2.6 - Life cycles: Animals

(a) Birth

Where do babies come from?! Well you know one way, we can use the magic of the animal rezzer to make them appear and to have some control over their sex. But for a more ‘real’ experience, we can mate our animals to get them pregnant or to lay eggs (depending upon which animal it is). But we can’t (of course!) mate animals until they are adults – so some patience is needed but also it’s part of the fun of watching the animal grow up.  When an animal is first born/rezzed, its 'home' location is set at the coordinates of where it is rezzed. 

(b) Childhood

When an egg hatches or an animal is born, it is just a child and so starts off small. During childhood animals eat, drink and grow. Animals typically spend 15% of their life as children.

(c) Adult

When an animal becomes an adult it will start producing items such as manure, wool, feathers etc. You can find out what each animal gives by selecting the Info option in the animal menu. As adults, you can mate the animals (they are well behaved and won’t mate without your telling them to!) Just select the Mate option from the menu on the female animal. There needs to be an adult male within range (you can see the animal range from the Options menu). Once mated the animal will go through pregnancy or lay an egg depending upon the animal.  The Info button on animals gives you information on how long it takes for eggs to hatch or how long pregnancy lasts. Once a female has laid an egg or given birth once it will then start producing eggs or milk.

(d) Death

Hopefully, your animals will live a full and happy life. But eventually, they will get old and die. You can see how long their life expectancy is from the Info menu on the animal. Note that it shows an average life expectancy – some will live a little longer than that, some a little less. Such is life! Some animals will give meat and skin (or equivalent) when they die. In addition to dying of old age, animals can die prematurely from starvation or thirst so do keep an eye on them to make sure they are getting enough to eat and drink.  A dead animal will stay where it died until someone comes along and clears it up. If you are the owner of the animal you can touch the corpse to send it along its way across the ‘rainbow bridge’ (if you are wearing your HUD you will get some health points for performing this final act).

(e) Butchery

Once adult, animals can also be butchered (Options menu then select Butcher) to get any meat and skin products. Note that butchery won’t leave you with a corpse.