Chickens vs Cows vs Pigs Best farm animal?

[happyscrub]

A question I wanted answer before and I see a lot of very old topics on the net not really going into detail or wrong. I had to learn for myself. So I’m just making this thread in case someone searches for this info and stumbles along this (cause im too lazy to write a guide).

Categorizes rated best to least

Overall Food - Chic, Cow, Pig
Daily Food - Chic even with Cow (milk and eggs are the same), Pig
Stock Food - Cow, Pig, Chic
Reproduction - Chic, Pig, Cow
Leather - Pig, Cow, Chic
Sturdiness - Cow, Pig, Chic
Perks - Cow,
Maintain - Cows, Pigs, Chics
feeding - Chickens, Pigs, Cows
Taming - Pig, Cow,
Combat - Pig, Cow, Chics


Chickens

Pros -If all you care about is the food, nothing but the food, so help you God? Then chickens are the best farm animal for you. They can reproduce like crazy and produce eggs. They also mature fast. So you can easily slaughter them a lot and rebuild their populations. They also don’t eat much.

Cons – Food is about all they are good for. They do not give leather on slaughter. They die easily which means they attract predators. You rarely get a light, injured chicken. They either dead, dying, or so hurt you just kill them anyway. It doesn’t take long for a raid to slaughter them. Cold weather can kill them easier. They don’t give much meat individually. So if crap hits the fan (like volcanic winters or ruined crops before winters), you don’t get much meat when you have to slaughter most of them to make it to the next grow time. You can’t teach them anything… and wouldn’t want to even if you could. They suck in combat (and A17 changed the chicken army gimmicks – animals run away now). Eggs also give a new level of complexity of dealing with (like having to micro where they go and if you want your cooks to use fertile eggs or not at different times).

Pigs

Pros -rank last in producing food but are the best or even is all other areas. Pig leather is some of the best leather in the game. Pigs can be trained to do everything (meaning they can help haul that MASSIVE hay field you made). Pigs overall are better suited for combat. Cow may be sturdier but pigs do more damage and reproduce fast so you can constantly cycle out the wounded for the healthy.

Cons – As said before, they rank last in food (but they still are good for making food).

Cows

Pros – Cows are sturdier. They don’t get slaughtered so fast if attacked by a raid or if you use them in combat. Predators typically don’t try to kill a mature cow. That means they are safer to let roam free compared to chickens. I believe they have a higher temperature range than pigs (unconfirmed. Too lazy to check). Cows train the handling skill. When you milk them, you get XP. They have the most stock food. If crap hits the fan and you have to kill off some, they will give you A L O T of meat to hold you over till things get better.

Cons – They eat a lot and produce slower. They need to be milked to get the milk. Meaning if no one is milking for whatever reason, you are missing out on the free daily food they make.

[Dire]

Originally posted by happyscrub:

A question I wanted answer before and I see a lot of very old topics on the net not really going into detail or wrong. I had to learn for myself. So I’m just making this thread in case someone searches for this info and stumbles along this (cause im too lazy to write a guide).

Categorizes rated best to least

Overall Food - Chic, Cow, Pig
Daily Food - Chic even with Cow (milk and eggs are the same), Pig
Stock Food - Cow, Pig, Chic
Reproduction - Chic, Pig, Cow
Leather - Pig, Cow, Chic
Sturdiness - Cow, Pig, Chic
Perks - Cow,
Maintain - Cows, Pigs, Chics
feeding - Chickens, Pigs, Cows
Taming - Pig, Cow,
Combat - Pig, Cow, Chics


Chickens

Pros -If all you care about is the food, nothing but the food, so help you God? Then chickens are the best farm animal for you. They can reproduce like crazy and produce eggs. They also mature fast. So you can easily slaughter them a lot and rebuild their populations. They also don’t eat much.

Cons – Food is about all they are good for. They do not give leather on slaughter. They die easily which means they attract predators. You rarely get a light, injured chicken. They either dead, dying, or so hurt you just kill them anyway. It doesn’t take long for a raid to slaughter them. Cold weather can kill them easier. They don’t give much meat individually. So if crap hits the fan (like volcanic winters or ruined crops before winters), you don’t get much meat when you have to slaughter most of them to make it to the next grow time. You can’t teach them anything… and wouldn’t want to even if you could. They suck in combat (and A17 changed the chicken army gimmicks – animals run away now). Eggs also give a new level of complexity of dealing with (like having to micro where they go and if you want your cooks to use fertile eggs or not at different times).

Pigs

Pros -rank last in producing food but are the best or even is all other areas. Pig leather is some of the best leather in the game. Pigs can be trained to do everything (meaning they can help haul that MASSIVE hay field you made). Pigs overall are better suited for combat. Cow may be sturdier but pigs do more damage and reproduce fast so you can constantly cycle out the wounded for the healthy.

Cons – As said before, they rank last in food (but they still are good for making food).

Cows

Pros – Cows are sturdier. They don’t get slaughtered so fast if attacked by a raid or if you use them in combat. Predators typically don’t try to kill a mature cow. That means they are safer to let roam free compared to chickens. I believe they have a higher temperature range than pigs (unconfirmed. Too lazy to check). Cows train the handling skill. When you milk them, you get XP. They have the most stock food. If crap hits the fan and you have to kill off some, they will give you A L O T of meat to hold you over till things get better.

Cons – They eat a lot and produce slower. They need to be milked to get the milk. Meaning if no one is milking for whatever reason, you are missing out on the free daily food they make.

I love chickens. Too bad when you have too many chickens your game can lag a bit.

[HunterAlpha1]

In my current game I'm raising Grizzly Bears, Wild Boar, and Muffalo. I never run out of apparel mats and I only need one or two pawns assigned to hauling. Swimming in food, so much so that crops and hunting are now secondary and tertiary means of food production, respectively.

[happyscrub]

I had to just say, imo, cows are just so much better than chickens. I gave chickens a go after mainly sticking to cows. I'm sitting here just wishing I stayed with cows. The only thing chickens got going for them is breeding fast and eating less.

1. breeding faster doesn't matter once you got up to your wanted capacities of cows. Also breeding and culling chickens require way too much micro. Plus lots of animals love to eat their eggs as soon as they drop them. I'm sitting here watching my pack of hauling dogs gobble up a ton of eggs 1st thing in the morning because they sleep right next to the chickens (who like to lay eggs as soon as they wake up too).

2. cows eating more is offsetted by how easy it is to just make a larger hay field. It gives your collonist more work, but all that work is automated and not that much.

So in my current game, I'm waiting for my new batch of cows to breed more so i can kill these 50+ chickens I got.

[Daffy]

my current colony started with a ok animal handler ... tamed 2 grizzly bears year 1 and i am now into year 4 and got 8 fully grown and 2 baby bears .... they rock, never had more then 2 bears before but holy hell they are brutal

had them face 3 centipede's and 2 of those sniper robot things in my trap maze and they ripped all 5 apart before they got to the traps, sure 1 is now missing a jaw and another a front paw but they give no damn.

also .. the haul a lot

1 just keeping my hadler well in hiding i do not want the 5 she has bound to her go nuts if she dies ....

but for farming the cows ar my favorite.