Talk:Animal husbandry

Those consumption and nutrition efficiency numbers in the table are completely wrong. Are they outdated? Where do they come from? For example, the game states that adult cows and horses consume 0.856 nutrition/day and produce 0.84 nutrition/day(16.8 meat/day). Cows and horses have exactly the same values, here they are different. In 20 days of their growth period they produce 16.8 nutrition(336 meat) and consume 4.47 nutrition(12 days as baby, 8 days as juvenile), which is 376% meat nutrition efficiency. If the author claims that the table numbers are correct, then they require a lot of explaining.

Is it just the Horse vs Cow or are there other issues? Because it looks like the Horse page had the wrong baseHungerRate defined (0.525 when it should have been 0.535, the same as a cow), which has now been fixed. It may take a bit to propagate out to other pages though.

If there are other issues that may indicate a systemic problem, let me know.

I'm talking about all values. Horse and cow were just an example. The numbers I get are completely different, not just slightly different. There is a huge difference between 132% meat nutrition efficiency and 376% meat nutrition efficiency, don't you think? At first, I wanted to know the methodology of those calculations, it's apparently very different.

Ok. I created an account. I see I also made a mistake: I used wrong hunger rates of baby and juvenile animals(20% and 35%). They are 40% for babies and 75% for juveniles according to https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Saturation#Multipliers.

This means a cow consumes 4.128 nutrition as baby(0.86*12*0.4) and 5.16 nutrition as juvenile, a total of 9.288. This makes the meat nutrition efficiency of a cow 181%(which is exactly the same for horses).

If I understand it correctly, then the calculated efficiency in this table also takes into account adult animals which must be sustained to produce offspring. It would be some kind of nutrition efficiency of the whole ranch rather than just one animal, but it should be specified as such in this case and should be a separate metric, since it's also influenced by other factors and people might not want the same male:female ratio as stated in the table. Still, I just checked the numbers for my pigs, and the nutrition efficiency calculated with the consumtion cost for adult pigs are far better than in the table and on the detail page https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Pig. The normal(individual) nutrition efficiency for a pig I get is 115%. I have 1:3 male:female ratio, this produces 31 non-adult pigs and 4 adult pigs(8:1) and the collective nutritional efficiency is 110%. If I had an optimal male:female ratio(whatever it is), the difference between the normal nutrition efficiency and collective nutrition efficiency would be even smaller. The values in the table and on the detail page also differ https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Pig. So, I think there is a lot of explaining needed.

It has to account for the time spent by the adult to gestate the baby, because otherwise baby animals would have an infinite nutritional efficiency if you slaughter before they eat anything.

I agree that the section needs more explaination but let me do a quick worked example to get on the same page.

Ignoring the father, a pig takes 5.661 days to gestate but the litter size averages out to 1.318 piglets. So the mother pig consumes (on avg) 5.661 days*0.8 nutrition/day /1.318 piglets = 3.44 nutrition per piglet. This time isn't accounted for in the mother's nutrition cost because you're only keeping her alive in adulthood to breed, as you could have slaughtered her as soon as she reached adulthood (and thus maximum meat return) otherwise.

The growing piglet then takes 0.4*0.8 nutrition/day * 6 days to grow from baby to juvenile + 0.75*0.8 nutrition/day * (20-6) days to grow from juvenile to adult = 1.92 + 8.4 = 10.32 nutrition to grow from a baby to adult

So a total of 13.76 nutrition produces 238 meat worth 238*0.05 = 11.9 nutrition. 11.9/13.76 = 86.5%.

Now that actual value gets worse because you need a male to impregnate the female and theres time spent between pregnancies, (and these factors are accounted for, with some assumptions in the templates behind the table) but that 86.5% is the upper bound of nutritional efficiency.

Ok, I guessed right, this isn't nutrition efficiency of an animal but of a specific ranch composition. Don't you think it's more important to know the nutrition of an animal than this, because the later is imprecise and dependent on many other factors which were replaced with assumptions which also weren't mentioned? In my opinion, it is still useful, but should be a separate metric and named according to its semantics.

