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.

Characteristics gained

Soul / Soul depth

Method

• Both of the animals you wish to breed must be not hungry. One must be a male and the other one a female. Lead one of them with a rope (note that some animals must be tamed to be led) and move it close to the other one. Right-click on the animal you are not leading and select the "Breed" option.
• Grooming also gives animal husbandry skill gains. Activate a grooming brush and select groom while right-clicking on a groomable creature. You can groom animals once per hour.

Notes

• Animals must be of the same species.
• If breeding fails, you will receive a message that the male "shys away and interrupts the action".
• If breeding fails or is successful and you attempt to breed again, the male animal will show that he's "not in the mood" until 45 real life minutes pass.
• Females will not breed while they are pregnant. Once the female gives birth, the animal can breed again.
• 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.
• Age is a factor in breeding: calves or foals will not breed, neither will young/early adolescent animals.
• Breeding increases a player's soul depth.
• Pregnancy times varies from 5-11 wurm weeks, regardless of species.
• Examining the animal will show the remaining wurm weeks left until birth. eg. She will deliver in about 4
• Animals can have miscarriages which can kill the mother.
• If too hungry or low on fat animals can die when giving birth.
• 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 name is determined at birth, the traits are determined at breeding (noticed on a server revert on 2011-03-01)

Traits

Bred animals have a chance of having traits.(Enhancement/Deformity). Animals can have multiple traits. Traits are gained based on mechanics below:

• All traits are put into the gene pool.
• Parents' trait then add %chance that traits from parents will appear. if both parents have same trait, this %chance is even higher, can assume almost 100% chance.
• Inbreeding add %chance that bad traits will appear.
• Lastly, breeder's Animal Husbandry and horses generation affect the minimum and maximum number of traits that will appear in a horse.

Examining an animal will show traits, if one has the required skill level:

• 0 skill: Horse's color is considered a trait.
• 20 skill: "It will fight fiercely." (High fighting skill?)
• 21 skill: "It has fleeter movement than normal." (Minor speed boost)
• 22 skill: "It is a tough bugger." (Withstands more damage)
• 23 skill: "It has a strong body." (Bonus to maintaining top speed)
• 24 skill: "It has lightning movement." (Randomly increases speed for a short duration)
• 25 skill: "It can carry more than average." (Less penalty to speed due to high load)
• 26 skill: "It has very strong leg muscles." (Less penalty to speed due to slope? Does not currently do this.)
• 27 skill: "It has keen senses." (Increased agro range or possibly harder to tame?)
• 28 skill: "It has malformed hindlegs." (Minor speed penalty)*
• 29 skill: "The legs are of different length." (Major speed penalty)*
• 30 skill: "It seems overly aggressive." (Goes into frenzy when attacked)*
• 31 skill: "It looks very unmotivated." (Seldom uses speed boosts?)*
• 32 skill: "It is unusually strong willed." (Will drop lead at random)*
• 33 skill: "It has some illness." (Body strength will slowly reduce over time, which will eventually making the animal unrideable. Note: Genesis will cause it to slowly regain strength up to it's old level.)*
• 34 skill: "It looks constantly hungry." (is twice as fast hungry again)*
• 39 skill: "It looks feeble and unhealthy." (Prone to disease)*
• 40 skill: "It looks unusually strong and healthy." (Has a higher resistance to disease)
• 41 skill: "It has a certain spark in its eyes." (Affects breeding? Will not die of old age? Disproved, see talk.)

(All "?" are unconfirmed, traits with a * are removed by a Genesis cast)

(On Epic servers, players can see all of the above traits at approximately 24 skill. This is likely due to a modified skill curve)

Inbreeding

Inbreeding has a negative effect. It adds extra negative traits that don't count against the regular traits pool.

Inbreeding is mating with the father or mother or when the two animals have the same father or mother. Basically if you only can find two horses you'll be ok in three generations. But it might be better to mate your horses with your neighbors horses.

Important to note

Players have observed that dead parents don't count towards the 'inbreeding' check:

"I have often used it as a method of breeding, to kill the old parents when I had too many horses that had a parent in common. After the parents are dead, you can breed and get normal horses. Leave the parents alive and you get lots of bad traited animals." Source

Caring

To prolong venerable animals from dying of old age you can care for them. To start caring stand next to the animal, right click the animal and select Care for. If you start caring for that animal you'll get the message:

You now care specially for Aged fat Tearbabe, to ensure longevity. You may care for 1 more creatures.

The amount of animals you can care for is limited by the animal husbandry skill of the player. If you can't care for more animals you'll get the message

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

You can care for 1 animal and 1 extra animal for every 10 skill in animal husbandry. So at 40 Animal husbandry skill you can care for 5 animals.

Note: Non-premium players can only care for 1 animal.

To stop caring for all cared animals type the command /stopcaring in the chat window. You'll get the message

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

To stop caring for a specific animal, you will need to right click the animal and 'care for' again.

Titles

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