Ranching lets you tame and raise critters so they lay more eggs and (in some cases) produce more materials.
Mechanics[ | ]
- All ranching related errands require a duplicant with the Critter Ranching skill, same for supplying Critter Feeders and Fish Feeders, and moving already wrangled critters to a Critter Drop-Off or Fish Release.
- Wild critters do not need to be fed, same for pacus, who are tamed via feeding. However, feeding wild critters will cause them to create material, and with certain species of critter you can influence the sub-species type of their children by feeding them specific foods.
- Assuming a critter never has the "glum" debuff, a wild critter will lay one egg from birth to death, while a tame critter will lay sixteen eggs from birth to death via old age. Wild critters can become glum due to being confined in a small space, while tame critters can become glum due to overcrowding or not being groomed often enough.
- Tame critters are meant to be kept in a stable, which requires a Grooming Station. A stable requires 12 squares of space for most critters, and 16 for Pufts, meaning at most 8 non-Pufts or 6 Pufts can fit into a maximally sized stable.
- If more critters are in a stable than its maximum capacity then the critters will receive the "overcrowded" debuff, making them unhappy and possibly giving them the "glum" debuff.
- If there is at least one egg in a stable and the number of eggs plus the number of critters is larger than the stable's maximum capacity then the critters will receive the Cramped debuff, preventing them from generating more eggs; eggs inside a Ration Box or refrigerator inside the stable count towards this limit. The Cramped debuff will only go away once enough eggs hatch or are removed from the stable.
- Critters (save for Pacus) are tamed by grooming them at a Grooming Station. Grooming a wild critter for two consecutive days will make it tame. Once tamed, a critter stays tamed.
- Eggs maintain the wild/tame status of their parent upon hatching. That is, the eggs of tame critters will hatch into tame babies, and the eggs of partially tamed wild critters will hatch into partially tamed babies.
- An egg will take 20 cycles to hatch if left outside, or 4 cycles if "lullabied" in an incubator.
- Critters like Pips and Dreckos will not feed off plants growing in Planter Box. They will require farm tiles to eat. Keep this in mind when trying to build an Arbor Tree grove for pips, or mealwood/balm lily food source for Dreckos.