What's the deal with goat domestication?

[dustydan]

So I've been trying to domesticate goats for a while now. I'm at Gen 3 and the goats still won't stop running away when I get near, making it unbearably frustrating to milk them. I thought by now that they would calm down. Turns out, they need to be Gen 10 before they stop fleeing the player! So how long would it take to get to Gen 10, so I can finally milk them without having to chase them around the pen until their path-finding inevitably stops working?

According to the wiki, it takes 34 days for goats to go through a breeding cycle. To get to Gen 10, theoretically it would then take 340 in-game days. But considering 50% of children end up being male, you would need to go through 20 breeding cycles to maintain the female population (why can't kids inherit the generation of the father?). So that is 680 in-game days. Considering a VS day is 48 minutes, that means you would have to spend 544 hours of IRL time to reach Gen 10. If I were to play the game for 15 hours a week, that means I would have to play for nearly 9 IRL months to get Gen 10 goats!

So surely you're not actually supposed to ever obtain Gen 10 animals. So what's the intended way of maintaining and milking goats? I've tried rope-tying the goats, but ropes don't actually restrain animal movement whatsoever, and the ropes always snap (so what is the point of rope-tying animals?). The only other way I can think of doing it would be by trapping each individual goat in a 1x1 box so they physically can't run away, but now I'm being forced into making a goat prison, and I just can't make myself do that in my cozy homesteading game. I want them to be able to live in an open pasture, grazing on the grass, not stuck in a tiny box all their lives!

Is there any way to achieve this, or at least any plans of domestication being reworked?

[V1ncent]

I don't know if this is about the difference between goats and big horn sheeps, but those big horn sheeps in my pen act more like boars that just ignore me unless provoked.

The wiki said gen 1 goats can be petted to stand calm, but I guess the point is to get close to react with the animal anyway. My approach to the animal pen is digging a pit in the ground with the feed trough at the bottom to lure animals in. Then I can easily stand on the overhang and feed/milk/slaughter the animals without provoking them.

Edited May 9, 2025 by V1ncent

[TheSentient0ne]

I fully agree. I started domestication very early on in my save and the goats are the most tedious for sure, followed after directly by the bighorn sheep (they may ignore you but hey they might also gore you). Especially the 50/50 split in offspring is just horrendous. Compared to that, pigs and chickens are way easier, due to the faster breeding time (chickens), bigger amount of offspring per breeding (both) and the 90/10 offspring split (both). 

Tbh while I don’t want to be the person screaming for a rework, I think one might be warranted. Either we need similar offspring male/female ratio to boars and chickens, or, an actual more in-depth change. IRL domestication isn‘t so much about „taming“ animals, since you can achieve that very fast if the animal is taken at a young age or after 1-2 generations with consistent handling. It‘s rather about selective breeding for „better“ animals, i.e more wool, more eggs, more milk, or being hardier/needing less food. Now I don‘t want to say vintage story needs to have selective breeding (although I wouldn‘t complain) since that would probably be too niche of a feature. But maybe domestication could be tweaked to have animals used to the player after 3 generations, and then having a decent boost in drops/milk production after subsequent generations. Maybe you could even tweak it so the earlier generations produce less? 

[Michael Gates]

I think the idea is that dairy is the steel of satiation bars. It's for the few, the proud, the idiots who don't mind being kicked in the head by a goat now and then. Goodness knows I've never managed to get a bucket of milk.

[Maelstrom]

11 hours ago, Michael Gates said:

I think the idea is that dairy is the steel of satiation bars. 

You're not wrong.  

[StCatharines]

12 hours ago, Michael Gates said:

I think the idea is that dairy is the steel of satiation bars. It's for the few, the proud, the idiots who don't mind being kicked in the head by a goat now and then. Goodness knows I've never managed to get a bucket of milk.

That is the EXACT way I look at dairy sats. Most of the time, unless someone else on the server is dealing with milk animals and cheese making and all? I just get what I get from an ag trader.

[LadyWYT]

I think it's a two-fold issue:

1. Goats came later than bighorn sheep, and are coded to be a lot more skittish. Similar to chickens, they don't really calm down until later generations. I would expect bighorn sheep to behave in a similar fashion once they receive an update, unless goats are tweaked to behave like current bighorns.

2. Dairy is in a spot similar to fruit trees--a gameplay loop that requires too much time investment for the time it takes to complete the current story. Once more story chapters have been implemented, I daresay things like dairy and fruit trees will feel more worthwhile to invest in, since you'll be spending a lot more time in the world.

[Thorfinn]

With small enough individual pens, milking goats is not that difficult. And so long as you aren't trying to maximize their weight, it doesn't take all that much hay to keep the older generations around anyway.

That said, most games where I have dairy, it's because of a nearby ag trader, and, on occasion, a nearby sheep family that I manage to get fenced off before the wolves and bears get them.