I see where the mistake comes from. In this model, you calculate a gestation cost for an animal and add it to EVERY animal, but: 1. half of them are males, they are slaughtered right away and have no gestation period, no gestation cost, 2. most of female ones are also slaughtered right after they reach adulthood because the number of non-adults by far exceeds the number of adults kept to produce offspring. As I mentioned in the example above, I have 1 male adult pig, 3 female adult pigs, they produce 31 children, that's 1:8 adult:non-adult ratio. This ratio is all you need to calculate the overall efficiency including gestation cost. In this example, only 4 adult pigs are always kept alive, their consumption and production is constant: 0.8 and 0. Those 4 pigs are the operational cost for the ranch. As far as I understand pregnancy doesn't increase hunger, so there is also no need for distinction between male and female in terms of consumption.

You are the one that made the mistake.

31 children for 3 females = 10.333 children per female If it takes 5.661 days for each female to make 1.318 children, that means that you fed 1 male and 3 female pigs for 0.8 nutrition per per pig per day for 44.38 days (5.661*10.333/1.318). Or about 142 nutrition to make those 31 children. You still paid that nutrition to make the children. You didn't get them for free, even if they never at a single thing.

And if you killed the children as soon as they were born, you got 48 meat each. Or 1488 meat. Or 74.4 nutrition total.

So you spent 142 nutrition and got 74.4 nutrition back. Which is 0.523. Which is basically the same as the 0.551 on the table for "baby slaughter" because 3 females and 1 male is almost exactly the same as the 0.27 male/female ratio suggested by the table.

What? You've misunderstood. The males still have to be gestated. They don't just appear. It doesn't matter what gender the final pig is, you have to have feed a female pig for 5.661 days while they gestate otherwise the piglet never exists. If you didn't need them to gestate the piglet, you would ideally never feed an adult pig because as soo as they get to adulthood, you slaughter them.

Its not a matter of "ranch efficiency". Every single pig born has to have a mother kept alive for that period, so keeping their mother fed for that gestation period needs to be included in each pig's total nutritional cost, regardless of whether they breed or not. And if they do breed, its not counted against their cost, but the cost of their children same as it did for them.

Did you understand the mistake? Every pig needs to be gestated, but not every pig gestates. Please read my message above again, it already explains everything. You just repeated what I said with the exception that you believe the gestation cost should be applied to every pig.

Do you agree that invidividual nutrition efficiency of a pig is 115%(slaughtered when reaching adulthood)? In your model, what's the gestation cost of the ranch per day? I keep 4 pigs alive to produce the offspring. The whole gestation cost of the ranch is the consumption of those 4 adult pigs, 0.8*4 = 3.2. I don't need to overcomplicate things, the operational cost is 3.2 nutrition per day. I just add it to the total consumption of the non-adults to calculate the nutrition efficiency of the ranch.

Nutrition efficiency is about nutrition in vs nutrition out. Saying its "3.2 per day" doesn't mean anything if you don't quantify your nutrition out.

You want to do adult slaughter then. Lets take your 31 children. Lets kill the parents as soon as you get your 31 just for optimum efficiency. That way the parents don't keep eating food while providing nothing else.

So you've paid 142 nutrition to make those children. You could have killed their parents before they ate that 142 nutrition and gotten the meat from the parents then, but instead you fed them 142 extra nutrition to get the 31 children, and then you killed the parents and got their meat after. You didn't get more meat from the parents by doing that, you didn't get less, so the 142 nutrition you paid did nothing to the nutrition the parents provided, but you did get 31 children for that 142 nutrition. So that's a cost for the 31 children.

Now you grow those children up. They each spend 6 days as a baby eating 40% of 0.8 nutrition per day. So 1.92 nutrition to get to juvenile. They spend 14 days as a juvenile eating 75% of 0.8 nutrition per day. So 8.4 nutrition to get from juvenile to adult. So 10.32 nutrition to get from newborn to adult.

31 children each eat 10.32 total nutrition. 319.92 nutrition total. Plus the 142 nutrition to get the 31 in the first place. 461.92 nutrition eaten to give you 31 fully grown pigs.

