Okay, this is a ridiculous question, but Rimworld....

[laagamer]

Hello, I'm 30 hours in. First game. I have a beast tamer.

Somehow, I've managed to tame a Thrumbo.

But, more importantly, I have ducks. Lots of ducks. Like, 14 of the little bastards. And I'm worried about feeding them all.

My climate is a harsh winter. Like 20 degrees. Everything frosts outside.

Will my little bois and gurls be able to eat? I have a bunch of frozen corn for animals, and a hunter making simple meals for the colonists.

But, I'd like to freeze and keep a reserve of food. So, can the ducks forage, is what I'm asking? How do I tell what a duck wants to forage?

[timeo]

Give them kibble

[Astasia]

They generally can't forage in winter, you will want a stockpile of food ready for them to eat, or a greenhouse growing food all year round.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by laagamer:

Hello, I'm 30 hours in. First game. I have a beast tamer.

Somehow, I've managed to tame a Thrumbo.

But, more importantly, I have ducks. Lots of ducks. Like, 14 of the little bastards. And I'm worried about feeding them all.

My climate is a harsh winter. Like 20 degrees. Everything frosts outside.

Will my little bois and gurls be able to eat? I have a bunch of frozen corn for animals, and a hunter making simple meals for the colonists.

But, I'd like to freeze and keep a reserve of food. So, can the ducks forage, is what I'm asking? How do I tell what a duck wants to forage?

If it’s too cold ducks can’t forage. Thrumbos can and will eat trees, so if you have trees it should be alright. If not it will take a LOT to keep it fed. I don’t remember the exact number but I think their hunger rate might be 5x the amount of a human. You can check in the animal’s info tab.

Ducks eat a surprising amount considering how small they are. On the other hand they make for a delicious soup and the “bois” don’t lay eggs... If you don’t want to do that then kibble or even simple meals are more efficient than raw veggies if you don’t include the prep time.

Edit (missed the second half): with the exception of thrumbos and maybe alpha beavers (?) all herbivores eat the same thing: the grass and bushes that grow naturally. They can also graze on crops that you plant and eat anything other than raw meat if you leave it out.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by ichifish:

If you don’t want to do that then kibble or even simple meals are more efficient than raw veggies if you don’t include the prep time.

Simple meals are terrible to feed to ducks. They have a maximum of 0.18 nutrition, which means they can eat up to 4 raw food or kibble at once. Since simple meals take 10 raw food to make they're MUCH less efficient than raw or kibble.

[pebblebotha]

I would suggest raw corn for the ducks this winter (if it's too late to harvest another crop before the cold) and starting planting haygrass next year. Then on the butcher bench, set your colonists to make a sensible amount of kibble using haygrass and insect/human meat.

In winter you can give the ducks access the haygrass store. They don't need taming, so you don' have to bother with kibble. Keep the barn nice and warm for them and maybe zone them in so all the fertile eggs stay in the heat. And if you want, sell/butcher some of the bois before the cold.

You're gonna want kibble for the thrumbo though, since it's more economical than raw corn for taming (and thrumbos need a TON of taming) and you can't tame with hay. Don't let them access the store themselves though, they should have trees enough to forage all year.

[Kittenpox]

Grats on taming a Thrumbo! :-D

Personally, I would set up a barn - make a structure with enclosed walls, ideally with both indoor and outdoor sections - and Zone the ducks to that space. This way they're kept safe against wild predators.

Then I'd cull all but two of them - one male, one female. (Or two of each, if you're uncertain.) Let the ducks repopulate next year when you're better prepared, and use the meat to keep your colonists alive through this season.

I don't usually have a sufficiently skilled tamer to maintain a Thrumbo without it losing tameness and reverting to the wild - or my tamer is busy trying to do too many things at once - so I would normally Slaughter the thrumbo and use its fur to make Parkas, because of how especially cold-resistant it is.
As I recall, Thrumbos can munch on trees. So you should have no problems keeping that one alive through winter. It's mainly the ducks where I'm suggesting you should consider how important it is to have ALL of them at the start of next season.

[laagamer]

Originally posted by Kittenpox:

Grats on taming a Thrumbo! :-D

Personally, I would set up a barn - make a structure with enclosed walls, ideally with both indoor and outdoor sections - and Zone the ducks to that space. This way they're kept safe against wild predators.

Then I'd cull all but two of them - one male, one female. (Or two of each, if you're uncertain.) Let the ducks repopulate next year when you're better prepared, and use the meat to keep your colonists alive through this season.

I don't usually have a sufficiently skilled tamer to maintain a Thrumbo without it losing tameness and reverting to the wild - or my tamer is busy trying to do too many things at once - so I would normally Slaughter the thrumbo and use its fur to make Parkas, because of how especially cold-resistant it is.
As I recall, Thrumbos can munch on trees. So you should have no problems keeping that one alive through winter. It's mainly the ducks where I'm suggesting you should consider how important it is to have ALL of them at the start of next season.

Interesting! I'll cull them, and make some meals then. As long as they're not owned by a specific person, it's okay right?

[laagamer]

Follow up question guys.

So, I followed some advice and horribly murdered all my ducks except for 2. Made a nice little home for them.

Here's my new question that has me puzzled, if anyone's wiling to help.

