Questions About Husbandry

[Malfiros]

In the wiki it states:

Animals can consume food from 0.6 blocks away and mate at a distance of up to 10 blocks away.

With this distance, will animals breed through walls, fences, gates/doors? If male/female animals are penned separately but side by side, would they breed through the separation?

 

Also, will hares that are captured in a pit or other means despawn if there is still sufficient lighting? Will they lose weight over time? Being that they aren’t able to be domesticated and hence cannot be fed, the idea is to have a pen or rabbits (or even wolves) on hand to butcher as needed. Anyone have more info on this?

[Streetwind]

2 hours ago, Malfiros said:

If male/female animals are penned separately but side by side, would they breed through the separation?

This is an impractical idea in general, because filled troughs cause nearby animals to want to eat from them. If an animal from pen A gets the bright idea that it must eat from the trough in pen B, it may start throwing itself against the separating fence until it eventually gltiches through.

...Or, at least, that's how it was so far. 1.15.6 is bringing some unspecified improvements to trough feeding behavior. Unsure if it addresses this. Will require testing after the patch goes stable.

[Malfiros]

Given this behavior, is it then best practice to keep all sheep/pigs in one area and chickens in another?

[Streetwind]

Chickens go for small throughs and other animals for large ones. So you can have chickens pretty much anywhere, they don't get in the way. But if you have a sheep pen right next to a pig pen, and put in feed that both of them like, there's a risk. I mean, it's not guaranteed to go wrong immediately, but I have seen this behavior happen when I tried to subdivide my sheep pen so that only the "correct" generations had access to the trough. At some point, the other sheep went crazy.

[Malfiros]

One more thought: could one not put the trough as part of the separating wall? Could the animals on both sides access the trough?

[Streetwind]

Players can jump onto troughs and walk over it. That means that animals can, too.

[Malfiros]

To illustrate what I mean, I’ve created a test world and taken some snapshots. I’ll continue testing and report back later. 

[Saricane]

I always separate male bighorn in a fenced corner, to avoid being rammed when I visit. The male is in a 2x2 small enclosure, without trough. The female have all the remaining space, with one or two troughs at the center. This pattern is fully functionnal.

[Malfiros]

@Saricane Thanks for that info, appreciate it. My question still stands though on whether or not animals will breed through walls? I’ve yet to really delve into husbandry and want to design an appropriate enclosure beforehand. 

[Brady_The]

1 hour ago, Malfiros said:

My question still stands though on whether or not animals will breed through walls?

They do.

Spoiler

 

[Nii P.]

Sorry, but I can't see a single WALL(!) in your screenshot. Maybe you admit, that wall and fence are the same in game mechanics, but they're not. You can jump on /over a wall, but can't do that with a fence, which is much more "restrictive".