Farmstead Overhaul - Animals

[Nanothnir]

Ok I started raising animals for the first time. And have noticed a few different things when it comes to its methods, while I know a few things have been said before, I was just thinking of a few different ones....


Straw - Fodder improvement.
Atm, the apparent best way to feed animals is to feed them carrots, the growth time of carrots allows for more fodder troughs to be filled faster, though in retrospects the proper fodder for an animal is Straw due to its compound and other technical shit in it, that when added to Barley and such gives the cattle better tasting milk and stuff like that, look it up. CBF to do it for you. Straw should be used mainly to feed animals as it is a by product of Wheat being harvested, so far its uses are for Hats, Mansions and Baskets as well as Fodder, but the 'Tick' it gives for feed is the same as carrots and seeds...
Idea - Increase the amount of 'Feed' that Straw gives when placed into a Fodder Trough... 1Straw = 4Seeds for example...

Hay - Crop Expansion.
Hempbuds were added and was made harvest-able by harvesting Hemp when it 'flowers' thus giving you the bud, Hay is another term used to describe straw when fed to animals. Thus in using Straw with the idea above it becomes more of a Choice Fodder item. Hay is produced by allowing the wheat seeds to fall from the Plant and allowing it to dry longer in the sun, or something like that, in other words its an extention on a Wheat Crop.
Idea - Make another level Wheat Grows to after a Long time of being normal Wheat, when harvested gives a large number of Straw and 1 or 2 seeds depending on Nature Slider. This will also help with Mansion building naturally.

Haystack - Buildable Storage.
Clearly you all know what a Haystack is right, a HUGE Pile of Hay which is gathered up and allowed to dry even longer before being fed to animals.
Idea - A 2x2 Buildable 'pole' on which Straw can be 'thrown' till it piles up and forms the known haystack, thus allowing Farmers to harvest Wheat at its Hay stage and easily store the Straw quickly and efficiently, it should hold a large amount of Straw, numbering in the Hundreds perhaps for a FULL state. Straw will though disappear from the Stack if not used over time, animals/birds/wind picking it up and taking it away.

Pitchfork - Farming Tool.
A Pitchfork could be made out of both Wood and Metal, The Graphics would be a two prong fork for wood and the popular three prong fork for metal, as been mentioned before it would allow gathering of Straw.
Idea - A faster way to collect Straw and allows the player to collect it into a Haystack quicker.

Haybundle - Farming Tool
Like the Pitchfork this has been suggested many a times before, and like the pitchfork it will be mentioned again. A Pile of Straw plus a couple of Strings would allow for a carryable item that can then be dumped into a Trough easily, or perhaps separated.
Idea - Easy way of moving Straw from Stack to Trough and another way to store Straw. And allows it to be stored safely over time without disappearing like it would from the Stack. Size of a Chest perhaps.

Heifers and Steers - Cow/Bull Age Stage.
Atm unless I am mistaken, a Calf needs to remain with a Female Cow to be able to 'Eat' the Milk the cow produces and thus allowing it to live, they do not eat grass or from the Trough until they reach the adult stage. BUT a Male Calf when reaching that stage will then turn around and Mate with its mother/wetnurse and instantly give you another Pregnent cow, this just don't seem right...
Idea - A Second Stage before Adult where the Calf turns from a Milk dependent animal to a more Fodder/Grass eater. While this only lasts a few 'days' it gives the player plenty of time to move a male to a more secluded pen if its going to be used for Breeding reasons or a for killing. Like with some things, an animals Stats should lift from Low to Medium to Final Stats, Making it worth wild to let those males Grow to adult bulls. While at this stage, the Male will not Mate and the Female is unmilkable. Same naturally go for Pigs and Sheep...

Barn - Buildable Storage
Now this has been mentioned before but this has a few things different, while before it was suggested that a Barn could be used to 'Hibernate' an animal this is not the idea with this Barn. The Barn is a more active way of keeping the Animals safe, while in the Barn they can be put into stalls which allows them to be separated if male or Milked easily if female. It also allows for a Large Trough to be added, this Trough allows the whole Barn to be feed and also has a Larger Full level, so while at the same time it can be used to Hibernate animals, its still just Filling a Bigger Trough that can store 3 times the amount of Feed that 10 normal troughs can for example...
Idea - A better way to separate and Feed animals, also keeps them safe from wondering away and/or being stolen. Large Trough can allow animals to have enough food for a Player to go on holidays from the game over a few weeks or so. Trough can be filled with lots of Haybundles. Haybundles can be stacked in special area (pipe dream)...

Ox Plow - Farming Tool Expansion
You see them in European Pics of Olden day Farmsteads, an Ox pulling a Plow behind it while the Farmer Steers it from behind. With Ox Driving this seems like the next obvious step...
Idea - Ox Pulled Plows move as fast as a Metal plow if attached to a Wooden Plow, and Faster Still if attached to a Metal plow. Allows for more tiles wide to be plowed at once perhaps if a New Wider Plow is made. Consumes less stamina then either plow pushed by hand...




These are only a few I thought up, might look into others or perhaps a different area if this is received well...

