Animal husbandry

Main / Skills / Nature / Animal husbandry

Description

Animal husbandry allows for the production (breeding) of new creatures, sometimes with increased quality, without the need to wait for new spawns.

Notes

• Grooming is the main activity which gives animal husbandry skill.
  • Activate a grooming brush and select groom while right-clicking on a groomable creature. This can be done to each animal once per hour.
  • Grooming can be done while moving (and while mounted), so long as you do not move too far away (two tiles) from the tile you are currently working on.
• Shearing is another activity which gives animal husbandry skill.
  • Activate scissors and select shear from the right-click menu on a sheep.
  • Wool bundles are put directly into your inventory upon shearing.
    • Sheared wool weight seems to vary depending on age: Young 0.1kg, Adolescent 0.2kg, Mature 0.3kg, Aged 0.4kg, Old 0.5kg, Venerable 0.6kg.
  • Shearing can be done while moving, so long as you do not move too far away (two tiles) from the tile you are currently working on.
  • Shearing can not be done while mounted.
• To breed, lead one animal with a rope (or any item should it be wearing a bridle) and approach the second. When they are close enough together right click on the second animal and select the "Breed" option.
  • Neither animal should be hungry.
  • Animals do not have to be "fat" to breed, only "no longer interested in food" (when trying to feed them). Grass eaters will typically be in this state after a minute or 2 on grass or crops.
  • If too hungry or low on fat animals can die when giving birth.
  • Animals can have miscarriages which may kill the mother with no offspring spawned. Starvation, being off-deed, or being on a deed with an animal-to-tile ratio of 15 or less (see character > settlement > info to see current deed ratio) are known as the reasons for miscarriages.
  • Tamed animals who are pregnant can lose the baby if they go offline when you do.
  • Neither animal should be of same gender.
  • Both animals should be of the same species.
  • Some animals require taming before being led; this does not apply to the second animal.
  • Females will not breed while they are pregnant. Once the female gives birth, she will not be in mood for breeding for 24 real hours.
  • Age is a factor in breeding: Juvenile animal types (calves, foals, lambs, and seal cubs) will not breed, neither will young/early adolescent animals. (Horses will breed at 25 rl days old)
  • Pregnancy times varies from 5-11 Wurm weeks, regardless of species.
    • Examining the animal will show the remaining days left until birth; for example, She will deliver in about 4 days. This is approximately 4 days, or 4 Wurm weeks.
  • Breeding female animals with conditions such as Champion will provide a chance that the offspring will also have that characteristic. This chance is dramatically increased when breeding two animals with the same condition together. (Two Champions for example.)
  • Breeding two animals with the same trait greatly increases the chance that the offspring will have the trait.
  • The horse name is determined at birth, the traits are determined at breeding.
  • The horse's color from birth is determined based on a combination of the mother's color, father's color, and random chance, similarly to traits.
  • Breeding can be done while moving, so long as you do not move too far away (two tiles) from the tile you are currently working on.

Messages

animal shys away and interrupts the action  

breeding has failed, the male will not breed again for some time.

animal is not in the mood  

the male will not breed again for some time.

Traits

• Bred animals have a chance of gaining traits, enhancements or deformities. Animals may have multiple traits, those can be seen in the table below. All traits are put into the gene pool when breeding and those of the parents will increase the chance of the offspring having the same. Should both parents have the same trait the likelihood of the offspring gaining that trait is even higher.
• The breeder's animal husbandry skil level affects the minimum and maximum number of traits that will appear in a horse. The maximum number of traits you can breed into one animal is currently 8 at 80+ skill.
  • At lower levels, breeding animals with traits will generally result in around AH skill/10 amount of traits. i.e. 5 traits + 5 traits with 30 AH will most often result in 3 traits for the new animal, however there is some level of RNG and it is possible to obtain 4 and 5 traits from breeding at this level.
• Animal husbandry is only partially on the Curve. The curved value (effective skill) allows you see traits at that level (not true for bred in captivity trait which requires 60 numerical to see even on epic). But the actual value (numerical) is used for computing the number of traits you can breed.
• Examining an animal will show traits if one has the required skill level. See the chart below for skill values required in succesfully examining and actually seeing specific traits present in an animal.