Each pig gives you 238 meat. 31 pigs is 7378 meat. 7378 meat is 368.9 nutrition. 368.9 out/461.92 in = 80% nutrition efficiency. Slightly less than optimal in the table because rounding and your ratio isn't perfect and you could kill the male as soon as the last female pig is pregnant. But nowhere near 115%

If you instead made 310 children by keeping the parents alive longer, you would still have 80% nutrition efficiency. You'd consume 10 times more nutrition in and get 10 times more nutrition out. There is no difference. If you made 1 child it'd be WORSE because instead you'd increase the ratio of parents/children.

You are the one that made the mistake here.

No I do not agree that the nutritional efficiency of a pig is 115% because you don't get a piglet out of nowhere.

Look which part do you disagree with. Name individual numbers.

1) You have a female pig that reaches adulthood. If you did not want a new piglet, you would immediately slaughter it so that pig never eats any food as an adult.

2) To have a piglet, you need to keep that female pig alive and in adulthood for long enough for the pregnancy to happen.

3) Therefore, to get the piglet, the female pig has to spend MORE TIME ALIVE than that female pig would live if you did not want to piglet. More time alive = more food consumed.

4) Therefore you spent food to get the piglet in the first place.

5) This food to get the piglet in the first place is in addition to the food you feed the piglet to grow into a full pig.

Well, I defined the individual nutritional efficiency as the nutrition produced / nutrition consumed during the LIFETIME of an animal. I don't consider any gestation here. I separate the operational fixed(auto-slaughter scenario) cost for producing the offspring from the production cost in order to have 2 separate metrics. I don't even consider including the operational cost as important. Both metrics shouldn't be very different from each other for most of the pen animals anyway, since only a small fraction of adults is needed to produce the offspring. They should diverge a lot for animals which rarely breed, so many adults are needed to keep production rolling.

And to be honest, your calculation using a different model should give the same results as mine. But they differ, so there is a mistake. Perhaps my calculations are wrong somewhere. I'd be glad if you could point it out. What made me think that the numbers in the table are wrong is that they aren't even consistent, eg. different values for cow and horse, different values in the table and on detail pages.

I provide the detailed calculations for the example above:

 the male:female ratio is 1:3
 the non-adult:adult ratio is 31:4(8:1)
 a baby consumes 0.8 nutrition/day * 0.4 * 6 days = 1.92 nutrition during its growth
 a juvenile consumes 0.8 nutrition/day * 0.75 * 14 days = 8.4 nutrition during its growth
 the total consumption during the growth period is 1.92 nutrition + 8.4 nutrition = 10.32 nutrition
 the grown pig produces 238 meat * 0.05 nutrition/meat = 11.9 nutrition
 the individual nutrition efficiency is 11.9 nutrition / 10.32 nutrition * 100% = 115%
 an adult pig consumes 0.8 nutrition/day * 20 days = 16 nutrition in the same period !!! it doesn't matter if they are male or female if they gestate or not.
 ----
 the operational cost of the ranch for the same period is 4 adult pigs * 16 nutrition = 64 nutrition
 the production cost of the ranch for the same period is 31 growing pigs * 10.32 nutrition = 319.92 nutrition
 the total cost of the ranch for this period is 64 nutrition + 319.92 nutrition = 383.92 nutrition
 the produce of the ranch for this period is 11.9 nutrition * 31 growing pigs = 368.9 nutrition
 the collective nutrition efficiency of the ranch is 368.9 nutrition / 383.92 nutrition * 100% = 96%

I suspect the divergence of my values from yours is exactly because I use an empirical real value for non-adult:adult ratio and a different male:female ratio which should be imperfect, but then my end numbers should be even worse than yours, not vice versa, because you use an optimal male:female ratio and an ideal scenario.

I noticed that I already made 2 mistakes: 1. used wrong values for baby and juvenile hunger rates in the beginging, 2. now I got 96% and previously 110% collective nutrition efficiency.

The "individual nutrition efficiency" as you define it doesn't mean anything. Its not a useful measurement of anything because when is it ever relevant? When do you ever have the case that you get the piglet to raise but you don't have the mother first? You are never NOT paying for the "ranch" as you call it. That's why the nutrition efficiencies on the wiki all use the "ranch" number, because that's the one that actually matters.

