Animal Breeding

[BlakeInnit]

Will somebody please explain to me the mechanics behind breeding animals for 100% stats.
I've watched countless videos online but it confuses me so much.
Any help would be appreciated.
Just add me on Steam.
Thanks :-)

[florble mcfumperdink]

As far as breeding goes make sure you have a pair with good fertility (preferably above 50%) and then put them enclosure that meets all their needs so they are as happy as possible and then.... well you wait until the mood sets in for them, however long that may be, and then there's a new baby animal.

I can't really give much past that because it's been a bit since I played the game actively but if you just keep an adult pair happy in an enclosure it should go well.

[BlakeInnit]

Thank you.
I get that. I've been breeding Zebra, Ostrich and Saltwater Crocs.
The highest I've been is 100% on one stat but the rest always seem to get nowhere near and obviously you can't breed offspring with their Mothers/Fathers because the stats go down.
Can't seem to get my head around it all.

Plus, the Animal Market is so expensive it makes it harder to get two good pairs.
Hm, maybe just pot luck but some people seem to know a strategy of some sorts?

[florble mcfumperdink]

Originally posted by Bruce Bucklefart Jr:

Thank you.
I get that. I've been breeding Zebra, Ostrich and Saltwater Crocs.
The highest I've been is 100% on one stat but the rest always seem to get nowhere near and obviously you can't breed offspring with their Mothers/Fathers because the stats go down.
Can't seem to get my head around it all.

Plus, the Animal Market is so expensive it makes it harder to get two good pairs.
Hm, maybe just pot luck but some people seem to know a strategy of some sorts?

It's really trial and error for good stats, you have to find the right pairing for two animals, sometimes with HUGE differences in stats but they end up making really large or really long lived offspring if one has say 65% in a given stat and the other has something quite low like around 20% of the same stat but it's really down to luck on finding the perfect mix for each species.

[Moving Target]

The first 2 stats are the hardest to get, size and life expectancy, the other 2 are not important as low fertility can be overcome by fully researching the animal and immunity is irrelevant if your keepers maintain habitat cleanliness and you quarantine newly acquired stock.
To maximise the first 2 stats inbreeding is an option but so is choosing the right pairings, before buying from the market use the COMPARE MATES option to check potential breeding outcomes with you existing stock, even bronze or silver rated stock can produce good results. Once you have the top 2 stats at a good level then inbreeding is no longer an option because, as you pointed out, it will have an adverse affect on these stats in particular so use the market to find your best pairing which need not be the most expensive.

[BlakeInnit]

Originally posted by Moving Target:

The first 2 stats are the hardest to get, size and life expectancy, the other 2 are not important as low fertility can be overcome by fully researching the animal and immunity is irrelevant if your keepers maintain habitat cleanliness and you quarantine newly acquired stock.
To maximise the first 2 stats inbreeding is an option but so is choosing the right pairings, before buying from the market use the COMPARE MATES option to check potential breeding outcomes with you existing stock, even bronze or silver rated stock can produce good results. Once you have the top 2 stats at a good level then inbreeding is no longer an option because, as you pointed out, it will have an adverse affect on these stats in particular so use the market to find your best pairing which need not be the most expensive.

Make a bit more sense, thank you.

I get a bit lost when they start producing offspring.
I have a couple of animals with high size and expectancy which are my main breeding pair.
BUT, what do I do with the off-springs, do I choose two new male and female or do I just keep selling them on the market?
This is where it gets confusing for me.
Let's say Zebra 1 has 89/100 but Zebra 2 has 50/65 and their offspring gives me 65/85.
Do I keep Zebra 2 and keep breeding OR sell Zebra 2 and keep the offspring but then the inbreeding problem occurs which then means I need to find a good Zebra off the market which cost way too much for a decent one to actually be in a chance of getting a 'PERFECT' animal, am I wrong in thinking this way?

[Vicky]

Hey OP. I'm afraid the actual stats are just luck of the draw and there's no way to guarantee 100% on any of them. However there are ways to ensure you only get 'good quality' offspring.

First, and weirdest to me, is that adopting 2 gold standard animals doesn't necessarily mean they'll have better offspring than say, a gold and a silver, or a gold and a bronze. You need to 'compare mates' in the animal market to check before you buy. Don't discount animals that have really dodgy stats personally, as they may still produce great babies with the right mate!

Secondly, as you know you can't let them breed with their offspring, so unless you need the youngsters in the habitat for social reasons (in which case make sure they're on contraceptives), send them to the trade centre once they age up, but don't sell or release unless you absolutely have to. That way, when you check back through the animal market later, you may find a new mate for the youngster that will produce better offspring than the older animals in the habitat. In which case sell/release the oldies and move in the newbie and the youngster.

This is my personal strategy when playing career.

Start off with a gold, or silver at least, of each of my 3 initial habitat animals, and my 2 initial exhibit animals. Trawl through the animal market to find mates for them. 'Compare mates' before buying any so as not to waste credits or money. If there are any that will produce bronze offspring of better (you know about the red bars in the 'compare mates' bit, that show how healthy the offspring are likely to be?) I snap them up and send them to zoo, and hope they get breeding. I keep checking the animal market every 3 or 4 minutes or so as it refreshes all the time and you never know when the perfect mate for your critter is going to pop up. If I find a better match than I already have, I either swap them out or add them in if multiple animals can live together. And I just keep going like this. Say with zebras, I think you can have 5 altogether? So I keep a close eye on which mare has the worst 'possible offspring' stats and as soon as a better match comes up in the animal market I'll replace her (bearing age in mind too of course!) and so on and so on to ensure I'm always getting the best babies possible at the time. When the babies age up I compare them with any others I have in my trade centre so I can make an informed decision about which to sell and which to keep for breeding. If I can afford to I'll adopt any females that are gold and possibly silver ones too even if they wouldn't make a good match with my current breeding male as it's possible that they'll be a great match for one that's about to age up, or another which could pop up in the animal market at any time.

