Starving Animals

[Prussian]

My colonists with #1 priority and 12 handling each refuse to feed my horses and cattle. I have an absolute ton of food and can't make them feed the animals. My question is how do I make them do their damn jobs?

[sono]

I'm not a 100%, but generally your pawns don't really feed animals. Your pen has a certain level of food production, and your animals have a food need, both of which are visible on your pen marker. If there's not enough food, you can either grow the pen, slaughter some animals or put food into the area.

That last one's probably what you want: just put a hauling area for food inside the pen, fill it with a bit of food and the animals will feed themselves.

[glass zebra]

Pawns only feed animals when they are already downed and starving. Animal handlers job's is to train and milk/shear the animal. Just let them graze or drop some hay for them and they will eat it themselves without wasting specialist time on it.

[pauloandrade224]

Yeah man put a Food stockpile inside the area where the animals live in (like the barn and the Pen they use then they feed themselves)

[Wasted]

sounds like you need a larger pen or need to slaughter some animals. I just fence in the whole map then you can have loads of animals. I've found its much easier to do that then you will have an easy nearly unlimited amount of meat and animals to sell. I make the entire map my home area (easier to put out fires). A hauling area for food is not needed. I do however allow my trained pets to access the area where i store kibble. make sure you don't store other food, beer, or drugs there or the animals will eat them depending on circumstance. I keep stuff like lots of cougars so i make sure they have plenty of wild animals to eat. so i don't try to tame rats, squirrels , rabbits, and some others then they sometimes just kill those animals saving me some kibble.

Its a good idea to make a few different zones where animals are allowed. If you keep animals including pets from going inside your base it will be much easier to keep it clean. if you make an inside area like where your kibble is then you can send your pets there when you get attacked and then they wont all get killed by raiders. just make sure to put the pets back to their regular zone after the attack.

last tip I make loads of animal sleeping spots around my base. that way at night all the animals go there to sleep. Then they are all very close so its easier to slaughter them as needed.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Pawns only feed animals when they are already downed and starving. Animal handlers job's is to train and milk/shear the animal. Just let them graze or drop some hay for them and they will eat it themselves without wasting specialist time on it.

In addition to this, they will only feed an animal when it's in an animal sleeping spot/bed. When an animal is downed from starvation it needs to first be rescued and then once it's resting colonists will feed the animals, and they will generally use meals to do this since they are "more efficient" even if it doesn't make sense in the context. If you have no free animal sleeping spots/beds the animals will just be left on the ground to starve to death.

So if the issue is your animals are sick and downed or something and not being fed, that might be the cause. Most of the time as everyone else mentioned though you want animals to feed themselves.

[Gladius Victorius]

Build a Foodstock inside your Animal Zone and let deliver all your Animal Food there.You can place that stock even inside a Building in the Zone but then you must let open the door as animals can not open Doors to eat.But with your food inside the Zone they all eat alone.Then inside the Zone plant animal Gras everywhere that help to not have to make to much Animal Food from your Pawns

[Squirrely Wrath]

a stockpile zone in a little barn with a flap door and a roop; i personally used 2-4 tiles depending on how many animals / consumption i have, setting kibble production according to it.

problem solved

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Astasia:

and they will generally use meals to do this since they are "more efficient" even if it doesn't make sense in the context.

I've made a few tests about this a while ago and this seems to be not the case anymore. If there is kibble nearby they will go and feed kibble, even if they have a meal in their inventory. Can't find the thread with this atm.

Edit: https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/6081551521126659581/#c6081551521127055705

[Astasia]

In this context I would consider kibble and pemmican to be "meals" but I wasn't thinking about them when I posted and probably should have said prepared food instead. Kibble may have always been preferred for feeding animals, I'm not sure as I don't have it in my bases very often. Mostly the issue I meant is a small animal like a baby chicken will be fed a simple meal instead of raw hay/rice, those being the only options in the base. If you add kibble to the mix though then ya it seems they will prefer that over the simple meals.

[SerendipityLn42]

You can also have a growing zone inside their pen and have the colonists plant the type of thing they will eat. Some animals will even eat dandelions/daffodils, etc.

[kevinshow]

I think grazing animals can eat dandelions. So you can have a grow zone in your pen with dandelions or hay or even some other plant (since they eat that as well).

You can also do the kibble, with the appropriate way to keep it from decaying, if you have a lot of food supplies or want to work up your cook's skills. In fact, there are times when I am working up 2 or 3 cooks and the higher skill cook makes human foods, and the lower skilled cooks will do butchering and make animal food, since I don't care as much if the animals get food sickness (which I don't even remember if they do or not, or if has changed)

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by navorskatie:

I think grazing animals can eat dandelions. So you can have a grow zone in your pen with dandelions or hay or even some other plant (since they eat that as well).

You can also do the kibble, with the appropriate way to keep it from decaying, if you have a lot of food supplies or want to work up your cook's skills. In fact, there are times when I am working up 2 or 3 cooks and the higher skill cook makes human foods, and the lower skilled cooks will do butchering and make animal food, since I don't care as much if the animals get food sickness (which I don't even remember if they do or not, or if has changed)

Lower than 10 cooking skill is less than 100% butcher efficiency though and butchering does not grant that much experience. Pretty sure animals can't get food poisoning from raw food anymore, but kibbles has 0% anyway.