Animal husbandry

Chickens with grain-filled troughs.

Domestication is the concept of animals losing fear of and aggressiveness towards players over generations.

Vintage Story includes a number of game mechanics that allow the domestication of some of the animals that roam the world. To domesticate animals, players must capture at least one male and one female so that offspring can be bred to become more and more accustomed to the player. The animals' behavior changes after multiple generations - you can't change aggressiveness and fear of a specific animal; only their offspring will be less fearful and aggressive towards the player. Even after reaching high generations, boars and bighorn sheep will still become aggressive when attacked.

Domestication

When a new generation is born, it inherits the generation of the mother. The father is not considered when checking for the offspring's generation. This means a 3rd generation female and a 4th generation male will produce 4th generation offspring, as the offspring will always be one generation higher than the mother.

After 1 generation:

• Animals can be pet. Petting causes the animal to stand peacefully.
• Animals have a 1 in 3 chance of being killed by the cleaver , dealing 1 damage on failure.
• Ewes and goats have a 66% chance of becoming aggressive when milked.

After 2 generations:

• Animals can be lead with a rope .
• Animals have a 2 in 3 chance of being killed by the cleaver , dealing 1 damage on failure.
• Ewes and goats have a 33% chance of become aggressive when milked.

After 3 generations:

• Pigs will no longer become aggressive when around piglets.
• Ewes and goats will never become aggressive when milked.
• Animals can be killed in one hit with the cleaver , by holding for a few seconds.

The cleaver will kill the creature the player is aiming at when releasing the mouse.

After 5 generations:

• Small animals and babies can be picked up directly with a reed chest .

After 10 generations:

• Sleeping animals will no longer wake when a player approaches.
• Aggressive animals will become neutral (i.e. only attack when provoked) and roosters will stop attacking each other.
• Animals will no longer run away from the player.

For testing purposes, there is a command which the player can use to change the generation of livestock:

• Version 1.19rc8: /entity cmd l[] setgen [number] while looking at the animal.
• Version 1.18.15 and previous:/debug setgen [number] while looking at the animal.

Moving Animals

Capturing Wild Animals

For capturing wild animals, three different methods can be employed:

1. Reed basket trap : Create a reed basket trap and insert the appropriate food item as bait. Small creatures, or babies of certain animals might enter the trap. The player then has 24 game-hours to transport the captured animal to an enclosure and release it before it dies inside the basket. Note that the player must have an empty backpack slot to pick up and transport these traps once an animal is inside.
2. Hit and run: Provoke the animal by punching or throwing a rock at them. In return, it will try to attack the player. If the player then runs away, they will follow for a while. Alternatively, the animal may flee, in which case the player can chase them towards the desired location. This behavior can be used to guide them into previously prepared animal pens. If the player encounters a group of animals together, focus on the males, as females will follow their male counterpart. Wild hens will always try to flee from the player, while wild roosters will occasionally try to attack; again, use this to your advantage by leading them into a pen.
3. Trapping: In an area nearby the desired animals, place a trough with the appropriate food portions in it, or a berry bush , or a crop . Dig a 4 block deep and 2 block wide pit around the bait. Wait for the animals to fall into the pit trap. Once babies of the trapped animals are born, they can be caught and transported in reed basket traps. Players may also enclose an area in fences, put bait in the middle, then place blocks on the outside so that animals can get in but not out, and convert the enclosure into the animal pen. As long as the desired food is placed correctly inside the pen, wild animals may be drawn to it and become trapped.

Moving Domesticated Animals

A rope can be used to lead animals of at least generation 2. Small animals and babies can be picked up directly with a reed chest starting with generation 5. Moving mature large animals around can be complicated after the player has already started breeding them, as animals will lose their fear of the player after generation 10, and might not easily run away or be provoked to attack and follow. Capturing babies in reed basket traps can allow for long distance transport. Automatically moving animals can be achieved by using baits that the animals can't reach, or water. Be careful, though; water also lifts animals up, so they can climb fences of single height.

Baby animals can be easily separated from a pen of potentially aggressive adults with bait and a small opening.

• 

  A piglet that has been baited into a small pit trap.

Breeding

Animals do not require food to survive, and cannot starve to death. All the time frames listed below use the default 9-day months. Length of gestation, maturation, and mating cooldown periods will scale accordingly if this setting is altered.

Animal	Portions	Gestation days	Litter size	Days to mature	Days before mating	Male chance
Hare	2	5	1 - 4	14	2 - 5	50%
Chicken	4	5*	1*	8.33*	0 - 3	10%
Pig	10	25	2 - 6	7	6 - 11	25%
Sheep	10	20	1	14	4 - 11	50%
Goat	10	20	1	14	4 - 11	50%

Protip: Newly matured animals are not immediately ready to mate.

Placing the appropriate amount of dry grass or hay , grain , vegetables , or fruit mash into the proper-sized trough (or, for hares, simply dropping the food items on the ground nearby) allows players to feed different animals, depending on their food preference. The amount of food required per portion varies. All 6 types of grain can be placed in small troughs for chickens, and each portion requires 1 grain. For large troughs, most foods require 2 items per portion. Pumpkin requires 4 slices (1 full pumpkin) per serving. A portion of grass requires 8 dry grass or 1 hay. The Block info HUD shown when looking at the animal will show the creature weight, generation (not displayed if 0), whether an animal is ready to breed, ready for milking, or at risk of disappearing due to darkness.

