Do animals respawn?

[Allen]

I was trying to heard a nearby group of chickens into my farm, but ran into some wolves on the way and well, long story short, I no longer have chickens near my base.

Do farm animals respawn over time, or do I have to track down a chicken from further away and lead that into my base? Because if so, I might just get rid of the chicken coops I'm working on altogether and just raise some sheep instead. Chickens are way too annoying to chase around to try and farm for me to try getting them from that far away.

[Maxwell Ellington]

Animals should respawn anywhere above ground without artificial light.

[Digitalr]

I kill all wolves and goats around my home. After ~5 ingame months they not respawned.

[redram]

I don't believe the 'domesticatable' animals respawn, no.  The 1.15 update should hopefully address the issue of transporting animals, or at least chickens anyway.

[Maxwell Ellington]

The wiki says "Chickens will spawn in light levels 12 and higher, at temperatures down to -2, in areas with as little as 0.32 rainfall. They spawn in groups that average 4 individuals, but can include many more."

[redram]

I think that only happens once, at world gen.   Not repeatedly.  afaik.

[Allen]

Hmm, better save the chicken farming for 1.15 and go for the sheep then.

[junawood]

On 12/2/2020 at 5:49 PM, redram said:

I don't believe the 'domesticatable' animals respawn, no.

Then a tweak for the last update would not make much sense: "Bighorn sheep and Boars will no longer spawn during the months december, january and february"

 

@Tyron So, how does it actually work? Do animals respawn and how often? And does keeping wolves alive prevent new ones from spawning in that area?

Edited December 4, 2020 by junawood

[Xuhybrid]

9 minutes ago, junawood said:

Then a tweak for the last update would not make much sense: "Bighorn sheep and Boars will no longer spawn during the months december, january and february"

 

@Tyron So, how does it actually work? Do animals respawn and how often? And does keeping wolves alive prevent new ones from spawning in that area?

Well i know that wolves breed and pups grow up so technically the answer is no if giving birth is considered spawning.

[Tyron]

All animals respawn. Some (e.g. boar, chicken and bighorn sheep) respawn veeeery slowly however.

[Hal13]

until now everything respawned after some time and absense of the player for me, therefore i think maybe animals only respawn outside the renderdistance?

[junawood]

@Tyron And are wolves capped or can you get dozens or more of them in an area after a while?

[SamKillz Games]

@junawood I would hope so but I've had up to 7 trapped under some spruce trees all at once, because they were trapped it was an easy win.. but if they hadn't been..
As far as animals respawning, yes they do. We'd built an actual fort and animals appear within our walls all the time, however at a quite slow pace, in 6 months we've probably had three goats and two wolves respawn, as well as several hares, however I believe we killed the goats first and the chickens and boars are yet to return it seems. I did the majority of the meat gathering for probably half of the time so my information could be inaccurate, but I'm quite certain animals respawn. Wolves and hares faster than farm animals.

I realized I'm two years late immediately after posting, but oh well, you can have my observations anyway.

Edited June 16, 2022 by SamKillz Games
Correction for accuracy

[Cayden Centers]

On 6/15/2022 at 8:19 PM, SamKillz Games said:

@junawood I would hope so but I've had up to 7 trapped under some spruce trees all at once, because they were trapped it was an easy win.. but if they hadn't been..
As far as animals respawning, yes they do. We'd built an actual fort and animals appear within our walls all the time, however at a quite slow pace, in 6 months we've probably had three goats and two wolves respawn, as well as several hares, however I believe we killed the goats first and the chickens and boars are yet to return it seems. I did the majority of the meat gathering for probably half of the time so my information could be inaccurate, but I'm quite certain animals respawn. Wolves and hares faster than farm animals.

I realized I'm two years late immediately after posting, but oh well, you can have my observations anyway.

Well, as someone from 2023 reading this, I appreciate it greatly

[Nightdreammm]

man i just found an ewe after searchin for a while. it decided to commit

Spoiler

suicide

by running off of a cliff. i just want my ewe back.

[Maelstrom]

Yes, animals spawn after world gen (unlike that other block game), but it's probably about a year after the previous animals were spawned.  You may want to look into alternative options like trapping a lamb and hope it grows into a ewe or finding other adults to...  lure into their... upgraded accomodations.