Edited May 9, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Zane Mordien]

I don't bother with milk or fruit trees either. Although my son did manage to make cheese one time on one of my worlds but using the aforementioned techniques of putting them in smaller pins to milk them. He was very persistent. 

[Feycat]

22 hours ago, dustydan said:

So I've been trying to domesticate goats for a while now. I'm at Gen 3 and the goats still won't stop running away when I get near, making it unbearably frustrating to milk them. I thought by now that they would calm down. Turns out, they need to be Gen 10 before they stop fleeing the player! So how long would it take to get to Gen 10, so I can finally milk them without having to chase them around the pen until their path-finding inevitably stops working?

According to the wiki, it takes 34 days for goats to go through a breeding cycle. To get to Gen 10, theoretically it would then take 340 in-game days. But considering 50% of children end up being male, you would need to go through 20 breeding cycles to maintain the female population (why can't kids inherit the generation of the father?). So that is 680 in-game days. Considering a VS day is 48 minutes, that means you would have to spend 544 hours of IRL time to reach Gen 10. If I were to play the game for 15 hours a week, that means I would have to play for nearly 9 IRL months to get Gen 10 goats!

So surely you're not actually supposed to ever obtain Gen 10 animals. So what's the intended way of maintaining and milking goats? I've tried rope-tying the goats, but ropes don't actually restrain animal movement whatsoever, and the ropes always snap (so what is the point of rope-tying animals?). The only other way I can think of doing it would be by trapping each individual goat in a 1x1 box so they physically can't run away, but now I'm being forced into making a goat prison, and I just can't make myself do that in my cozy homesteading game. I want them to be able to live in an open pasture, grazing on the grass, not stuck in a tiny box all their lives!

Is there any way to achieve this, or at least any plans of domestication being reworked?

I think my goats are at Gen 15 now? I've never ever had a 50/50 split in any generations, I know that's the % in the wiki but I've ended up much closer to 25% male 75% female. I kill all the males except one every gen so I've got an eye on it. I'm confused by why you don't just put your goats in a pen? You can milk through the bars of the fence until they're at like gen 4 and don't attack anymore, and once they're Gen 3 you can one-shot them with the cleaver without aggroing anyone. Just go into the pen with your chopper.

So at say, gen 3, I'm killing all the males except the last generation one (I know it doesn't have an effect but still) and the gen 1 females. At Gen 4 I kill all the males but one and the Gen 2 females. So I'm still breeding the last gen's females and the current gen's females, just to milk. Once I feel like I have plenty, I'll start killing all but the latest gen females.

[dustydan]

1 hour ago, Feycat said:

I think my goats are at Gen 15 now? I've never ever had a 50/50 split in any generations, I know that's the % in the wiki but I've ended up much closer to 25% male 75% female. I kill all the males except one every gen so I've got an eye on it. I'm confused by why you don't just put your goats in a pen? You can milk through the bars of the fence until they're at like gen 4 and don't attack anymore, and once they're Gen 3 you can one-shot them with the cleaver without aggroing anyone. Just go into the pen with your chopper.

So at say, gen 3, I'm killing all the males except the last generation one (I know it doesn't have an effect but still) and the gen 1 females. At Gen 4 I kill all the males but one and the Gen 2 females. So I'm still breeding the last gen's females and the current gen's females, just to milk. Once I feel like I have plenty, I'll start killing all but the latest gen females.

1. Goats definitely don't have a 75-25 ratio. I've already had a generation of 6 males and no females.

2. If you read my post, you would know that they are in a pen. Unless you are suggesting I should put them in a tiny cage, which I also already addressed in my post.

3. Like I said, I can't milk them because they run away if you get anywhere near them.

4. Goats don't attack the player, they actively flee from them.

I'm wondering if you are confusing goats with sheep? Unless different goats variants have different AI, I don't understand what you are trying to suggest.

[Robopope]

They eventually stand still if you hold right click on them for long enough with the bucket, then when it says they're stressed just let go of right click for a moment until it says they can be milked again and then try again. I've been able to milk the wild goat I caught reliably like this, though I do have them in a small 5x5 pen where I can be standing in the center and always be in range of them. If you have a really large pen I can see why you'd have issues since it'd be tough to stay in range of them for long enough to get them to stand still, but you definitely don't need to trap them in a 1x1 cage.

Edited May 10, 2025 by Robopope

[Thorfinn]

18 hours ago, Robopope said:

you definitely don't need to trap them in a 1x1 cage.

I'd think the smallest one might find practical to use is 1x2, so you can get the trough in with her.

[Feycat]

21 hours ago, dustydan said:

1. Goats definitely don't have a 75-25 ratio. I've already had a generation of 6 males and no females.

2. If you read my post, you would know that they are in a pen. Unless you are suggesting I should put them in a tiny cage, which I also already addressed in my post.

3. Like I said, I can't milk them because they run away if you get anywhere near them.

4. Goats don't attack the player, they actively flee from them.

I'm wondering if you are confusing goats with sheep? Unless different goats variants have different AI, I don't understand what you are trying to suggest.