As I say it's rare to get more than one or 2 of the stats 100%, but with this method nearly all the offspring I breed are silver or gold.

[BlakeInnit]

Originally posted by Vicky:

Hey OP. I'm afraid the actual stats are just luck of the draw and there's no way to guarantee 100% on any of them. However there are ways to ensure you only get 'good quality' offspring.

First, and weirdest to me, is that adopting 2 gold standard animals doesn't necessarily mean they'll have better offspring than say, a gold and a silver, or a gold and a bronze. You need to 'compare mates' in the animal market to check before you buy. Don't discount animals that have really dodgy stats personally, as they may still produce great babies with the right mate!

Secondly, as you know you can't let them breed with their offspring, so unless you need the youngsters in the habitat for social reasons (in which case make sure they're on contraceptives), send them to the trade centre once they age up, but don't sell or release unless you absolutely have to. That way, when you check back through the animal market later, you may find a new mate for the youngster that will produce better offspring than the older animals in the habitat. In which case sell/release the oldies and move in the newbie and the youngster.

This is my personal strategy when playing career.

Start off with a gold, or silver at least, of each of my 3 initial habitat animals, and my 2 initial exhibit animals. Trawl through the animal market to find mates for them. 'Compare mates' before buying any so as not to waste credits or money. If there are any that will produce bronze offspring of better (you know about the red bars in the 'compare mates' bit, that show how healthy the offspring are likely to be?) I snap them up and send them to zoo, and hope they get breeding. I keep checking the animal market every 3 or 4 minutes or so as it refreshes all the time and you never know when the perfect mate for your critter is going to pop up. If I find a better match than I already have, I either swap them out or add them in if multiple animals can live together. And I just keep going like this. Say with zebras, I think you can have 5 altogether? So I keep a close eye on which mare has the worst 'possible offspring' stats and as soon as a better match comes up in the animal market I'll replace her (bearing age in mind too of course!) and so on and so on to ensure I'm always getting the best babies possible at the time. When the babies age up I compare them with any others I have in my trade centre so I can make an informed decision about which to sell and which to keep for breeding. If I can afford to I'll adopt any females that are gold and possibly silver ones too even if they wouldn't make a good match with my current breeding male as it's possible that they'll be a great match for one that's about to age up, or another which could pop up in the animal market at any time.

As I say it's rare to get more than one or 2 of the stats 100%, but with this method nearly all the offspring I breed are silver or gold.

Hm, sounds good. So you're not necessarily going of what the stats say rather than the 'rating' of the animal itself for example; bronze, silver gold.
Is that what people look for in the market? I always thought it was the stats personally but I could be wrong.
Going off animal ratings alone makes the breeding process a whole lot easier for me rather than concentrating so much on their stats.

I never know about 'the red bars' what does this information tell me exactly, what the 'expected' offspring rating will be?

Also, next question.
How do I know how much certain animals are selling for and which are deemed as 'high demand' etc.

Thank you all for your help.
I'm new to this but loving every minute, the more I delve into the game the more confusing it gets for me unfortunately just a big learning curve compared to Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2.

[XrystalBelle]

I'm currently at 3 100% stats on my warthogs ... it's been multiple breeding groups with 1 or 2 per batch improving slightly on the parents .. then finding unrelated animals with slightly different stats at 100% to get the rest growing. I now have several with 1,2,3 and 1,2,4 genes at 100% level so in theory a combination of their descendants ( they are siblings so cannot breed together themselves safely ) will hopefully create a 1,2,3,4 100% gene batch. It happened once but the one and only animal died of old age with these animals being the descendants of that animal.

[BlakeInnit]

Originally posted by XrystalBelle:

I'm currently at 3 100% stats on my warthogs ... it's been multiple breeding groups with 1 or 2 per batch improving slightly on the parents .. then finding unrelated animals with slightly different stats at 100% to get the rest growing. I now have several with 1,2,3 and 1,2,4 genes at 100% level so in theory a combination of their descendants ( they are siblings so cannot breed together themselves safely ) will hopefully create a 1,2,3,4 100% gene batch. It happened once but the one and only animal died of old age with these animals being the descendants of that animal.

Ah. So would you say you need multiple habitats per animal?
For example, move the off spring into a separate habitat then buy a good male/female of the market to breed with?
That makes sense.

Thank you, I'll try this method.

[Moving Target]

A small correction to my earlier post, once you get the first 2 stats to maximum you can actually still use inbreeding as an option to max the last 2 stats, if the breeding pair have those last 2 stats at a reasonable level there is a chance their offspring will too, but there is also the possibility it will be awful. I got some 100/100/100/100 warthogs by inbreeding but it took a while.
When you do a 'compare mates' check for 2 related animals that have 100% on the first 2 stats you should see that offspring will also have a 100% chance of retaining these stats but the last two stats will have a very large amount of red meaning those will fall anywhere within that red bar, if you get lucky they will come out high and you could retain these for further inbreeding if higher than the parent stats, sell them if lower.
This screenshot shows breeding result from unrelated pairing of 2 max stat warthogs
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2051675143
And this one shows the result from an inbred pairing using the same father
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2051675019
As you can see the results are identical despite the related female having terrible immunity stats
So go figure lol - breed up those first two stats then cross your fingers and hope to get lucky!