How to feed pets?

[jebediahbob]

Lots of my pets are dieing from starvation even though I have a good source of food. What am I doing wrong?

[Lori37]

do your pets have access to the area where the food is stored? Do you have the kind of food that they will eat?

[Daffy]

Can be several things

what kind of pets is it ? and what food do you have ? not all animals eat the same ( select the animal and press the *i* icon to get a list of things they eat.

do you have the animals limited to a zone and are the food inside that zone ?

Do you have mods installed ?

[jebediahbob]

I think I dont have the right food as all the pets I have can access the food area

[Daffy]

If it is meat eaters ( panters, foxes and so ) you can let them run free and they will hunt in the area around your base themself at the risk that they will get attacked by raiders or wildlife

Alternative is to grow some hey and mix it with meat at the butcher table to make kibble, kibble last way longer then just raw meat.

[Zalzany]

What pets like Wargs only eat raw meat and corpses amazing combat pets but horrible annoying to keep well fed when your tribal. I had tribal start with a breeding pair of all random things of worgs before I knew it they were eating the meat faster then i could make permcien out of it. Really made that start hard to keep them fed, and also make food that wouldn't rot, as they had puppies like crazy

[3 Ducks In a Man Suit]

Originally posted by TOG Zalzany:

What pets like Wargs only eat raw meat and corpses amazing combat pets but horrible annoying to keep well fed when your tribal. I had tribal start with a breeding pair of all random things of worgs before I knew it they were eating the meat faster then i could make permcien out of it. Really made that start hard to keep them fed, and also make food that wouldn't rot, as they had puppies like crazy

I'm in kind of the same boat, but with Huskies. I've got nearly 30 of them now, plus 9 colonists. Fortunately, my wealth is high enough that I get raided pretty regularly, so I've started just feeding them exclusively with dead enemies, and saving the meals for my colonists.

[kevinshow]

I usually cull some pets every winter, for the biomes where grass dies off . This can be the same concept for any time when your food is running low. Kill off some unbonded pets and use them as food. It will reduce the amount of food you need to make for them during the scarce times, as well as giving your colonists more food, too.

I generally make kibble, which doesn't decompose, unless out in the open, and that is easily solved by putting it under a roofed cover. Many of the animals eat kibble...I don't think I've had one that doesn't,though I can't say I've watched all my various animals so carefully either to see what they eat. Most players might use hay plus some meat for kibble, but since I usually over-produce on corn for the colonists, I just limit my farm workers by not having them grow hay too, and just use corn plus meat for kibble.

Like others have said, pemmican is also a go-to choice for animal food if they don't find something else, so in the worst case, as the colonists eat meals, the animals can eat pemmican if you don't want to have other ingredients for making kibble.

Now if you want to go with mods, one of the ways I've found to help make food faster is the mods that let you make bulk foods. You still use the same amount of resources and same amount of output, but the worker carries more of them together at one time, as well as has a slight reduction in the time making it. Example: Instead of carrying 10 meat 4 times to make 4 orders of kibble, the colonist will carry 40 meat one time to make 4 orders of kibble. That alone can save lots of time during the work day.

Also growing things like mushrooms or tofu, which act like a meat substitute, is also eaten by the animals that eat meat. You can also grow plots of grass, either indoors or out, and always have food for the herbivores.

All those are mods that may help you be able to maintain larger numbers of animal pets for your roleplaying or for your animal army.

Vegetable Mod
Feed Your Colonists
Growable Grass
Noku Mushrooms or Synthmeat
Smarter Food Selection

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by jebediahbob:

I think I dont have the right food as all the pets I have can access the food area

what pets do you have and what food do you have.

[Zalzany]

Originally posted by 3 Ducks In a Man Suit:

Originally posted by TOG Zalzany:

What pets like Wargs only eat raw meat and corpses amazing combat pets but horrible annoying to keep well fed when your tribal. I had tribal start with a breeding pair of all random things of worgs before I knew it they were eating the meat faster then i could make permcien out of it. Really made that start hard to keep them fed, and also make food that wouldn't rot, as they had puppies like crazy

I'm in kind of the same boat, but with Huskies. I've got nearly 30 of them now, plus 9 colonists. Fortunately, my wealth is high enough that I get raided pretty regularly, so I've started just feeding them exclusively with dead enemies, and saving the meals for my colonists.

You can do kibble for them though as tribal start with mating pair of wargs, I can't feed them kibble and raw meat lasts what 2 days? Raw dead corpses also 2 days oh its just a nightmare or was on that run feeding them I had 16 at on point and 5 died to starvation and I just fed them to the remaining ones

Any carnivore but wargs unless mistaken will eat kibble and that lasts a long time and is easy to make.