v0.34:Grazer

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v50.14 · v0.47 · v0.34.11 · v0.31 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

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