How to feed animals in Pen, properly?

[Mr. Goblin]

Especially when winter comes. All my animals die.

It seems that I can not feed them in the Pens correctly.

All the grass dies. All my farm vegetation inside of the Pens, die.

I figure that I need to stockpile a lot of veggies and Hay. For winter.

However; there are some problems with that. I see.

The longest veggie expiry is Potatoes. At 30 days not refrigerated. By the time winter arrives; most of my Potato stock is at 19 days to Expire. This is not enough time to get through the winter. Before all the stock would expire.

I might think to refrigerate the stick better?

My main question is this, though.

How exactly are animals in the Pens fed? Beyond automatically eating 'grass'.

I think... they automatically eat any plants that I am growing in the Pen, but I can not be sure.

I am not sure exactly what animals can eat what veggies.

Do Pawns, need to physically feed animals in the Pen? Sometimes, I think that I see Pawns feed berries to some animals in the pen.

Is there a way that I can build or create a place in the Pen; for animals to automatically feed from? Where the winter cold will not freeze and kill the food stuff.



In winter. Should I be "Bringing in all the animals" into some sort of Barn build? Keep them warm.

[whatamidoing]

Pen animals will eat whatever valid food is in their pen, be it plants on the ground or food items (all pen animals are probably grazers and should be able to eat hay, as well as kibble). I normally make a shelf (or several) for hay/kibble in the pen. There's no need to manually feed them aside from hauling the food there. Cold won't spoil harvested foods and kibble. If your animals aren't dying of the cold in the winter there's not really a need for a barn, but it could be good to make one to help get through toxic fallout. For those, animal flaps are passable to pen animals while keeping temperature like a door.

[glass zebra]

Potatoes have the shortest expiration date, not the longest. Hay takes a whole year to rot even when never getting cold. Things also also do not continue to rot when winter temperatures hit, so even a 40 day rice can easily last a year. If you saw a pawn feeding an animal it was likely sick/malnutritioned to the point where it could not move anymore.

As said you just need to harvest some hay for winter and then throw it at to your animals. Either a walled and roofed barn or a shelf will keep it from deteriorating from being exposed. You can feed them rice (or whatever veggies you choose to sow, but it should usually be rice) if things get bad, but hay is much more efficient to grow if fed raw. Kibble helps for the animals that can't eat hay and is a nice taming food (and never rots from time).

[Riepah]

Make sure you keep your foodstuffs in some sort of building with a roof, otherwise it will deteriorate to the elements, no matter how long its expiry date is.

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by Riepah:

Make sure you keep your foodstuffs in some sort of building with a roof, otherwise it will deteriorate to the elements, no matter how long its expiry date is.

Or you can just make a shelf.

[Baka Mitai]

What I did earlier when I had a pen animal starving was just draft a pawn, make them carry some food into the pen, and then drop it. You could take potatoes out of your freezer in stages throughout winter and drop them off like that, should work just fine.

[Mr. Goblin]

Thanks all.

Good help here.

[Tohtori Leka]

I don't keep animals outside at all. I just make a room for them inside near my freezer/kitchen and keep a bunch of cows there. Then make a bill for making kibble from vegetables and milk to "make until you have X" and with "unpause at X" and a stockpile for kibble in the "barn". This way the cows will be half feeding themselves with their own milk an it reduces hauling times greatly. You will be swimming in meat, milk and leather.

[Mr. Goblin]

Originally posted by Tohtori Leka:

I don't keep animals outside at all. I just make a room for them inside near my freezer/kitchen and keep a bunch of cows there. Then make a bill for making kibble from vegetables and milk to "make until you have X" and with "unpause at X" and a stockpile for kibble in the "barn". This way the cows will be half feeding themselves with their own milk an it reduces hauling times greatly. You will be swimming in meat, milk and leather.

Oioi !

[kevinshow]

There are a few ways to do it with vanilla Rimworld.

First is to plant stuff during the growing season, that the animals can eat, which you do. But it seems that dandelions are actually recommended more than hay or other plants that the animals can eat, even though those are just fine as well.

Secondly, once it hits winter time, then you probably should have had some hay or kibble made for them to eat. Make a storage inside the pen that will contain the hay or kibble. There is apparently a pet door structure that you can use but honestly, I don't use it at all. My pens are just a big room with space for planting (dandelions) and a storage spot for kibble.

Now if you want to put a roof on your pen, then you'll depend on a sun lamp to illuminate the surrounding area to grow plants. That's not the best use of a sun lamp but it is possible to do this. If you do this, then you can put in a heater and keep the temperature up and grow year-round.

(Co-incidentally, this is also how you can make a greenhouse type of building for your colonists, so you can grow food year-round as well).

Now if you want to play with some mods, then I'd recommend you can get a mod that changes up the sunlamp, including to lower the energy consumption of a sunlamp or even to keep it on 24-hours a day, or even wall versions of a sunlamp so you don't have to be limited just to the basic shape of the sunlamp's coverage. Up to you.

You can also get a mod for transparent roofs so that you use the actual sunlight from your planet's 3 or 4 suns to grow the plants and don't need to depend on sun lamp, but you'll still need the heaters to help maintain growing temperatures.

[Mr. Goblin]

Originally posted by navorskatie:

There are a few ways to do it with vanilla Rimworld.

First is to plant stuff during the growing season, that the animals can eat, which you do. But it seems that dandelions are actually recommended more than hay or other plants that the animals can eat, even though those are just fine as well.

Secondly, once it hits winter time, then you probably should have had some hay or kibble made for them to eat. Make a storage inside the pen that will contain the hay or kibble. There is apparently a pet door structure that you can use but honestly, I don't use it at all. My pens are just a big room with space for planting (dandelions) and a storage spot for kibble.

Now if you want to put a roof on your pen, then you'll depend on a sun lamp to illuminate the surrounding area to grow plants. That's not the best use of a sun lamp but it is possible to do this. If you do this, then you can put in a heater and keep the temperature up and grow year-round.

(Co-incidentally, this is also how you can make a greenhouse type of building for your colonists, so you can grow food year-round as well).

Now if you want to play with some mods, then I'd recommend you can get a mod that changes up the sunlamp, including to lower the energy consumption of a sunlamp or even to keep it on 24-hours a day, or even wall versions of a sunlamp so you don't have to be limited just to the basic shape of the sunlamp's coverage. Up to you.

You can also get a mod for transparent roofs so that you use the actual sunlight from your planet's 3 or 4 suns to grow the plants and don't need to depend on sun lamp, but you'll still need the heaters to help maintain growing temperatures.

Very interesting tips, thank you.

I did not know that the planet has 3-4 suns!

[BabyNoemiGamer]

:o

[XelNigma]

So will animals prioritize grass and plants growing over hay and kibble that's on a shelf/stockpile?
Iv always kept them behind a door then held it open during winter.

[kevinshow]

Originally posted by XelNigma:

So will animals prioritize grass and plants growing over hay and kibble that's on a shelf/stockpile?
Iv always kept them behind a door then held it open during winter.

from what i've seen in my pens, they do eat the growing plants first, before eating harvested hay and kibble. once winter hits and there are not much (or any) growing plants in their pen, then they will go for the hay and / or the kibble.

[Mr. Goblin]

Originally posted by navorskatie:

Originally posted by XelNigma:

So will animals prioritize grass and plants growing over hay and kibble that's on a shelf/stockpile?
Iv always kept them behind a door then held it open during winter.

from what i've seen in my pens, they do eat the growing plants first, before eating harvested hay and kibble. once winter hits and there are not much (or any) growing plants in their pen, then they will go for the hay and / or the kibble.

Interesting, yes.