Farm animals

Settlers have come and gone out here before you, and some of what they brought got loose. There are a couple of small herds of each gone wild, a fair walk out from camp. Hens scratch about not far from the fire, sheep keep to the high ground, cattle are out in the meadows and pigs root along the edge of the woods. Every herd has a male in it, so one herd is enough to start a farm.

Bringing one home#

It works the way it does with a horse. They shy off if you walk up empty handed, but they'll come right up if you've got something they like to eat. Tap one and choose Gentle it. Each try uses up a bit of feed, and it might take the feed and back off anyway, so bring a good handful. Sheep and cattle need a halter as well, the same as a horse does. Hens and pigs will follow you for the feed alone.

Once it's yours it follows on its lead. You can only lead one at a time, so bringing a few home takes a few trips. Tap it to let it graze, or tie it to a hitching post and it stays put till you come back. Nobody can hunt an animal that's yours, and only you and the people you trust can lead it or take anything from it.

Feeding#

How full an animal is goes from 0 to 100, and it goes down a little all the time, from full to empty in about 36 hours. It doesn't need you to keep it alive, though. Standing on grass it never drops below 40, which is enough to get by on but not enough to give you anything. Pigs root on bare dirt as well as grass. Over 50 it's well fed, and that's when a hen lays, a cow has milk, a sheep grows its wool and a pair will breed.

Tap your animal with feed in your pack and you can give it a mouthful by hand. That's fine for one or two, but for more you want a water trough near them. Tap it, choose Fill with feed, and it takes all the feed you're carrying, up to 60. Any farm animal within 6 m eats from it once it's under 70, and it picks the best of what's there that it likes. That keeps them well fed while you're off working or logged off.

What they give you#

Shears are made at the forge from 1 iron bar, at Smithing 3. A milk pail is made at a fire from a log, at Crafting 3. Neither one gets used up.

An animal only gets so far ahead of you. A hen with her eggs waiting stops laying till you take them, and a sheep's fleece stops growing once it's full. Now and then a feather comes away with the eggs, and feathers make better arrows. Pigs don't give you anything along the way, but they have the most young and grow up quickest, so they're the ones you raise for meat and lard.

Pens and young#

A pen is ground your animals can't get out of: fenced all the way round with fence sections, walls or a shut gate. Water too deep to wade counts as well. It can be any shape you like, up to 400 tiles. Look at one of your animals and it tells you whether it's penned. Loose animals graze close to where you left them, and penned ones wander the whole pen.

The field gate is the way in and out. It's split rails on rawhide hinges, 3 logs, 1 hide, and it's in the Build menu under Farm, with the trough. Leave a one tile gap in your fence and put the gate across it, on the edge the same way you'd put up a wall. Tap it to open and shut it. Water runs straight through it, so it's no good for a pond, but nothing on four legs gets past it shut.

Put a male and a female of the same kind in a pen together, keep them both well fed, and in time she'll have young. They need room for it, though. Each animal takes up so much of the pen, and there has to be space left over for the young: 2 tiles for each of the chickens, 4 tiles for each of the sheep, 8 tiles for each of the cattle, 4 tiles for each of the pigs. In a pen too small or too crowded, nothing comes of it.

Husbandry shortens the wait, a little every level, until it's 30% less at level 30. The young are yours too. They stay small and don't lay, milk or breed till they're grown, and then they're stock like any other. All of this goes on while you're logged off.

Butchering#

Tap one of your own and choose Butcher, and you get its meat and hide, the same as a hunter would from a wild one. Pigs give lard and hens give feathers, and a sheep gives you whatever wool it had on it. A young one gives half. Only the owner can butcher an animal, even if they trust you with it.

Naming them#

Any animal of yours can have a name. Tap it and choose Give it a name, and anyone who looks at it sees the name along with whose it is. Names can be up to 16 letters, and nobody minds if there's another Daisy down the road. Only the owner can name one, even if they trust you with it.

The ox#

A grown bull goes in a cart's shafts the same as a horse does, once you're Husbandry 10. Lead him up to one of your carts and choose Yoke your bull. An ox is slow, about 80% of your walking pace, so on an empty road he's slower than you are on foot. But a load hardly slows him at all, where a horse slows down a fair bit for a full wagon. You can't ride an ox, and he won't gallop.

Where an ox earns his keep is the field. Lead him while you till and he draws the plough, so every go turns three rows at once instead of one: the tile you tap and the two either side of it. A field for a whole settlement goes in an afternoon that way, and you get the Farming for all three rows.

That's the old wooden plough, which only an ox will draw. With an iron plough from the forge in your pack, every go turns 5 rows, and a horse will pull it as well as an ox.

Those are shares of walking pace on open ground. A horse is still the quicker way to haul, but an ox is the one you can breed for yourself, and the one that ploughs.

Start with hens. They're the easiest to win over, they don't need a halter, and two or three of them by the house will keep you in eggs and feathers.