Multiple habitats for the same species?

[Nichodemous]

Lets say I want to start a breeding program. I want to help my walle.... I mean the environment. I haven't seen it stated anywhere. I'm not sure if I missed it. I want to breed some tigers. I get two, raise their youth to adult. I have 1 male and 1 female. I make two more habitats and buy 1 of each gender from the trader and start making a second generation of babies while the parents are still making babies that I sell off. I could snow ball this forever.
I go reasonable so the game isn't just a boring grind. I have 5 habitats going of the same species. Will the guests get bored with them?
Will it cheapen having a species?
Would I be best off having one guest facing exhibit and have the rest in the back somewhere reachable by staff only?
If I had enough guest flow and put the habitats far enough apart would it be like having extra bathrooms and stop them from getting backed up in one spot?

Any advise would be appreciated.

[gidro]

It can be usefull to have more than one habitat of the same species for guests, it depends how big your zoo is, and your path system of course. If they're spread out, yes it can help. They won't get bored, but pretty sure they will watch your tigers at one spot, the first they come across, and ignore the others.

I wonder why you have 5 though ? It cost money, and it's still only 1 species. I suppose whatever if you can afford it, but 2 are enough for breeding without buying new animals, 3 if you want to remove the babies so the parents breed again sooner. If you're playing franchise, other species will be more interesting for CC once you can afford the animals to start a breeding program.

[Transform]

Well, when breading Bison. I have a habitat for the cows, the bulls and the "herd" as I call it (the herd is a bull and his females).

They're all next to each other and as soon as a baby is born I move it to its respective pen or leave it (if the herd needs more females.)
I sometimes sell them but for animals that breed quickly, they aren't worth much though it certainly helps. The guests will look at all habitats but don't stay for long. It doesn't hurt anything, doesn't help either. When the male of the herd dies I BUY (this is important) a new one. This is to prevent inbreeding.

While many do have "farms" to make money by selling animals, there are much better ways to make money in my experience and it is rarely an issue. Guests are not intrested in seeing the same animal over and over. But they still will want to SEE all the habitats, so don't make them only visible by staff.

If you find the game a grind and don't like the money, I highly recomend sandbox since money isn't a factor.

Guests will eventually find your zoo boring if you but the habitats far apart, since they got bored walking and won't get as happy seeing the same animal again (guests like seeing different animals and normally have specific animals in mind).

So yeah, in general it isn't really worth it.

[Nichodemous]

Thank you, I was referring more for a breeding program to get better genetics and build up a supply of CC. The $ money seems to be easy to come by. I've also gotten to the point where the peacocks, flamingos and a few others are earning me enough CC to buy most creatures if I'm smart.

[Dakira]

I started having a "conservation area" in my zoo specifically for the breeding program. I'd have one exhibit habitat with public viewing and two other habitat tucked away with their own dedicated staff. I found, for me, three habitats for one species was sufficient to keep genetic diversity in the population and work towards better genetics in the zoo (and higher Conservation Credits).

Now I've switched it up a little and like to build three habitats together for the same species with their own unique viewing areas - kind of so it looks like the same habitat, but is in fact three different ones. I've had success putting a Keepers Hut and Staff Room into each of the builds - the down side is for some species all you can do is keep on top of moving the animals around and trading them out - they breed so fast.

[BlueRaven307]

I play as a breeder and this is exactly what you need to do (multiple habitats for the same species). As far as guests and the financials go, it eventually becomes very expensive to run a breeding program as even the animals in the Trade Center require feeding (they count as an active animal for whichever habitat they were last in). So while money initially isn't a problem, every serious breeding zoo that I have runs in the red eventually. My primary zoo got up to 13 million and is now down to 9 due to breeding both Indian and African elephants and the high cost of feeding ~60 of each even though only 20 or so are active at any given time.

As far as the guest aspect it doesn't seem to matter what the visibility is as long as one habitat for any species exists. In other words, if I have 4 habitats for one species and all 4 habitats have viewing areas then when they want to see that animal they will choose to visit one of those 4 (not necessarily the closest one either, silly guests). If I have 4 habitats and only one has a viewing area the guests just go to that habitat when they want to see the animal. It doesn't seem to have a positive or negative impact whichever way you choose to do it.

[gidro]

Originally posted by SuperBeav39:

As far as guests and the financials go, it eventually becomes very expensive to run a breeding program as even the animals in the Trade Center require feeding (they count as an active animal for whichever habitat they were last in).

About that, at some point i used an empty zoo with one habitat, just to send them in and back to the trade center. It works fine but it's kind of a pain to leave your main zoo, go to the empty one to do that, and back to the main. Not something you wanna do everytime an animal becomes adult, but if your trade center is full of elephants, might be worth it ^^