OP polecats lol

[Brayson290]

I keep trying to buy chickens from merchants, but the first time a polecat came up and killed the chicken before I could even rope it. The next two times, after roping my chickens and putting them in a pen, the polecats immediately hopped the fence and ate them again lol Do I have to wall off my farm just to have chickens? lol

[juliejayne]

I would suggest a ditch and or wall around the chicken coop

[Holce]

Polecat and fox are way too aggressive. Trying to tame small animals is nearly impossible. If you have a polecat or a fox on the map when a small animal spawn, it is dead in less than 3 hour (game time). you need at least 3 days to tame it (no failure). If any polecats or fox spawn in the map when you have started taming that is the same.

Small animals don't live more than 1 or 2 days without savescum.

Having walls around the pen is the only option once you get domesticated chicken. During siege I got a door broken. In middle of the battle one polecat and on fox enter by the hole, run between my settlers to kill two animals and get out. They move the second a hole appears in your wall. If I add a dozen predators on the map that would have been a slaughter.

[nzuiz]

the exact same thing happened to me i was so pissed, i was even trying to tame the little thing :(

[Zeonist decolonizer]

I think settlers should be able to rope/pick up chickens before taming them, and perhaps force rope non-aggressive large animals with high enough animal handling.

[Blue Skull]

sounds like RL

[Flame-kun]

Begin the operation kill-em-all before you try to come bringing or taming those fragile animals.

[Holce]

@ Flame-kun: That is waht I have done, but it is not enough. Other polecats or foxes might come after and kill the few fragile animals you try to tame. You need a few days without polecats or foxes on the map. You can never be sure of that without savescuming.

[Holce]

I may have a backup solution. I have tamed a lot of wolves and I have neraly no wild wolves on the map. If the number of animals is limited counting wild and tamed ones, taming polecats and foxes may stop the spawning of wild ones.

[SoCalExile]

Go into the Overview and set cats and/or a couple dogs to vermin control.

Also if the pop on the map is high, set up a discard pile for corpses only on the map (or you can use currant bushes for foxes/boars) and surround it with a couple rows of traps and a fence (to keep friendlies out).

[juliejayne]

Publicado originalmente por SoCalExile:

Go into the Overview and set cats and/or a couple dogs to vermin control.

Also if the pop on the map is high, set up a discard pile for corpses only on the map (or you can use currant bushes for foxes/boars) and surround it with a couple rows of traps and a fence (to keep friendlies out).

That's a good idea. I shall have to try that.

[Holce]

Vermin control only target the same animals that foxes and polecats hunt. That will not help killing polecats or foxes. But the traps may help a little. The foxes or palecats may still kill a small animal when they spawn before getting eventualy killed by the traps.

[Herbstmond]

Having chicken becomes kind of useless at this point because there is no way to protect them. Or have a building for them and let them never see the sunlight.
The polecats eat all the food in the troughs. So either you kill them all or loose food and chicken. Trying to tame them takes forever and until then you lose a lot of stuff if you want to have one.

[SoCalExile]

I don't have an issue with keeping chickens because I have them in my walled keep and I have lots of dogs for vermin control, hauling, and battles.

The bait and trap tactic is just to keep the pop down and get some resources on the side.

ETA: also don't train your livestock. Only train dogs/wolves/foxes, asses and cats.

[Megara]

Third time I bought chickens and found them dead in their enclosure... so I resumed my backup and focused my attention on them to understand why (at first I thought of a particular diet , But no)
Well gosh... what a surprise to see that in reality it was a polecat that came to open the gate of the enclosure to kill them! oO
This gate that keeps my domesticated animals inside is easily opened by a wild polecats!!! Is that normal? That does not make any sense !!

[XVI | PAX]

I've given up on keeping chickens as livestock. Their certain death makes the time and efford pointless and I don't want to build a fortress/bunker to keep them safe - it's a waste of time/resources which can be spend better on fishing, building etc.