EDIT: Maybe a better example of this is this - you slaughter the baby pig as soon as its born. It gives you 48 meat and consumed no nutrition. They have an "individual nutritional efficiency" of 2.4 nutrition/0 nutrition = Infinity efficiency! How do you compare the nutrition efficiency of slaughtering as a baby vs slaughtering as an adult?

---

As for your math, you're not thinking about the next generation. You've just assumed that you only have to keep the adults fed for 20 days, but why? That's how long it takes for the babies to grow up, not how long it takes those adults to make the each batch of 31 piglets. Its got nothing to do with the adults.

Making 31 piglets takes 23.52 pregnancies on average (31 piglets/1.318 piglets per litter). That's 7.84 pregnancies per female and at 5.661 days per pregnancy, that means you need your females pregnant for 44.38 days on average (assuming instant pregnancy each time) for each generation of 31 piglets. By the time the first piglets are adults, their youngest siblings in their "generation" aren't even born yet. That means you're feeding just the females 106.52 nutrition to make the next generation of piglets, not feeding them and the male only 64.

1. No. I already told a few times why the collective efficiency is not useful. The collective efficiency is variable because it depends on other factors. I have other male:female ratio, so it's almost useless for me. I need the individual nutrition effifiency.

2. This example is non-sensical. The nutritional efficiency is defined for the GROWTH PERIOD or LIFETIME UNTIL SLAUGHTER. If there is no growth, no lifetime, then the metric is not applicable. It's like saying: what's the cancer rate among bricks? A brick doesn't live, it can't have cancer. It's like division by 0. It makes no sense, undefined. What exactly do you want to measure there? The nutritional efficiency rates the efficiency of ranching/growing. No growth - no rate. It's impossible to measure something if the subject of the measurement is absent. Nobody says babies come out free at no cost. The cost is constant for the whole ranch(in auto-slaughter scenario). You just distribute this cost among piglets according to a gestation rate, while I count the end result.

3. Of course I'm thinking about the next generation. No, I didn't assume to keep adults for 20 days. I ALWAYS keep 4 adult pigs, these 20 days, and 20 days after them, and so on... The 20 days is the period of growth that's why I calculate the cost only for 20 days, the cost is attached exactly to the same period, the pigs don't go anywhere.

4. Then how did I have 31 piglets with 3 female pigs? Are you sure the 1.318 number is correct?

UPDATE: I just went to recheck the numbers, there were slightly less piglets, only 32 pigs in total. I checked the sows, only 1 was pregnant. It's not a huge pen, just 29x16 in size. This makes the situation weirder. I thought with a 1:3 ratio, they should definitely always be pregnant.

Sorry for the confusion. I did a mistake: I had slaughtering pregnant switched off. I checked the number of sows more often and noticed there were often more than 3 of them, up to 8. They really don't breed that fast. I turned the slaughering pregnant on and monitored the numbers for some time. Having 3 sows and 2-3 constantly pregnant gave 9-15 piglets which is 2-3 times less than I had with slaughtering pregnant disabled.

Also welcome to the wiki! I'm one of the moderators so hmu if I can help with anything in the future

https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/807970695358280237/

Someone on the Steam forums dropped off the mechanics for nuzzling. Someone who checks game files regularly should check it out.

I just started playing again after a hiatus of over a year and I've fogotten some things and many things have changed. That said... The "Inspirations" seem new to me. I came here as I've gotten three inspirations on pawns with level 4 Handling skills so far. And none on my animal handlers. I came to the wiki to find out if a particular inspiration was a complete waste after trying every animal on the map. If the guy can't handle taming a Guinea Pig of what value is that inspiration? A chart with Minimum taming skills required by animal type would be VERY helpful.

List of animals does have the info you want but the very fact that you didn't find it while looking for that information talla me that we need to work on directing people to the right areas. I'll have a think about how we can improve that.

Thanks! When I went back today I was able to find it. Not sure if that's because you changed something or if I just came at it from a different angle.

No nothing I changed, likely just now you know where to look. I'll still look into improving navigating that page family.