.51	0.938	1.05	1.13	1.152
Cassowary	herbivorous	–	Egg (fert.)	0.3	0.15	0.33	0.26	0.6	0.428	1.26	1.66	0.76
Cat	carnivorous, ovivorous	–	–	–	–	0.11	0.16	0.27	0.618	0.44	0.96	0.456
Chicken	herbivorous	–	Egg (fert.) & (unfert.)	1	0.25	0.74	0.6	0.39	1.539	2.1	1.84	1.141
Chinchilla	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.13	0.28	0.23	1.231	0.76	0.71	1.06
Cobra	carnivorous, ovivorous	7.5	Egg (fert.)	0.15	0.04	0.11	0.11	0.12	0.905	0.27	0.45	0.601
Cougar	carnivorous, ovivorous	7.2	–	–	–	0.11	0.16	0.36	0.436	0.7	0.91	0.772
Cow	herbivorous	–	Milk	14	0.7	0.17	0.5	1	1.201	2.52	1.87	1.721
Deer	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.19	0.31	0.38	0.812	1.48	1.11	1.337
Donkey	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.17	0.29	0.61	0.481	1.47	1.37	1.074
Dromedary	herbivorous	–	Milk	9	0.45	0.17	0.44	1	0.892	2.21	2.25	1.179
Duck	herbivorous	–	Egg (fert.) & (unfert.)	1	0.25	0.74	0.6	0.49	1.232	2.1	2.3	0.912
Elephant	herbivorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.08	0.42	2.77	0.152	2.1	7.34	0.287
Elk	herbivorous	–	Milk	11	0.55	0.17	0.44	1	0.991	2.21	2.39	1.154
Emu	herbivorous	–	Egg (fert.)	0.3	0.15	0.33	0.26	0.6	0.428	1.26	1.66	0.76
Fennec fox	carnivorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.11	0.19	0.18	1.066	0.66	0.53	1.244
Gazelle	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.19	0.22	0.29	0.773	0.87	0.62	1.395
Goat	herbivorous	–	Milk	4	0.2	0.2	0.23	0.43	0.999	0.94	1.07	1.066
Goose	herbivorous	–	Egg (fert.) & (unfert.)	0.5	0.25	0.37	0.43	0.61	0.692	2.1	2.07	1.017
Grizzly bear	omnivorous, ovivorous	7.2	–	–	–	0.11	0.3	0.62	0.483	1.51	1.65	0.914
Guinea pig	herbivorous	8.4	–	–	–	0.11	0.18	0.18	1.036	0.41	0.42	0.962
Hare	herbivorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.13	0.22	0.21	1.041	0.48	0.66	0.729
Horse	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.17	0.5	0.8	0.632	2.52	1.79	1.408
Husky	omnivorous, ovivorous	–	–	–	–	0.11	0.24	0.89	0.271	1.03	3.26	0.316
Ibex	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.19	0.27	0.38	0.719	1.24	0.83	1.495
Iguana	omnivorous grazer	9	Egg (fert.)	0.26	0.07	0.19	0.25	0.38	0.661	0.74	1.05	0.706
Labrador retriever	omnivorous, ovivorous	–	–	–	–	0.11	0.25	0.71	0.354	1.02	2.85	0.357
Lynx	carnivorous, ovivorous	7.2	–	–	–	0.11	0.12	0.21	0.54	0.42	0.56	0.744
Megasloth	herbivorous	6.18	Megasloth wool	10	–	0.08	0.42	1.73	0.243	2.1	4.49	0.468
Monkey	omnivorous grazer	8.4	–	–	–	0.17	0.14	0.23	0.578	0.37	0.47	0.787
Muffalo	herbivorous	–	Muffalo wool	8	–	0.17	0.5	1	0.502	2.52	2.25	1.119
Ostrich	herbivorous	–	Egg (fert.)	0.3	0.18	0.33	0.32	0.89	0.353	2.1	2.49	0.845
Panther	carnivorous, ovivorous	7.2	–	–	–	0.11	0.16	0.36	0.436	0.7	0.91	0.772
Pig	omnivorous grazer	–	–	–	–	0.19	0.56	0.95	0.587	2.77	3.35	0.826
Polar bear	omnivorous, ovivorous	6.9	–	–	–	0.11	0.3	0.62	0.483	1.51	1.65	0.914
Raccoon	omnivorous grazer	7.5	–	–	–	0.13	0.25	0.36	0.696	0.74	1.03	0.719
Rat	omnivorous grazer	9	–	–	–	0.13	0.2	0.18	1.104	0.44	0.54	0.817
Red fox	carnivorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.11	0.19	0.18	1.066	0.66	0.53	1.244
Rhinoceros	herbivorous	6.6	–	–	–	0.08	0.32	1.85	0.171	1.58	4.22	0.374
Sheep	herbivorous	–	Sheep wool	4.5	–	0.19	0.3	0.43	0.707	1.22	1.25	0.981
Snowhare	herbivorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.13	0.22	0.21	1.041	0.48	0.66	0.729
Squirrel	herbivorous	7.5	–	–	–	0.19	0.18	0.19	0.938	0.4	0.5	0.784
Thrumbo	herbivorous, dendrovorous	6.09	–	–	–	0.06	0.28	2.97	0.094	1.4	9.15	0.153
Timber wolf	carnivorous	6.9	–	–	–	0.11	0.24	0.32	0.754	1.02	1.23	0.835
Tortoise	omnivorous grazer	7.5	Egg (fert.)	0.3	0.08	0.17	0.32	0.15	2.042	1.05	0.43	2.468
Toxalope	herbivorous	–	–	–	–	0.17	0.29	1	0.292	1.05	2.39	0.44
Turkey	herbivorous	–	Egg (fert.)	0.75	0.38	0.83	0.64	0.82	0.778	3.15	3	1.051
Warg	raw meat and corpses	8.4	–	–	–	0.11	0.34	0.44	0.756	1.69	1.7	0.99
Waste rat	omnivorous grazer	9	–	–	–	0.13	0.24	0.18	1.34	0.6	0.54	1.106
Wild boar	omnivorous grazer	–	–	–	–	0.19	0.31	0.57	0.541	1.31	1.94	0.678
Yak	herbivorous	–	Milk	11	0.55	0.17	0.44	1	0.991	2.21	2.39	1.154
Yorkshire terrier	omnivorous, ovivorous	–	–	–	–	0.11	0.16	0.27	0.618	0.44	0.8	0.547