[Potjeh]

Actually, pumpkin is *the* fodder crop. Who the hell uses carrots?

And that's not what hay is at all.

[Nanothnir]

Actually, pumpkin is *the* fodder crop. Who the hell uses carrots?

Forgot about Pumpkins... Haven't Grown them for ages...

And that's not what hay is at all.

Well ok yeah sure its not EXACTLY what Hay is...

From Wikioedia -
Hay is grass, legumes or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder...
Oat, barley, and wheat plant materials are occasionally cut green and made into hay for animal fodder; however they are more usually used in the form of straw, a harvest byproduct where the stems and dead leaves are baled after the grain has been harvested and threshed. Straw is used mainly for animal bedding. Although straw is also used as fodder, particularly as a source of dietary fiber, it has lower nutritional value than hay.


I just extended on what the point of Hay is for the dimensions of this game allows...

[Sarge]

Still, I do think you have a few nice suggestions there.

Various types of stockpiles have been discussed and I'm all for it... so has granaries.

The additional growth phase for livesock idea you have, imo, should actually become the primary reason it should at least be added for males. Other than that, there is of course the motivation that it would be nice to have at least another sprite and preferably a progress bar for growth so that you may be able to tell how far the animal is from fully grown (10 irl days is a pretty long time).

I have also thought about the ox-pulled-plow that will plow multiple tiles in a row and actually, it should then also consume far less stamina... so you have my vote here too.

...and I'm with Potjeh, pumpkins are definitely, at least for me, my preferred choice as ultimate fodder with the current settings.

[DatOneGuy]

Pumpkins sure are the best fodder indeed.

Increasing how much 'Straw' feeds into a trough would be nice, but I think it still wouldn't beat pumpkins...
... I don't think the hay - crop expansion will help with mansion building too much unless they really like to leave their crops there for a long time.
Haystack is a great idea, pitchfork sounds nice but how exactly would it work to help you gather it faster? Haybundle great idea of course, not much to change,
the age stage for bulls/cows is a definite 'Yes please!', the barn idea would be nice with a large trough, I'm all for it I hate leaving my cows outside the way I do, and milking them is a pain unless you spend days setting them up and trapping them perfectly, a way to keep them for effective and easy milking would be nice, Ox Plow is another definite yes, it should take very little stamina since the Ox is doing most of the work.

The ox should get hungry faster though (no reason to give him stamina, so just give him the result of stamina and make him hungry)

[OvShit]

Pumpkins sure are the best fodder indeed.

Increasing how much 'Straw' feeds into a trough would be nice, but I think it still wouldn't beat pumpkins...
... I don't think the hay - crop expansion will help with mansion building too much unless they really like to leave their crops there for a long time.
Haystack is a great idea, pitchfork sounds nice but how exactly would it work to help you gather it faster? Haybundle great idea of course, not much to change,
the age stage for bulls/cows is a definite 'Yes please!', the barn idea would be nice with a large trough, I'm all for it I hate leaving my cows outside the way I do, and milking them is a pain unless you spend days setting them up and trapping them perfectly, a way to keep them for effective and easy milking would be nice, Ox Plow is another definite yes, it should take very little stamina since the Ox is doing most of the work.

The ox should get hungry faster though (no reason to give him stamina, so just give him the result of stamina and make him hungry)

Em, beetroot is way better. It gives six items of food per harvest and grows fast as hell.

[DatOneGuy]

Pumpkins sure are the best fodder indeed.

Increasing how much 'Straw' feeds into a trough would be nice, but I think it still wouldn't beat pumpkins...
... I don't think the hay - crop expansion will help with mansion building too much unless they really like to leave their crops there for a long time.
Haystack is a great idea, pitchfork sounds nice but how exactly would it work to help you gather it faster? Haybundle great idea of course, not much to change,
the age stage for bulls/cows is a definite 'Yes please!', the barn idea would be nice with a large trough, I'm all for it I hate leaving my cows outside the way I do, and milking them is a pain unless you spend days setting them up and trapping them perfectly, a way to keep them for effective and easy milking would be nice, Ox Plow is another definite yes, it should take very little stamina since the Ox is doing most of the work.

The ox should get hungry faster though (no reason to give him stamina, so just give him the result of stamina and make him hungry)

Em, beetroot is way better. It gives six items of food per harvest and grows fast as hell.

Sorry, but do you really want to harvest daily? No, thought so.

Drop pumpkins, let 'em sit for a week, it takes 14 full pumpkins to fill a trough, if you double the use for flesh for food and only do the seeds that's 29 pumpkins to fill a trough, you actually get to use the flesh for something useful, and it still fills in less tiles than beetroot. If you have room to drop a bunch of them it works great, the best even.

[Potjeh]

It takes a lot less clicks to fill a through with pumpkins, too, since you can put them in whole.

Anyway, I'd much prefer to have hay separate from crops. It should be something that grows on ungrazed grassland on it's own, and can be harvested periodically. When we get crop rotation, it could be produced in the fallow phase so that leaving fields fallow isn't a total loss.