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v0.34:Grazer

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This article is about an older version of DF.

Tame grazing animals (those with the GRAZER token) require a constant source of grass or cave moss to survive. Pastures are currently the easiest such source, however care must be taken to ensure that the pasture is large enough to provide food for all the assigned animals (and any auto-assigned babies).

Grazing animals and pasture size

Grazing animals use the [GRAZER:<value>] token to signify how much grass they need to eat. This is an inverse number - the value in grazer signifies how much hunger is reduced when eating a unit of grass. (Hunger increases every tick; a creature dies when it reaches 100,000). A creature with ten times the grazer value needs one tenth the amount of grass (and hence, pasture land) as a creature with a small grazer value. If you started your fortress in an undead biome, you may need to assign more space for a pasture as much of the grass is dead. Animals will not eat dead grass and will only eat the still living patches.

Animals which graze are typically good livestock candidates, as many of them can be milked and 3 also can be sheared for wool. Creatures with larger sizes consume more grass, but also produce more meat when butchered.

Each time unit adds one point to hunger. An animal takes an average of one turn per ten time units, and takes one time unit to eat grass. If there were an unlimited amount of grass on a tile, even animals with [GRAZER:1] would be able to feed themselves, however, there are at most 4 bunches of grass. Therefore, a creature of standard speed and agility with [GRAZER:3] would not be able to survive, and creatures with [GRAZER:4] require a constant source of grass (in other words infinite sized pastures) to survive. In practice, anything with [GRAZER:20] or less is eventually incapable of feeding itself. Because of this, the larger creatures like dralthas are virtually impossible to keep fed, and elephants are incapable of feeding themselves fast enough to stave off starvation. Bug:4113

If grazing animals consume all the grass on a tile, the tile will be reverted to the base layer material. This may be sand, clay or soil. In this way you receive a visual clue as to the size of the pasture required.

List of grazing animals

Take the following numbers with a grain of salt; they ignore the differing abilities of various biomes to replenish grass and are instead based on a rule of thumb that 20000=Grazer*Required_tiles. Usually you can get along with way smaller pastures. Nevertheless, a fairly large herd can cause overgrazing fast, so keep an eye out for hungry animals and desolate grassless pastures.

Animal Grazer
value
Creature
Size
Milkable Shearable Recommended Pasture Size
per individual
Pasture Area
Elephant 12 5,000,000 Cannot Self Feed (Graze Value <= 20) N/A
Rhinoceros 20 3,000,000 Cannot Self Feed (Graze Value <= 20) N/A
Giant bull moose 23 4,257,750 29 x 29 841
Draltha 24 2,500,000 29 x 29 841
Giant moose cow 38 2,554,650 28 x 28 784
Water buffalo 60 1,000,000 Yes 18 x 18 324
Giraffe 60 1,000,000 18 x 18 324
Yak 85 700,000 Yes 16 x 16 256
Gigantic panda 92 1,160,900 N/A (only eat bamboo, will starve without it) N/A
Cow 100 600,000 Yes 14 x 14 196
Unicorn 100 600,000 14 x 14 196
Bull moose 114 525,000 14 x 14 196
Horse 120 500,000 Yes 13 x 13 169
Camel (both) 120 500,000 Yes 13 x 13 169
Giant capybara 133 523,350 13 x 13 169
Mule 150 400,000 12 x 12 144
Cow moose 190 315,000 11 x 11 121
Donkey 200 300,000 Yes 10 x 10 100
Elk 200 300,000 10 x 10 100
Muskox 210 285,000 10 x 10 100
Giant red panda 255 235,100 N/A (only eat bamboo, will starve without it) N/A
Tapir 300 200,000 Yes 9 x 9 ? 81
Llama 333 180,000 Yes Yes 8 x 8 64
Deer 428 140,000 7 x 7 49
Reindeer 461 130,000 Yes 7 x 7 49
Panda 462 130,000 N/A (only eat bamboo, will starve without it) N/A
Warthog 600 100,000 6 x 6 36
Elk bird 600 100,000 6 x 6 36
Kangaroo 667 90,000 Yes 6 x 6 36
Alpaca 857 70,000 Yes Yes 5 x 5 25
Goat 1,200 50,000 Yes 4 x 4 16
Mountain goat 1,200 50,000 4 x 4 16
Ibex 1,200 50,000 4 x 4 16
Impala 1,200 50,000 4 x 4 16
Sheep 1,200 50,000 Yes Yes 4 x 4 16
Capybara 1,333 45,000 4 x 4 16
Wombat 2,308 25,000 3 x 3 ? 9
Gazelle 3,000 20,000 3 x 3 9
Hoary marmot 6,000 10,000 2 x 2 4
Red panda 12,000 5,000 N/A (only eat bamboo, will starve without it) N/A
Hare 17,143 3,500 1 x 1 ? 1
Groundhog 20,000 3,000 1 x 1 1
Cavy 75,000 800 1 x 1 (can feed up to 3 cavies) 1
Rabbit 120,000 500 1 x 1 (can feed up to 5 rabbits) 1

The following giant animals do not modify the grazer token inherited from their parents and are bugged to eat less than their size would indicate.

Animal Grazer
value
Creature
Size
Milkable Shearable Recommended Pasture Size
per individual
Pasture Area
Giant tapir 300 1,700,000 Yes 9 x 9 ? 81
Giant kangaroo 667 857,700 Yes 6 x 6 36
Giant ibex 1,200 560,000 4 x 4 16
Giant impala 1,200 560,000 4 x 4 16
Giant wombat 2,308 377,750 3 x 3 ? 9
Giant hare 17,143 224,560 1 x 1 ? 1

Bugs

  • A number of grazing creatures are unable to feed themselves fast enough to survive.Bug:4113
  • Pandas only eat bamboo, and invariably starve.
  • Grass does not grow back on mountain biomes.Bug:4164
  • Egg-laying grazers will starve themselves sitting on a nest box.Bug:4637
  • Grazing children tend to clump in the same tile as their mother, leading to starvation and overcrowding. This is particularly problematic for species with large litters, like giant capybaras.
  • When a civilian alert is active, grazers outside of the alert burrow refuse to eat.Bug:6240