After reaching the "Ready to mate" stage, a female animal must consume the number of portions shown in the table above before pregnancy can begin. Portions eaten prior to entering this state will not count toward reproduction. Males do not require any food to mate. The female will lose all previously consumed portions and the male will lose one portion of food, if it has any. Animals can consume food from 0.6 blocks away and mate at a distance of up to 10 blocks away. This allows the player to keep a male in a separate pen nearby, as long as the females are kept within range. Creature weight does not affect an animal's ability to breed.

Protip: All animals can eat from a large or small trough, except chickens which can only eat from small troughs. However, since only grain can be placed in a small trough this prevents hares from using them.

Pigs

Pigs eat food placed in a large trough : grains (except rice), vegetables (except parsnips), fruit mash, or peanuts. When piglets are nearby, boars and sows that were peaceful during pregnancy will become aggressive. This behavior disappears after 3 generations.

Aggressiveness near piglets will not occur if the piglets are at least 13 blocks away. This behavior is not dependent on any recent breeding, so the adults will not become aggressive if the piglets are sufficiently separated from the adults .

• 

  The boar will not become aggressive due to 12 blocks being between it and the piglet.

Sheep

Sheep eat food placed in a large trough : grass, grains (except rice), vegetables (except parsnips), or fruit mash.

Goats

Goats eat food placed in a large trough : grass, grains (except rice), vegetables (except parsnips), or fruit mash.

Chickens

Chickens eat grain placed in a small trough . Although hens will lay eggs on their own if fed enough portions to reproduce, the eggs will be unfertilized without a nearby rooster. Chickens must lay their fertilized eggs in a henbox for the eggs to hatch after an incubation period of 5 days. Incubation can only begin after a henbox has 3 fertilized eggs. Incubation time only passes while a broody hen sits on the henbox, and disturbing it will delay the process. If no henbox is available, chickens will lay eggs on the ground, which will disappear after 48 hours if not collected.

The range at which the player's presence disturbs hens decreases with each generation, allowing closer movement without delaying incubation.

Hares

Hares eat vegetables from a large trough , and can also consume any vegetable items tossed on the ground nearby. Notably, hares are the only animal that will consume parsnips .

Harvesting and Butchering

Harvesting

Domesticated and/or wild animals can be killed and harvested for meat , raw hides , bones , and fat .

• In order to harvest, a player must Shift+right click with a knife in hand to harvest or butcher animals.

Note: The amount of items acquired by this method depends on the weight condition of the animal.

Milking

Tooltip on a ewe that gave birth recently.

Ewes and goats lactate for 21 days after giving birth, and can be milked with a period of a full day between each milking. When hovering over a ewe, the Block info HUD it will indicate if it's lactating regardless of its generation.

To milk a ewe or goat, use a bucket on it until milking is finished. Generations prior to 3 may reject milking. If the ewe rejects milking, it will become aggressive and you will need to wait until it calms down. The chance of rejection is 95% for generation 0, 66% for generation 1, and 33% for generation 2. Starting with generation 3, milking will always succeed. The tooltip incorrectly states that generation 0 always becomes aggressive and generation 3 may become aggressive.

Milk can either be consumed directly from a bucket or bowl, or processed into cheese for long-term preservation.

Creature Weight and Darkness

Two parts of husbandry that may be confusing for new players are the creature weight and darkness mechanics.

Creature Weight

The Block info HUD shows a property called "Creature Weight" which can appear as good, decent, low, or starving. A lower creature weight causes fewer items to be dropped when an animal is killed. This is an issue over winter, or in cold areas, as it can significantly reduce the yield of livestock. Keeping animals well-fed prevents their weight from decreasing.

Creature weight is represented as a percentage scale from 0% to 100%. Creatures lose 0.1% per hour or 2.4% per day. The percentage can be estimated by looking at the creature's weight in the information overlay. This also represents the amount of of harvestable drops reduced. For example, if the creature has a weight class of Low then it's drops are reduced by 26% to 50%.

Weight

Class	Percentage (%)	Reduced Drops (%)
Good	95% - 100%	0% - 5%
Decent	75% - 94%	6% - 25%
Low	50% - 74%	26% - 50%
Starving	0% - 49%	51% - 100%

Darkness

Many animals will disappear if they are in darkness for too long and players can see if animals will disappear by looking at the Block info HUD. Light sources like oil lamps or lanterns, as well as sunlight, can prevent animals from disappearing. This is the only way for animals to despawn without being killed.

Other animals

Bees cannot be domesticated, but the art of beekeeping can help them be put in a 'controlled environment' as to be able to harvest their produce without having to kill them all off.

Goats (and other species in the goat family, such as musk ox) behave in most respects like sheep: they can be bred and females can milked after giving birth.

Deer (and other species in the deer family, such as moose) will eat from troughs but not become pregnant after 10 portions, even with a male nearby.

Foxes , hyenas , gazelles , raccoons , wolves and bears cannot be domesticated and will have to be trapped and/or hunted down in order to reap the fruits of their dead bodies: meat , fat , hides and bones .

History

Version	Description
v1.19.0	The ability to transport small animals in baskets was added in version 1.19.0-pre.1: "Animal catching: Domesticated animals can be picked up with a basket." According to the teaser image, the captured animal will die within a day if not released. A populated basket occupies a backpack slot, like a populated skep does.
Prior to version 1.19, wild boars and sows were passive unless provoked, even when piglets were nearby
v1.20.0	Some animals can be moved using a rope . Wild pig can be moved with a rope before they are tamed, just don't pull too much so you don't break it.

Notes

• Females try to stay near males, and babies try to stay near adult females. Occasionally they will start running to close the gap.