Cows/sheep don't respawn?

[GIRL]

I got to the point in the game where you need wool for the new armor set. Noticed all the meadows I've discovered are now barren though, and it seems animals don't respawn. Enemies actually get in and kill them, and that's that. Either gotta find a new meadow or go to a new world and transport one back.

This seems like a pretty bad design flaw, animals should at the very least, slowly respawn in meadows. If coding random spawns is impossible and spawn tiles are needed, you could add some special spawn tiles in that only spawn animals up to a limit (maybe just 1-2 at most) and have meadows spawn with a couple of these.

As it stands, I think it's a bit unfair that they don't come back, especially since there's no hinting at their drops being necessary until it's probably too late.

[Desaita]

The animals are meant to be cared for and fed, if you feed them they drop the resource. When you make a world it should generate with many meadows. I've found roughly 30 in mine but i have been playing quite awhile. When you find the sheep or cow id suggest luring them to your base with food. I think any veggie/fruit would work to get them to follow you. the strolly polys like bugs when you get to the point where you need strolly plate.

[Desaita]

another good tip is when you find a meadow dont leave it open, close it back up before you leave.

[Cosmic]

If you put a lot of work into your base and don't want to start all over again you can make the animal crate(s), log out of your main save and into a new save.
Go capture animals your looking for and then reload your main save.
Wallah, release and your have some now to ranch/farm.

But ya for next time don't leave the area open for monsters to get in. Many of us learned that lesson also the hard way.