How do I set up an automated egg farm?

[snuggleform]

I'm looking to make a hatch farm solely for the purpose of making eggs - both for the shells to make lime -> steel, and the raw egg for +4 morale boost.

a) how do I set up an automated process; right now I have some ghetto thing where I regularly check to see if there's an egg lying around to cook

b) what is the number of duplicants that can be fed solely on eggs per ranch setup?

(extra credit: is it better in a ranch just to spam it with farm tiles so the critters feed themselves or is it better for me to farm mealwood separately then put it in the critter feed for hatches?)

[snuggleform]

Any ideas?

Also, I heard you get egg shells from eggs hatching (i.e. don't need to use egg cracker) is that true? Is it better just to incubate eggs for the meat or should I crack them? Which is better calorie-wise?

[Milo de Vries]

For more advanced builds like this you will want to check out the main forums, not steam.
There are several ranching designs there

[Bokonon]

Originally posted by bmilohill:

For more advanced builds like this you will want to check out the main forums, not steam.
There are several ranching designs there

This or if you'd prefer, YouTube. Francis John has videos that would help, I'm sure there are others as well.

[snuggleform]

Automation aside, a more basic question is: is it better calorie-wise to break eggs in a cracker, or to kill the animal itself (once its adult) for meat?

[GMC]

Originally posted by wsc150:

Also, I heard you get egg shells from eggs hatching (i.e. don't need to use egg cracker) is that true?

Yes.

Originally posted by wsc150:

Is it better just to incubate eggs for the meat or should I crack them? Which is better calorie-wise?

Calorie-wise, an omelette gives you 2800 kcal, raw meat gives you 1600 kcal per kg (hatches and dreckos both give 2 kg of meat, so 3200 kcal), barbecue gives you an extra 800 kcal for 4000 kcal in total (and is higher quality).

[snuggleform]

OK so what I'm thinking is this:

make a max sized ranch (96) tiles which supports a population of 8; because of cramped debuff for reproduction set the max critter pop to 6, and auto wrangle extras (I tried max size 7 but still occasionally had cramped debuff). Put 2 incubators in this ranch, and set up a separate "butcher ranch" where there's no max critter size and just periodically kill hatches in there that come from auto wrangling.

Does that sound reasonable? Egg shells should slowly accumulate which is the main goal. To get sustainable meat for the whole colony...that might be a stretch but it can supplement the food supply until I get multiple ranch setups.

[GMC]

Originally posted by wsc150:

OK so what I'm thinking is this:
make a max sized ranch (96) tiles which supports a population of 8; because of cramped debuff for reproduction set the max critter pop to 6, and auto wrangle extras (I tried max size 7 but still occasionally had cramped debuff).

Or just put 8 critters in there and use auto-sweepers to remove eggs as soon as they're laid.

Originally posted by wsc150:

Put 2 incubators in this ranch, and set up a separate "butcher ranch" where there's no max critter size and just periodically kill hatches in there that come from auto wrangling.

Just move the eggs to another room (either automated, or sweep them into a storage bin which you empty periodically, e.g. overnight). Eventually they'll hatch, then they'll starve, then you collect the meat. This has a fair amount of lead time (IIRC, 20 cycles to hatch, maybe the same again to starve), but eventually you're getting meat (and shells) at the rate that eggs are laid.

Incubation isn't really viable; each incubator takes 4 cycles to hatch one egg, using 240W of power constantly, so you'd need a room full of incubators and a couple of generators just to power them. Incubators are mainly to accelerate the morph cycle so that you can get smooth hatches and/or glossy dreckos faster.

In terms of manpower, you still need to groom daily otherwise the egg rate plummets. For hatches, reproduction advances 2% per day when glum or 17% when happy; so one egg per 6 cycles when happy versus 50 cycles when glum.

Food-wise, veganism is probably a better option; but plants don't give you eggshells or coal (or refined metal, or plastic). If you're going to be ranching anyhow then you may as well use the free food, but that's a by-product rather than a primary objective.

[snuggleform]

Ok, but how do you keep the population stable if you just auto sweep every single egg that shows up?

[avil]

You may also drop eggs into water. Creatures hatch in water and drown, dropping meat (babies drop the same amount).

Originally posted by wsc150:

Ok, but how do you keep the population stable if you just auto sweep every single egg that shows up?

Use sweeper near incubator so it always auto-loaded (in another room). You can disable incubator using critter detector. If there is not enough creatures in the room (under a limit), ranchers will wrangle creature from incubator and drop it in the room.

[snuggleform]

I'm sorry I'm really dumb I'm stlil stuck on the automating keeping the population stable. Can someone please explain it for an absolute dummy, let's say Room 1 is where you want to keep the population stable ,and Room 2 is where you starve/kill excess hatches. Exactly what devices do I put where incubator automation wire, what's the precise setup for a dummy to follow how to set up the sensor automation etc.

[Ellip]

Originally posted by wsc150:

I'm sorry I'm really dumb I'm stlil stuck on the automating keeping the population stable. Can someone please explain it for an absolute dummy, let's say Room 1 is where you want to keep the population stable ,and Room 2 is where you starve/kill excess hatches. Exactly what devices do I put where incubator automation wire, what's the precise setup for a dummy to follow how to set up the sensor automation etc.

Simple. You put an autosweeper, a critter sensor and loader in room 1. Put the critter sensor to the amount that you want as a stable/max population for room 1 and hook it up to a conveyor loader. Once a critter lays an egg that make the critter count go above the set amount the critter sensor will turn on the loader and the sweeper will sweep the eggs into the loader which will bring the amount of critter back down and the critter sensor will turn off the loader.

The loader should be connected to room 2 with a drop off either into a pool of water or something else that'll kill the hatches. Even in water, the eggs will incubate until the hatches hatch and then they will suffocate and die right after. You then have another sweeper and loader in room 2 to pick up the egg shells and meat.

[snuggleform]

Ok thanks I'll give it a shot.

Since the main goal of my ranch is egg shells for lime, as another solution is there enough fossils (to make lime) in the first asteroid to avoid ranching entirely?

Or is ranching just the best and easiest way to get lime for steel?

[Ellip]

Originally posted by wsc150:

Ok thanks I'll give it a shot.

Since the main goal of my ranch is egg shells for lime, as another solution is there enough fossils (to make lime) in the first asteroid to avoid ranching entirely?

Or is ranching just the best and easiest way to get lime for steel?

There is enough fossil in the oil biome on the first asteroid to make enough bunker tiles to completely seal the whole top part of the map from meteors. You should have plenty of fossil if you mine out your oil biome to make a spaceship, hanger and have plenty left over to cover other part of the map in bunker tiles. If you need more then this for large projects like the end game dupe statue then you'll need egg shells for the extra lime.

Ranching just help because you can set it up at the beginning and just let it be and over time you will have accumulated a lot of egg shells to make plenty of steel without having to go to the oil biome first. This is useful for if you want to make a steam engine/auquatuner early on.