Animal Husbandry Guide - Vintage Story Wiki

Vintage Story: Animal Husbandry Guide

Updated June 2026 - verified against Vintage Story 1.22.1 (latest stable).

Animal husbandry in Vintage Story is a slow, generation-based domestication system: there is no instant "tame" button. You confine wild animals, feed them, breed a male and female pair, and gradually tame their offspring over many generations until they stop fearing or attacking you. This guide covers the full breeding loop, per-animal specifics, generation milestones, and the common mistakes that wipe out a herd.

Farmable Animals

Note: hares (and panda bears) are the only animals that will eat parsnips. Portions are the amount of feed the female must consume from the trough before she can become pregnant.

How Domestication Actually Works (Generations)

Domestication in Vintage Story is not a one-time action - it is the result of breeding across generations. Wild animals are generation 0. An animal's generation is inherited from its mother plus one (the father's generation is ignored). So a baby born to a gen 0 ewe is gen 1, and you only reach high generations by breeding the offspring you keep, over and over.

Generation Milestones

Capturing Your First Breeding Stock

1. Find wild animals: Locate them in appropriate biomes (chickens and hares in temperate woods, wild pigs in forests, etc.)
2. Build a pen first: Fence an enclosure before you start, because gen 0 animals are skittish or hostile
3. Wild pigs can be roped: Since 1.20 you can lead a wild pig with a rope, but too much strain breaks the rope - move slowly
4. Drive smaller animals in: Chickens and hares are herded into the pen rather than roped at gen 0
5. Feed and breed: Stock a trough so the female can eat, then breed for offspring - the babies are your real domesticated herd

Feed by Animal

• Chickens: Grain (wheat, rye, spelt, flax seeds, etc.) from a small trough
• Hares: Vegetables from a small trough or tossed on the ground nearby; uniquely they eat parsnips
• Pigs: Grain, vegetables, fruit mash, and peanuts from a large trough
• Sheep and goats: Grass, grain, vegetables, and fruit mash from a large trough

Breeding Mechanics

Breeding Requirements

The Breeding Loop, Step by Step

1. Stock the trough: Put the correct feed in a trough the female can reach. She eats portions over time.
2. Females reach the threshold: Once the female has consumed her species' required portions (4 for chickens, 2 for hares, 10 for pigs, sheep, and goats) she becomes ready.
3. Mating: A fully mature male spends one portion of food and mates. The female becomes pregnant (or, for chickens, starts laying fertilized eggs).
4. Gestation: The female carries the offspring for the gestation period (5 days chickens and hares, 25 days pigs, 20 days sheep and goats).
5. Birth: The baby spawns at the mother's generation plus one.
6. Maturation: The young grow up over the maturation window (~7 days pigs, ~8.3 days chickens, ~14 days sheep, goats, and hares) before they can breed in turn.

Animal Products

Egg Production (Chickens)

• Unfertilized eggs: A well-fed hen lays eggs on her own with no rooster - these are food eggs and will never hatch.
• Fertilized eggs: Need a rooster nearby. To hatch them, place a henbox - incubation begins once 3 eggs accumulate and lasts about 5 days while a hen broods.
• Collection: Eat the unfertilized eggs and leave fertilized ones in the henbox to grow your flock.
• Uses: Food, baking, and hatching new chickens.

Milk Production (Ewes and Goats)

• Who lactates: Only ewes (female sheep) and does (female goats), and only after giving birth. There are no cows in vanilla.
• Lactation window: 21 days after birth, with a full in-game day between each milking.
• Generation matters: Low-generation females often refuse milking - gen 0 rejects ~95% of attempts, gen 1 ~66%, gen 2 ~33%, and gen 3+ never reject.
• Uses: Drinking and crafting cheese.

Wool Shearing (Sheep)

• Tool: Shears.
• Use: Spin wool into yarn and weave it for warm clothing and bedrolls.
• Tip: Wool regrows over time, so a small flock of ewes gives a steady supply.

Pen Design

Optimal Pen Layout

Minimum Size: 8x8 blocks
Fence Height: 2 blocks
Gate: Double gate for easy access
Trough: 1 per 4 animals
Shelter: Roof for weather protection

Multi-Species Farm

Feeding & Care

Troughs and Feeding

• Match the trough to the animal: chickens and hares use a small trough; pigs, sheep, and goats use a large trough.
• Reach: animals feed from food within roughly 0.6 blocks, so place troughs where the herd can crowd around them.
• Hares are flexible: they also eat vegetables tossed on the ground if you have no small trough handy.
• Keep it full: females only become fertile after eating their portion threshold, so a trough that runs dry stalls all breeding.

Body Weight - the Real Hunger System

Vintage Story does not show a satiety percentage bar. Instead each animal has a body weight that slowly drops when it is not eating - about 0.1% per hour, or roughly 2.4% per day. Weight has two consequences:

• Harvest yield scales with weight: a heavy, well-fed animal drops more meat, fat, and hide than a thin one, so fatten livestock before slaughter.
• Breeding stalls when hungry: underfed animals will not consume mating portions, so a starving herd simply stops reproducing.

Practically, keep troughs stocked so animals stay near full weight, and only let an animal you intend to cull soon get thin.

Slaughtering & Processing

Killing and Harvesting

1. Fatten first: harvest yields scale with body weight, so feed the animal well before slaughter.
2. Pick surplus stock: cull excess males and animals you do not want to breed; keep your highest-generation females.
3. Use a cleaver for clean kills: against a gen 3+ animal a charged cleaver hit kills in one blow; a knife also works for harvesting.
4. Harvest: collect meat, fat, and hide (feathers from chickens).

Meat Yields

Exact meat, fat, and hide drops depend on the animal's body weight at the time of slaughter, so the figures above are typical ranges for a well-fed adult.

Advanced Husbandry

Breeding Up Generations

In vanilla Vintage Story, "improving" your herd means raising its generation, because all the convenient behaviors - petting, roping, reliable milking, pickup, and tameness - unlock at the generation milestones above. Note that generation is inherited from the mother only, so:

• Keep your highest-generation females: they determine the generation of every baby they bear.
• Always breed your best females, not just any pair: mating a gen 8 ewe gives a gen 9 lamb regardless of the ram.
• Plan ahead: reaching gen 10 (full tameness, no fleeing) takes ten successive successful births down one maternal line.
• Genetics is a mod feature: heritable productivity traits and inbreeding penalties come from mods such as Genelib or Detailed Animals, not the base game.

Sustainable Farming

Maintain population without overharvesting:

• Breeding Pairs: keep at least one mature male and several females per species.
• Harvest Excess: cull surplus males and low-generation stock, never your breeding females.
• Fatten before culling: let animals reach full weight so harvests are not stunted.
• Population Cap: do not overcrowd - keep pens lit and roomy.

Common Mistakes

• Expecting an instant tame: there is no tame button - domestication is breeding across generations, so plan a multi-day project.
• Trying to farm cows: cows do not exist in vanilla; use ewes or goats for milk.
• No rooster, then wondering why eggs never hatch: only fertilized eggs (rooster nearby) hatch, and only inside a henbox.
• Milking a gen 0 or gen 1 doe: low-generation females reject most milking attempts - breed up to gen 3+ for reliable milk.
• Letting troughs run dry: females must eat their full portion count to breed, so an empty trough silently stops reproduction.
• Dark pens: animals despawn in prolonged darkness, so always light the enclosure.
• Holding animals too long: an animal carried in a chest dies after 24 hours, so move livestock promptly.

For the full vanilla numbers and any patch changes, see the official Vintage Story Animal Husbandry wiki.

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