So I have a question that hopefully someone might be able to help me with.
In my latest run through, my character has cleared out a small town. There’s nothing really special or interesting in the town, but it’s close to a big city and it has a zoo. Because of the location, she’s going to use the small town as a staging ground for her assault on the big city.
I’ve never really messed with raising animals in game beside chickens a long time ago. Most of the time it’s just easier to cook them up than try to care for them, but since I now have a zoo full of animals, I’m wondering which animals will spawn babies/eggs. The rest will just go into the smoking rack… except one moose who somehow escaped their cage. I’ve named him Tim.
The zoo has multiple moose, pigs, bats, crows, ducks, tigers, rabbits, sheep, bluegill, pickerel, bass, otters and eels. It also has a single turkey, bobcat, snake and bear.
I know the chickens and ducks will produce eggs, given enough time. Do the animals need to be tamed to reproduce? I haven’t bothered taming any of the animals so far. I’ve been busy moving in and butchering the animals that were either already dead, turned or attacked me.
Domesticated animals can be tamed when adult, with the exception of (formerly domesticated) boars, which have to be tamed as piglets (according to what I’ve seen: never seen a piglet in the game).
Offspring have to be tamed individually if you want them tame (i.e. domestication isn’t inherited). I’ve seen that with birds (chicken and other birds reproduce, and I think all chicks can be tamed).
As mentioned, reproduction of does not require mating, and all reproducing animals are “female” in the sense that they can spawn young (I’ve only seen that for cats, though). Thus, in theory, you should be able to start with one of each species and build up an industry base from it, but it takes a lot of time. Also note that animals that can not be domesticated can be rather troublesome when you try to cull them, so imagine a boar that’s produced a litter of piglets that’s grown up without being tamed: it would be dangerous to enter the enclosure…
Personally I would monitor the pigs for piglet production (I’ve been in a similar situation, but never gotten any piglets, but the plan was to tame the piglets, killing the pig if need be), tame the ducks, sheep, and turkey, and keep the others for killing when there’s a need for more meat.
One thing I think I’ve seen is that chicken continued to produce eggs during winter, but other birds seem to have stopped.