Question about milk quality and cattle breeding

[Ailwyn]

I've read the wiki articles on cattle and taming, and a few forum threads about breeding and I understand how to increase the stats. However, one thing has really confused me. I had two lactating cows, one with a milk quality stat of 36 and one with a milk quality stat of 47. I had the same hearthling milk both cows with the same bucket. The cow with the milk quality of 36 gave milk which was actually quality 36, but the cow with the milk quality stat of 47 gave milk with a quality of 28. Both cows are in the same pen eating out of the same feed trough. Why is the higher stat cow giving inferior milk? I also noticed that when butchering a cow with hide quality stat 51, the actual quality hide I got was somewhere in the 20's.

How do the "stat" numbers relate to the quality of the products which are actually derived from the cattle? Is a higher milk quality stat a guarantee of higher milk quality?

[MagicManICT]

The Milk Quality is the quality you get. It is softcapped by the quality of the fodder the cow eats. You can see that on the cow's info sheet. Side note: some cows "miss" the fodder and just graze. Keep an eye on that food quality number.

[kralmir]

dont give the cows space to move or at least make sure every last pixel is covered by a full food trough.

[Ailwyn]

Thank you, I didn't record the fodder quality when I compared those results, but I'll keep an eye on it.

[Ailwyn]

I'm now convinced that this is more than fodder. I have a cow with milk quality stat 43 giving quality 11 milk, and another cow in the same herd with milk quality stat 51 giving 51q milk, and both have fodder eaten qualities over 100- the first 105, the second 107. This can not be a fodder issue--any other ideas?

[Potjeh]

They starved.

[Ailwyn]

No, their red bars are full... Sounds like y'all are as stumped as I am, so perhaps this cow is just bugged somehow. Thanks for trying.

[Potjeh]

Starvation is the white bar.

[Robertzon]

Just checked, white bars were full.

[Ailwyn]

Starvation is the white bar.

The white bar is the hunger bar, it will go down over time until the cow is hungry enough to eat. If, at that point, the cow does not have access to the food it will "starve" and the red bar will go down a bit. As the red bar goes down, the quality of the products derived from that cow will also go down. On the other hand, if at that point the cow has access to food it will eat it and the white bar will refill. The white bar is a timer letting you know how close your cow is to needing feeding, the red bar tells you whether your cow has actually starved. Our cattle are all very well fed.

If our cows were eating grass instead of fodder that would account for the low quality milk, however no patches of grass are missing from their pasture and the quality of their fodder eaten remains high. And yet, poor little "Dots" continues to give consistently q11 milk. Weird. I'll just keep her around for a while because of her high stats that she may pass on to a calf, then cull her when I have an appropriate replacement for her. I think she must just be bugged. Thanks again for your help.