Pigs just joined. How do I handle this?

[BustedHipGaming]

Should I just butcher them, or is there a way to make use of them while alive?

[Brassqund]

If you lack of food: butcher.

If you are good in food and there is grass, you can set a zone outside.
They will eat grass and you will had fresh food if when you will need it.
(they also reproduce so even more food. You can also train them for hauling)

Once it got too cold for the grass, you can always butcher them...
or continue to feed them with hay you had made grow before.
And if you want to grow hay, stock it out from the pigs aarea or they will eat it
and not the grass. You may also need to have a hot place if you want to keep them
somewhere below 0 C

[jlrmarin]

They sell for a lot of money. Don't butcher them unless you're starving and you ain't gonna make it through the winter.

You want to create a space for the pigs, and start growing hay to feed them (pigs might need kibble, so you mix hay and meat to feed them). Also, go to zones and create a safe area for them to hang around. If you leave them "unrestricted", other predators will go after them.

You can also train them, I think they have high intelligence. You just don't want them to follow you around while drafted, otherwise they'll get shot and killed at some point.

Make an emergency zone for safety during raids, too.

Conversely, if your computer is very old, like mine, adding animals slows down the game dramatically. So you can just sell them for bling to traders if that's the case, like I do.

[Sithis]

In case you are in a warm region and already have an established diverse food system (growing or another farm animal) but want to restock on silver, it might be a good idea to create a pasture for them and use them as farming animals as well, but instead of butchering the extras, sell them off every now and then. That'd give you some stable silver, even if not that frequently.

[OKOK]

Pigs are trainable smart animal just like dogs except they eat your crop that is growing. And they reproduce very fast.
Good for sale . Usually i keep 8 of them and let them mass produce.
Just remember to have a zone to keep them out of your crop growing area.

[corisai]

And can you advice how to organise animal pasture - I mean how to feed animals from growing plants mostly. Or just growth enough hay and allow them to pasture on it?

[jlrmarin]

If you live in a year-round growing location, then you just need to make sure they have an ample space to graze. It depends on your base setup. Me? I just grow a ton of hay and make kibble. If you have a reliable maze and can wall off a nice section of pasture, that works. If you're playing a tougher type map, say you've built a base inside a mountain in a tundra with only 10-20 days of growing a year, then you need to grow hay during your growing periods so your animals have enough food. And keeping them outside during the winter will get them killed. I think predators get more aggressive when they have malnutrition, at least I think that's the case.

[grapplehoeker]

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1350/roast-pork-with-apples-cider-vinegar-and-rosemary

[Mytheos]

Originally posted by jlrmarin:

If you live in a year-round growing location, then you just need to make sure they have an ample space to graze. It depends on your base setup. Me? I just grow a ton of hay and make kibble. If you have a reliable maze and can wall off a nice section of pasture, that works. If you're playing a tougher type map, say you've built a base inside a mountain in a tundra with only 10-20 days of growing a year, then you need to grow hay during your growing periods so your animals have enough food. And keeping them outside during the winter will get them killed. I think predators get more aggressive when they have malnutrition, at least I think that's the case.

Hungry animals will attack things they normally dont, you are right.

[Mytheos]

@OP

Animals are generally more used to make up or compensate for something...and not really any kind of pure bonus, they take an investment.

You can use them for meat in areas you can grow easily but have few animals, like a desert.

You can use them to haul when you dont have enough.

You can also use them for offense/defense.


But if you want money for example, you are better off growing cash crops vs food for animals...

They take a lot of food, and depending require a lot of clean up if held in barns etc. if not you have to make sure they sleep in a secure area at night to avoid getting killed by raiders as they sleep.


Mainly just sell ones you dont need or let them wander the map to harass raiders if you dont have a real need for them.

[Brassqund]

Originally posted by corisai:

And can you advice how to organise animal pasture - I mean how to feed animals from growing plants mostly. Or just growth enough hay and allow them to pasture on it?

Don't let them eat growing crops, just herb.
When they eat growing crops, they will get a little of nutrition,
a lot less vs what you would get by harvesting.

This is better to harveste and then giving to them.

[DizzyChimera]

Train them in rescue and hauling, they're capable of it IIRC, they'll free up your colonists to do meaningful work and not just move crops from the field to the freezer.

[ambi]

You don't really raise animals for extra food. They consume more than they provide, like in RL.

But animals are great if you're living in a biome with few meat sources, like deserts or sea ice. They convert vegetable matter into meat which can then be used for fine meals. But if you're mainly making simple meals, or live in a biome with plenty of wildlife, then animals are usually a waste.

With pigs, you can train them as haulers though. Keep one male pig, and keep all the rest female. That way they'll breed as they haul and provide you with a secondary source of meat and leather. The hauling pays for itself.

[Cowskier]

while it's tempting, never raise animals for food. its never worth it. 5 years, 78 food maximum

[Brassqund]

Originally posted by Cowskier:

while it's tempting, never raise animals for food. its never worth it. 5 years, 78 food maximum

This is just useful to reduce hunting trips for fine/lavish meal when you got a lot of
farms going on and food is not a problem. Or if you need a couple of extra haulers.
(even if they are not as reliable as an human)

[thegriffin88]

Historically pigs have been good for two things: hunting overpriced, slightly bitter mushrooms, and makin' bacon. (Ok 3, their hide is second to cow leather I hear) So since there's no way to hunt for truffles, I say bacon is back on the menu!

Or, or, you could set them to attack people. Pigs will eat human corpses it's happened so many times in human history, recent human history too. Like did you see The Changeling? That's a real story. Pigs are terrible creatures, you can see it in their beady little eyes.