Most efficient animals to convert plant matter to animal products

[ChaosKhan]

Hey, I mostly played some beta builds a couple years ago and now that I started to play the newest one I noticed, that quite some stuff changed. For example, chickens aren't as "productive" as they once were and pigskin was nerfed quite hard.

Which animals are currently the most efficient ones at "making meat/animal products out of grass/hay"? Leather/wool is not really an issue for me right now, since I've got more than enough elephant and rhinoceros leather, which seem to be the best after thrumbofur. My impression until now was that cows are pretty good, but they are too labor intensive since the dev still makes pawns leave the milk instead of bringing it to the designated spot right away. While I do use cows and chickens right now, I'd like to switch to something which demands less labor and/or is more efficient overall.

So which are your "to go" animals for such purposes and where do you see cows and chickens in the current balancing?

[brian_va]

I like sheep from the livestock mod as their wool is about the best for cold insulation, fairly valuable as well. That said, I don't really think any are goingnto be a net positive in terms of time/food invested to get goods/food back. Doing caravans can increase the value of pack animals, but that is a subjective value at best.

[OtterBOI77]

muffalo

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

...So which are your "to go" animals for such purposes and where do you see cows and chickens in the current balancing?

Well-managed chickens are the answer, but for their eggs and not necessarily for slaughter except when you're having to manage population.

Egg layers, in general, are likely the best option for a constant meat source for meals. Chickens, Emus, etc. But, you're going to have to micromanage them to get a good, constant, reliable source. I wouldn't recommend that, opting instead to supplement your egg stock and occasional slaughtered animal with hunted animals.

Cows = No opinion, really. I always go for Mufalo and/or llama with retrievers/huskies if available and whatever might self-tame. (All depends on the biome, of course. Tried out snakes/lizards, once, for eggs... didn't work out very well.)

Mufalo = Awesome all 'rounders. Can't "Haul" but make decent pack animals, give milk and wool and don't take crap from Raiders. :)

[M.K.]

Small hint on your milking-labor issue.

Using zones, set your milker to only interact with cows in one location. I prefer the barn, which I aircon down to a toasty -1c
This causes all the milk to be dropped in one spot, which happens to be a fridge that preserves the milk indefinitely.
This way you lose a teensy bit of milk production due to late milking, but you save a heck of a lot of hauling inefficiency.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by M.K.:

Small hint on your milking-labor issue.

Using zones, set your milker to only interact with cows in one location. ...

Are you saying to confine the cows to the bar, confine the animal handler to the barn or there's something else you're suggesting that I'm missing?

[M.K.]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by M.K.:

Small hint on your milking-labor issue.

Using zones, set your milker to only interact with cows in one location. ...

Are you saying to confine the cows to the bar, confine the animal handler to the barn or there's something else you're suggesting that I'm missing?

The animals naturally go to the barn at night, as their sleeping spots are there.
Or, if you prefer daylight milking you can manually toggle their zone to BarnOnly, for milking as needed.
As for the milker, just setup his zones so that the cows' grazing pasture is forbidden to the milker, this will prevent him from milking and dropping it on the grass out there. as the milker is often also the animal tamer, it also prevents him from wandering out the the far reaches of your pasture to refresh-tame one cow. He will get plenty of both milking and taming opportunities when the cows are in the barn, thus much less walking.

Remember that once you have zones setup, you can change a LOT of cows' zone in an instant by going to the animal control screen and click-dragging on the zone selectors for multiple cows.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

Why go through the trouble of manually assigning them to zones just for milking? I would mess with priorities, stockpile zone, stack meals and add joy items if I need to nearby these barn areas before doing that. They'll avoid these kind of problems on their own.

[martindirt]

Originally posted by M.K.:

Small hint on your milking-labor issue.

Using zones, set your milker to only interact with cows in one location. I prefer the barn, which I aircon down to a toasty -1c
This causes all the milk to be dropped in one spot, which happens to be a fridge that preserves the milk indefinitely.
This way you lose a teensy bit of milk production due to late milking, but you save a heck of a lot of hauling inefficiency.

I'm leave the milk where it is. Haulers take it to the foodstorage (or sometimes drink it ... ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ otters)

[Preechr]

...or just train up a ton of dogs/foxes for hauling. They'll grab the milk for you.

Morkonan is right that chicken eggs and Muffalo milk are generally the most productive use of hay, and that only gets better if you are in a biome where the Muffalo can graze for much of the year. The actual numbers are on the wiki:
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Property:Egg_Laying_Interval
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Milk

Though cows give more milk more often, they give no secondary product and they won't fight raiders. I've tried both and I seem to get more use out of Muffalo, they seem to last longer and are much easier to replace.

I posted up the math once, but I think then I was still thinking milk worked like a protein source, but it counts as a vegetable for fine/lux meals iirc. Eggs work like meat though, so your colony could theoretically exist on milk and egg based Fine Meals if you get your herd/flock numbers right.

I'm pretty sure I did this once, but I've been looking for a reason to start a new game, so I think I'll give it a go. The game I'm in now my colony is trying to live off angora rabbits, and that's a big no-go from me.