Growing haygrass

While the land can sustain a sizable population of animals grazing on it, it doesn't have an infinite supply and can still be depleted. Winter can also stop grass growth, leaving nothing for your grazing animals to eat.

If you need to raise a lot of animals, e.g. an exponentially growing flock of chickens, you will need to grow haygrass to sustain them all. You also need to have a stock of haygrass to keep animals fed through the winter.

Haygrass gives a total of 0.9 nutrition (18 units of hay) when fully grown and harvested, compared to 0.5 of grass. However, you have to keep your hungry animals from getting to it otherwise they'll only get a max of 0.2 nutrition from eating the plant.

Making kibble

Kibble is a kind of animal feed made with both plant and animal sources. It can be made using haygrass and any kind of meat, including human or insect meat. Producing kibble at a butcher table costs 1 nutrition of vegetables or hay and 1 nutrition of meat or animal products, and produces 2.5 nutrition of kibble.

All animals except wargs can eat it, so it makes a good way to feed your animals using mixed sources of nutrition, including those that animals won't normally eat. Kibble also lasts forever under a roof so you can store it and use it to feed animals when in need, such as in winter when there is nothing to eat.

When you feed a population of herbivorous or omnivorous animals kibble made from their own meat or milk, the formula for their nutrition efficiency can be calculated as:

nutritionEfficiency(kibble) = 2.5×nutritionEfficiency(raw vegetables) - 1

If effect, this means that for any animal population that has a nutrition efficiency of at least 0.667, it is more efficient to feed them kibble rather than hay. It is worth noting, however, that this will increase the amount of butchering and cooking labour needed to support the higher animal population required.