Base Skill	Epic Curve	Trait name	Effect	Good/Bad
0	0	Horse's color is considered a trait.	Does not count against the trait limit
20	10.56	It will fight fiercely.	Higher fighting skill 1
21	11.12	It has fleeter movement than normal.	Minor speed boost
22	11.68	It is a tough bugger	Withstands more damage
23	12.25	It has a strong body	Bonus to mounted weight limit
24	12.82	It has lightning movement	Major speed boost
25	13.40	It can carry more than average	Major bonus to mounted weight limit
26	13.98	It has very strong leg muscles	Minor speed boost, bonus to mounted weight limit
27	14.56	It has keen senses	Able to sense when on a water tile 1
28	15.15	It has malformed hindlegs	Minor speed penalty 2
29	15.74	The legs are of different length	Major speed penalty 2
30	16.33	It seems overly aggressive	Random chance to bite 2
31	16.93	It looks very unmotivated	Major penalty to mounted weight limit 2
32	17.54	It is unusually strong willed	Will stop being led at random 2
33	18.15	It has some illness	Body strength will slowly reduce over time eventually making the animal unrideable 2 3
34	18.76	It looks constantly hungry	Becomes hungry twice as fast as normal 2
39	21.90	It looks feeble and unhealthy	Prone to catching a disease 2
40	22.54	It looks unusually strong and healthy	Has a higher resistance to disease
41	23.19	It has a certain spark in its eyes	Lives 50% longer than normal
43	24.50	It has been corrupted.	Grazes on mycelium instead of grass 4
83	58.77	Bred in captivity	Informational, will not count toward the max number of traits

• ¹ Traits are either unknown or unconfirmed.
• ² Traits may be removed by casting Genesis.
• ³ Genesis cast on animals with this trait will cause it to slowly regain strength up to its original level.
• ⁴ Blessing the animal with a Libila priest will create this trait, and blessing with a Vynora, Fo, or Magranon priest will remove it.

Inbreeding

• Inbreeding occurs when an offspring is bred with either of its parents or a sibling. Inbreeding has an increased chance to pass bad traits if the parents have bad traits, but does not inherently create a bigger chance for bad traits in the offspring. Inbreeding may be unavoidable in small herds; it's advised to seek neighbours to begin a herd if one wishes to avoid inbreeding.
• Inbreeding does not occur past 1 generation. You can breed grandchildren of the same grandparents together with no inbreeding penalty.
  • Important note: if an animal's parent is dead, the parent's name will no longer show up on examining the creature. The game, however, still keeps track of who the parent was.

Caring

• To prolong venerable animals from dying of old age they may be cared for. To care for an animal stand next to it and right click, select Care for. The life of the animal after the venerable stage will be indefinite.
• If you start caring for that animal this message will appear:

You now care specially for Aged fat Tearbabe, to ensure longevity. You may care for x more creatures.

• The number of animals you may care for is determined by your Animal husbandry skill level.
• 1 animal may be cared for plus 1 additional for every 10 skill in Animal husbandry.
• The corpse of a cared-for animal can be hovered over with the mouse to see the animal's cause of death.
• Hostile creatures must be tamed first before they can be cared for.
• The total number of animals which may be cared for is limited by the Animal husbandry skill of the player. If the player is unable to care for more animals this message will appear:

You may not care for any more creatures right now. You are already caring for 1 creatures.

• Non-premium players can only care for 1 animal.
• The chat command /stopcaring will stop the player from caring for all animals. This message will appear:

You no longer care for the one creature you used to.

• To stop caring for a specific animal right click the animal and select 'care for'.
  • You can also stop caring for a specific animal by right clicking on your inventory or body, then Manage>Animals.
  • A list of all the animals cared for may be listed by using the command /caringfor

Characteristics trained

See: Characteristics

Titles

• Drover at 50 skill
• Granger at 70 skill
• Rancher at 90 skill
• Zoologist at 100 skill