I have corn. It's in my Freezer #1

I have a second freezer, Freezer #2, that I want the animals to eat out of.

How do I only move, say, half my corn into Freezer #2?

If I mess with stockpiles settings, they just start moving all of it. Kinda frustrating I can't just tell them to move specific amounts.

Also, this thrumbo's name is Dragonite now and he's chonky.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by laagamer:

...
Interesting! I'll cull them, and make some meals then. As long as they're not owned by a specific person, it's okay right?

They'll be fine as long as they can reach the Meals.

Animals that can graze can't graze through medium/heavy snow cover. IIRC, they can still graze through a "dusting" or "light" snow. But, either way, in a situation like yours you'll want to stock up on some feed for animals. Haygrass is enough as long as you can stock enough of it.

You could routinely cull your ducks at the onset of winter, when it's most difficult to feed them. Eggs are pretty nice, though, as they can be used to create both fine and lavish meals. (Meat component)

I started using this mod due to some recent changes making grazing in heavy snow impossible for animals that should be able to do so (Mufallo, especially):

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2302739121

It's configurable, IIRC.

You can also use a Zone to designate an area that colonists clear of snow and as long as the plants don't die off due to cold, your animals can then graze there.

[laagamer]

All my ducks are dead.

I don't think I was successful, guys.

[brian_va]

Originally posted by laagamer:

Follow up question guys.

So, I followed some advice and horribly murdered all my ducks except for 2. Made a nice little home for them.

Here's my new question that has me puzzled, if anyone's wiling to help.

I have corn. It's in my Freezer #1

I have a second freezer, Freezer #2, that I want the animals to eat out of.

How do I only move, say, half my corn into Freezer #2?

If I mess with stockpiles settings, they just start moving all of it. Kinda frustrating I can't just tell them to move specific amounts.

Also, this thrumbo's name is Dragonite now and he's chonky.

Maybe instead of a second freezer just for them, make a small, 1 or 2 tile stockpile in their barn or wherever you keep them set to what you want it to have (corn, kibble, etc) and make it a higher priority than the general freezer. Without mods, there really isn't a way to incorporate logic into stockpile settings other than the priority settings.

[laagamer]

Originally posted by brian_va:

Originally posted by laagamer:

Follow up question guys.

So, I followed some advice and horribly murdered all my ducks except for 2. Made a nice little home for them.

Here's my new question that has me puzzled, if anyone's wiling to help.

I have corn. It's in my Freezer #1

I have a second freezer, Freezer #2, that I want the animals to eat out of.

How do I only move, say, half my corn into Freezer #2?

If I mess with stockpiles settings, they just start moving all of it. Kinda frustrating I can't just tell them to move specific amounts.

Also, this thrumbo's name is Dragonite now and he's chonky.

Maybe instead of a second freezer just for them, make a small, 1 or 2 tile stockpile in their barn or wherever you keep them set to what you want it to have (corn, kibble, etc) and make it a higher priority than the general freezer. Without mods, there really isn't a way to incorporate logic into stockpile settings other than the priority settings.

Ah, I see. Thank you. Do you recommend any mods for that? I'm always open to QoL mods that don't change vanilla games.

[brian_va]

satisfied storage lets you set a percentage at which a stockpile will be refilled. probably not exactly what you are looking for but maybe you could make it work. i'm sure theres something else out there that can let you equalize or distribute between stockpiles, nothing comes to mind tho.

i think most are going to do the suggestion i gave you, its a pretty common solution to this problem.

[Kittenpox]

Combining regular vanilla shelves and the Satisfied Storage mod that brian_va mentioned allows you to set the shelves as Critical Priority while also preventing them from being refilled until they're down to a certain threshold (like half-full, etc.)
Very handy for kibble, so your pawns (and animals) aren't constantly hauling one unit of stuff at a time.
You don't have to use shelves - setting up small stockpiles work just as well - but I prefer shelves because I find them easier to work with.

In this instance, the aim isn't to have a 50/50 split of resources, but ensure there's a steady supply of what's needed to each location.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2003354028
Corn is usually pretty good to be kept at room-temperature for relatively long periods of time, but if you need to store meat and don't mind modding to make things easier then this might also be of interest: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180721235
Having said that, I generally recommend avoiding mods until you're thoroughly familiar with the game. That way you're not stuck struggling to play if a mod breaks, etc.

[_SoMe]

i recently did some math on how much a thrumbo actually eats:

Thrumbo needs 5,2 nutrition / day
a simple meal got 0,9 nutrition value.
if you wanted to feed your thrumbo simple meals you need at least 6 meals a day (6.22 exactly)

since trees are slow growing and you might not want your thrumbo going too far away, you could designate an area with a tree farm and a deep freezer room with some simple meals in it. best when your colonists are all set to fine meals minimum, so you probably need a good supply chain to make this work.

6 simple meals can be cooked out of 60 meat

if you happen to have a pawn which doesnt care about slaugthering humans, you could keep your foes meat seperately deep frozen to process it into simple meals for your thrumbo.
1 dead enemy is worth 9 simple meals (considering no body parts are missing) :) though you should have a high skilled psychpath cook if you want to run this strategy. also this way you get some use out of all those dead bodies lying around after raids.

or you can think of any other way to keep your beasts fed :)