Pens

Main article: Pens

Pens are areas which farm animals are assigned to. These pen animals will be passive, meaning that hostiles will not attack these animals, and vice versa. Tamed pen animals must be put in a pen, or they will occasionally attempt to leave the map, meaning they disappear forever. Colonists will automatically rope roaming farm animals and place them in the pen. The borders of pens can be marked with: solid walls, doors, fences, fence gates, and animal flaps. To mark an enclosed area as a pen, place a pen marker inside. The pen marker also tells you the amount of animals that can be sustained in a pen with wild plants, measured in cows, goats, and chickens. An attached, roofed, and heated/cooled coop can be built with an animal flap as a door instead of a regular door for animals to stay warm or cool down during extreme temperatures.

Corpse freezer

In typical RimWorlder fashion, you can use a freezer to preserve the corpses of raiders (or dead colonists if you're desperate) so you can feed omnivorous and carnivorous animals. This allows you to make use of corpses while avoiding heavy mood penalties from butchering humans or eating their flesh.

Pet care

Tamed animals that have a social bond to a person will affect the master's mood positively while living and negatively if killed (-8 for 20 days). This bond will either improve resistance against mental breaks or cause them. Because of the effect they cause on feelings, these creatures should be given special treatment, or any animal worth keeping alive.

These are a few tips to keep them safe:

• Keep them indoors by creating a new animal zone within a room.
• Keep them at the Home area after building a base wall.
• Prey pets should not be left wandering around in unrestricted area.
• Hunt their predators to prevent surprise attacks (or just wall the base in to prevent predators from coming in).
• Patrol your perimeter by zooming your view out to a larger scale but not to full, just enough to spot their sleeping animation of flying ZZZs while they rest at night. Sweeping your surroundings once every night shall keep you aware of threat presence.
• Animals can get into drugs, store them in specialized storage areas and use a zone to prevent them from accessing it, depending on size they may be prone to overdose or getting blackout from alcohol, being more dangerous with Boomrats which can set fire to the storage area. Pen Animals should also be kept away from storage areas for this reason.

Note: The first three of these tips only apply to pet animals. Farm animals are passive while in pens, though if the pen is built with fences, predators can still pass through.

Version history

• 0.12.906 - Animals can now be tamed and trained. Animals now sleep. Animals can be pregnant and give birth. Animals can be named when tamed or when nuzzling. Animals produce animal filth. Animals have “life stages” related to their ages. Eggs, Milk and Wool production added. Nuzzling added. Animals have life expectancies.
• 0.12.910 - Rebalanced animal hunger rate and animal hauling.
• 0.13.1135 - Added new animals, some of which will hunt people. Some animals are now predators, including colony pets (e.g. cats catch squirrels). Animals can gnaw corpses apart directly now. Animal bonding added.
• Beta 19/1.0 Update - Obedience training steps 1 -> 3. Nuzzle target search distance 15 -> 40. Nuzzled memory duration 0.5 days->1 day, stacked effect multiplier 0.95->0.5, stack limit 10
• 1.1.0 - Changed animal rescue radius from 30 to 75. Fix: Jawless animals can still haul.
• 1.2.2719 - Removed naming animals through nuzzling. Animals only get names by bonding, or if given names by the player (so you can implicitly tell which animals are bonded by seeing which have names).
• 1.3.3066 - Major overhaul to animals: added multiple animal-related buildings, added pens, decreased trainability of boomalope to none, added sterilization, added release to wild.

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Animals

Herbivorous

Alpaca • Bison • Boomalope • Capybara • Caribou • Cassowary • Chicken • Chinchilla • Cow • Deer • Donkey • Dromedary • Duck • Elephant • Elk • Emu • Gazelle • Goat • Goose • Guinea pig • Hare • Horse • Ibex • Megasloth • Muffalo • Ostrich • Rhinoceros • Sheep • Snowhare • Squirrel • Turkey • Yak • Toxalope

Dendrovorous

Alphabeaver • Thrumbo

Omnivorous

Boomrat • Grizzly bear • Human • Husky • Iguana • Labrador retriever • Megascarab • Megaspider • Monkey • Pig • Polar bear • Spelopede • Raccoon • Rat • Tortoise • Wild boar • Yorkshire terrier • Waste rat

Carnivorous

Arctic fox • Arctic wolf • Cat • Cobra • Cougar • Fennec fox • Lynx • Panther • Red fox • Timber wolf • Warg

Dryads

Barkskin • Berrymaker • Carrier • Clawer • Gaumaker • Immature dryad • Medicinemaker • Woodmaker