Animal husbandry

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Certain animals, such as dogs and cows can be tamed, and these animals can provide various benefits.

Taming

It is currently only possible to tame animals which were previously domesticated. This includes things like geese, cats, ducks, chickens, dogs, goats, and cows. To tame an animal, simply activate the appropriate food item while standing adjacent to it. If the animal is tameable and you gave it the right item, it will now (sort of) follow you, and you can perform a few different actions by examining it.

Moving Animals

You can use a rope to leash your animal. This is pretty vital for getting them to follow you or stay put. Once an animal is leashed, you can tie it down to its current tile, command it to follow you, or let it roam free.

If you have a pet carrier, you can activate it to put a small animal, such as a cat or a rat, inside of it. You can then activate it again to deploy the animal.

Larger animals, like cows and horses, can be placed inside of a livestock stall, which is a vehicle part.

Animals contained in pet carriers are basically removed from play. No time will pass for them, and they won't lay eggs or get hungry. This will probably change at some point, but for now it's useful to know.

Feeding Animals

Animals cannot starve to death, as the game always assumes they're able to subsist enough on their own to keep themselves alive. However, many animals, particularly those that give produce like milk or eggs, require food to do their thing. Most animals will gobble up any available food they step on if they're hungry, but you can check how full they are and manually feed them by examining them. Once an animal is full, it will not eat any more that day.

Having a full or nearly-full stomach for two days in a row will give an animal the Well-Fed effect. This is visible if you press x and move the cursor over the animal. Animals that can produce milk will only do so when well-fed, so it's important to take care of your cows and goats. Currently, they're not likely to graze enough to get full on their own, so manual feeding is key. Well-fed animals will lay eggs or have offspring more quickly. They will also slowly regain lost HP.

Having an empty or near-empty stomach for two days in a row will give an animal the Underfed effect. This is visible if you press x and move the cursor over the animal. This effect slightly slows the animal and prevents them from having offspring or producing anything useful. The effect is removed after a while if an animal gets enough to eat.

Leaving the area for more than 48 hours will cause well-fed and underfed effects to disappear.

Milk

Cows, goats, sheep, and horses can produce milk if they're well-fed. Cows in particular give quite a lot of it, one cow gives easily enough milk for a person to live off of.

Milk should not be consumed raw, as it can cause food poisoning. You'll want to cook it into milk via the crafting menu. After that, it's still prone to going bad quickly. It can be frozen as-is, or preserved by crafting it into powdered milk, cheese, or other foods, depending on what you have available.

Eggs

Eggs are edible, of course, and can be used in tons of dishes. They can be preserved via crafting them into powdered eggs. If you'd prefer to incubate them, simply leave the eggs on the ground. Eventually, they will rot, but don't worry. Once they've sat around long enough, the "rotten" egg will hatch, producing a new chick. Make sure you have some bird seed for it, as it will not come out of the egg tamed.

Mutant bugs also tend to lay eggs. While these contain toxins, they're otherwise more or less identical to bird eggs. You can somewhat mitigate their toxin levels by crafting them into powdered eggs, which can be used sparingly in your diet.

If you'd prefer an egg not hatch and you don't want to eat it, your best bet is to burn it or run it over with your car.

Honeydew

Aphids are not tameable, but they do produce a sugary substance known as honeyew, which is left on the ground in little globs. Aphids are not hostile, so you can pick this up and eat it. Should you manage to trap an aphid somewhere, you should keep it fed with grain, hay, or fodder, as an underfed aphid will not produce any honeydew.

Animal Diets

Animal diets are determined by special attacks and flags in their JSON files. Each one implies a set of foods the animal will eat.

EAT_CARRION: Includes unpulped corpses of any kind except robots and other obviously inedible stuff. Does not include meat etc. Animals can take several bites out of a corpse, once it's pulped, it's used up. EAT_FOOD: Includes just about anything the player can eat. Currently you can't hand-feed these items, they only eat them off the floor. EAT_CROP: This specifically refers to crops grown from seeds via the farming system. GRAZE: Includes tall grass and shrubs, as well as cattle fodder, which can be hand-fed. Cattle fodder is craftable from all sorts of greens. BROWSE: These animals will eat fruits off of shrubs and trees, but will not eat the plants themselves. DOGFOOD: These animals will eat dog food, wet or dry. Can be hand-fed. CATFOOD: These animals will eat cat food, wet or dry. Can be hand-fed. BIRDFOOD: These animals can be hand-fed with bird food, which can be crafted from most seeds.