1. Like I said, they're supposed to be 50-50 but I personally have gotten much closer to 25-75, and I've definitely seen more generations.

2. They're in a pen, so great. Go in and milk them. It's fine if they run away, they will freeze in place if you manage to milk them.

3. yes you can. I have.

4. All females will attack if you unsuccessfully milk them, they become aggressive.
 

I have both goats and sheep, and I'll probably not try goats again. They don't fully calm down until like gen 10. I've still managed to be milking them since like gen 4 though.

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Feycat said:

2. They're in a pen, so great. Go in and milk them. It's fine if they run away, they will freeze in place if you manage to milk them.

Used to be you could build a catwalk and milk them from there.

1 hour ago, Feycat said:

4. All females will attack if you unsuccessfully milk them, they become aggressive.

So that's why all my dates ended so badly...

[Feycat]

28 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Used to be you could build a catwalk and milk them from there.

Oh I forgot about the catwalk thing! I've never used it but I've seen Kurahzarr do it before.

[Krähenwolf]

On 5/9/2025 at 9:21 PM, LadyWYT said:

I think it's a two-fold issue:

1. Goats came later than bighorn sheep, and are coded to be a lot more skittish. Similar to chickens, they don't really calm down until later generations. I would expect bighorn sheep to behave in a similar fashion once they receive an update, unless goats are tweaked to behave like current bighorns.

2. Dairy is in a spot similar to fruit trees--a gameplay loop that requires too much time investment for the time it takes to complete the current story. Once more story chapters have been implemented, I daresay things like dairy and fruit trees will feel more worthwhile to invest in, since you'll be spending a lot more time in the world.

I think they should calm down a little bit sooner, though. Chickens only calming down at Gen 10 is one thing, because chickens multiply faster than rabbits if done correctly. But goats take four times as long for just a single offspring instead of three (5 days per henbox containing 3 eggs/20 days per goat). Which is fine in general, as you said, dairy should be more of a luxury problem;

....buuuut would it be that wrong to make them stand still at, say, Gen 7? Or cutting down their pregnancies somewhat, like to day 15?

Also, there are probably mods for this and yes, you could also fiddle around with the game files...but I kinda don't like the idea of everyone having to workaround something that could just be more rewarding in an unaltered base game. Just to catch the usual comments.

[Thorfinn]

6 hours ago, Krähenwolf said:

but I kinda don't like the idea of everyone having to workaround something that could just be more rewarding in an unaltered base game.

Like @LadyWYT said, there's only the first quarter or so of the storyline in place. You should probably have something productive left to do in your homestead. All the other gameplay loops are long since completed, including steel.

What I'm saying is that I'm not sure it's a good idea to speed that gameplay loop, too. Gives you something to do after Chapter 2. Those who cannot stand the default pace are perfectly free to adjust it however they like.

[Relan]

build a very long, but narrowish pen. think of like 25 x 4 or 5. Build a 1 block wide trail at the edge of the pen, and build an additional 25 block long, narrow pen on the other side. that's how you can manage them for the first few generations, and of course, you can stand among them later if you cull males and dont milk stressed females

[r3g]

On 5/8/2025 at 10:45 PM, dustydan said:

So I've been trying to domesticate goats for a while now. I'm at Gen 3 and the goats still won't stop running away when I get near, making it unbearably frustrating to milk them. I thought by now that they would calm down. Turns out, they need to be Gen 10 before they stop fleeing the player! So how long would it take to get to Gen 10, so I can finally milk them without having to chase them around the pen until their path-finding inevitably stops working?

According to the wiki, it takes 34 days for goats to go through a breeding cycle. To get to Gen 10, theoretically it would then take 340 in-game days. But considering 50% of children end up being male, you would need to go through 20 breeding cycles to maintain the female population (why can't kids inherit the generation of the father?). So that is 680 in-game days. Considering a VS day is 48 minutes, that means you would have to spend 544 hours of IRL time to reach Gen 10. If I were to play the game for 15 hours a week, that means I would have to play for nearly 9 IRL months to get Gen 10 goats!

So surely you're not actually supposed to ever obtain Gen 10 animals. So what's the intended way of maintaining and milking goats? I've tried rope-tying the goats, but ropes don't actually restrain animal movement whatsoever, and the ropes always snap (so what is the point of rope-tying animals?). The only other way I can think of doing it would be by trapping each individual goat in a 1x1 box so they physically can't run away, but now I'm being forced into making a goat prison, and I just can't make myself do that in my cozy homesteading game. I want them to be able to live in an open pasture, grazing on the grass, not stuck in a tiny box all their lives!

Is there any way to achieve this, or at least any plans of domestication being reworked?

Well, I hate to be that guy, but that is how it works IRL. Domestication takes a really, really, *really* long time. My only suggestion is to suffer through the process of getting bighorns instead. Goats can be fun but unless you're on a server or really have nothing better to do, Gen 10 goats is probably not in your future.