Africa Savanna Habitat - can't get rid of disease

[Morti23]

hi all, one thing I can never get working is a properly large Africa Savanna Habitat under hard with all 8 species. My current one is 5600 sq meter and I have dedicated 9 keepers to this habitat and half of them ticked with cleaning only. (staff management shows half of them are light workload but my zoo isn't short on money so I don't mind overstaffing) However, I still find I can't get away w/o micro managing the habitat and just call keepers frequently. The problem is with 50 animals (including the babies) in there if the habitat get filthy all the animals get sick really quickly.
Anybody have a working one and can share some tips please? I'd really appreciate it.

[PIT_DEFENDER]

Yeah I have similar pen with almost 200 animals atm and I just came here to ask about some keeper issues myself lol the coincidence ;p

But I dont have an issue with filth its a bit larger at 73000 square meters, I do have issues with poop in my peacocks cage tho, its only 4km2 and as soon their number reaches 50 its same as yours. ANd the number of keepers wont change much because the dont seem to be able to do the same task in the same enclosure simultaniously so best you can do is set one 5 star guy to cleaning and one to feeding, its not enough to keep it clean with 50 animals in my case tho, so the only thing I can come up with is if you enlarged the habitat or lower the amount of animals.

[Varick]

Publicado originalmente por Morti23:

hi all, one thing I can never get working is a properly large Africa Savanna Habitat under hard with all 8 species. My current one is 5600 sq meter and I have dedicated 9 keepers to this habitat and half of them ticked with cleaning only. (staff management shows half of them are light workload but my zoo isn't short on money so I don't mind overstaffing) However, I still find I can't get away w/o micro managing the habitat and just call keepers frequently. The problem is with 50 animals (including the babies) in there if the habitat get filthy all the animals get sick really quickly.
Anybody have a working one and can share some tips please? I'd really appreciate it.

Have you tried setting up the keepers inside the habitat so they are in the middle of the problem?

[LushFerocious]

With the way the game parameters work, it's really tough to have massive habitats when we can't have multiple gates.

Some things to try -

For cleaning problems: Put all animal items close to guest viewing areas. And place the zookeeper entrance nearby. If you keep animals engaged they're likely to got go to other parts of the habitat - meaning those parts won't need to be cleaned.
For cleaning and disease: One thing that definitely works for me is having multiple mixed exhibits. Management gets a little easier in terms of breeding and feeding too. There are tons of natural looking ways to separate habitats into max 1200 sq ft sections including rocks, construction walls, and foliage. If done right, you won't even realize they're divided! That way you *can* have multiple habitat gates which makes it easier for vets/keepers to intervene. And also disease doesn't spread as widely.

Prevent disease: Are you already doing research for diseases pre-emptively? Lysteria is one of the main ones they get so I always research it first to prevent it happening.

Stop disease: Are you using quarantine buildings effectively? It can be a hassle, but for lower tier animals they usually come sick or something. Better to just stick them in quarantine before putting them in the larger habitat. Additionally, the minute one animal is sick, quarantine like half of them if you must. At least until the habitat is clean and all the sickness is gone.

Hope that helps!

[Morti23]

thanks all! will try the tips and let you know how it goes!
PIT_Defender: yeah I found number of keepers didn't really work that well which is a bit annoying as I thought the ones that cleans will just go in there check and then clean the bit that's dirty before they ran out of energy but somehow they don't really do that.
Varick: I haven't tried that: you mean a separate facility area (keeper hut+staff room set up the in middle of the habitat so they really can't go anywhere else? that's a good idea I can try that.
LushFerocious: all the disease are researched already so the vet treats them quite fast, but I just can't stop them from popping up it seems like (I quarantine all animals, it from the dirtiness of the habitat most of the time). The multiple habitat is a great idea, I would try that. If I use the null barriers so the animals can stil lrun around, would that mean I get escaped animals alert all the time then? Is that okay as they are really just escaping to another habitat?
Livia: I know you mean. I feel quite horrible putting animals on contraception in my role playing (just doesn't feel "natural" to me to stop them producing) so unfortunately that means they muliply rather fast, I do remove matured animals asap but it still feels like the habitat is just overrunning with babies. maybe I need to just bit the bullet and contracept everyone in that habitat.

[Jaggid Edje]

Easiest way to stop disease spread in a large, heavily populated habitat that got dirty when you get a few diseased animals, manually use the command to box them, don't just wait for vets to come. Especially if you don't have a many vets assigned to that habitat. Box them, manually, and then click to send the boxes to quarantine. That keeps them from spreading it faster than you can cure them.

If the habitat is also STILL dirty when the disease starts, call a keeper right away too if he's not already in the habitat. Assign the keepers for that habitat to clean only and not feed before calling them if you want them to, for sure, clean it right away. And, going forward, have at least one of the keepers in the work zone for that habitat permanently assigned to only cleaning such that they will always clean right away when they check that habitat.

The recommendation above to make sure that diseases are fully researched ahead of time is also something you want to get done. Having diseases researched prevents disease from happening as readily in the future.

[PIT_DEFENDER]

Publicado originalmente por Jaggid Edje:

Easiest way to stop disease spread in a large, heavily populated habitat that got dirty when you get a few diseased animals, manually use the command to box them, don't just wait for vets to come. Especially if you don't have a many vets assigned to that habitat. Box them, manually, and then click to send the boxes to quarantine. That keeps them from spreading it faster than you can cure them.

If the habitat is also STILL dirty when the disease starts, call a keeper right away too if he's not already in the habitat. Assign the keepers for that habitat to clean only and not feed before calling them if you want them to, for sure, clean it right away. And, going forward, have at least one of the keepers in the work zone for that habitat permanently assigned to only cleaning such that they will always clean right away when they check that habitat.

The recommendation above to make sure that diseases are fully researched ahead of time is also something you want to get done. Having diseases researched prevents disease from happening as readily in the future.

What I do is just teleport the infected ones to trade center and then move them to quarantine, its faster xD

[Jaggid Edje]

Publicado originalmente por PIT_DEFENDER:

What I do is just teleport the infected ones to trade center and then move them to quarantine, its faster xD

That works too, yep. But doing it that way you have to then manually order them to be returned to the habitat once they've passed quarantine. If you do the boxing method, they get returned automatically (by caretakers).

I'm much too lazy to do something which will require me to follow up later.

[PIT_DEFENDER]

Publicado originalmente por Jaggid Edje:

Publicado originalmente por PIT_DEFENDER:

What I do is just teleport the infected ones to trade center and then move them to quarantine, its faster xD

That works too, yep. But doing it that way you have to then manually order them to be returned to the habitat once they've passed quarantine. If you do the boxing method, they get returned automatically (by caretakers).

I'm much too lazy to do something which will require me to follow up later.

Well yeah but I have big quarantine with 24 spaces so say a year later when I realise its full I just select them all and click move to this habitat. ;p Its also good cause you dont have to depent on your empleyees to move the animals before they starve or something ;p I guess its down to whats more convenient for you :)