First of all, let me apologize if the title sounds stuck up. It's meant to be catchy and funny.
I am learning this game with the rest of you, so there are still many things I'm doing poorly at, but I'd like to think I have a good handle on the breeding system and I think a lot of people are going about breeding the wrong way. I hope this information helps some of you who may not be getting the offspring you'd hoped for.
Fertility
This is the thing most people seem to be confused about, so here's what I can tell. Fertility partially determines the chance that an animal will have offspring when it mates. Other factors include it's mate's fertility, the species' ease of breeding in captivity, your vet research, and the animal's welfare.
More importantly, the fertility seems to determine the number of offspring in a litter. From what I see, females with higher fertility have bigger litters (if the species can have more than 1 baby at a time). I'm unsure if this is true for males, too.
Please understand that an animal with 0% fertility CAN still breed. In my zoo I have many animals with 0% fertility who produce incredible offspring. My red panda with 0% fertility had 4 babies, all gold. It's fairly easy to do if their mate has high fertility and your vets have fully researched the species.
Size and Longevity
I believe (barring inbreeding) that players should focus on breeding for size and longevity rather than fertility. Why, you ask? Because it's far harder to raise these stats than it is to raise fertility and immunity. I can raise an animal's fertility and immunity incredibly high in only one generation, whereas it takes many generations to breed large, long- living animals.
Part of the reason I call this a PSA is because it's very hard to find mates on the market with high fertility and longevity because too many people are hyperconcerned about fertility. Animals with size and longevity sometimes just don't exist!
Comparing Mates
This is very important to do. You may have two gold animals, a male and female, but when you compare mates you may notice that the stats are almost all red. This is the range that they can produce in their offspring. Imagine the animal was on the lower end of those red bars. That wouldn't be a gold animal, would it? It's important to realize that two gold animals don't always produce gold offspring.
The same is true the other way around. It's also possible that two low ranked animals WILL produce gold offspring.
So how can you use the compare mates function to your advantage? Here's what I do. Look for mates whose red bars are very thin, in other words, there's barely any range for each trait. This way you can be pretty confident of what offspring you'll end up with. As I said before, I breed for size and longevity, so I look for an animal pairing whose offspring show thin red lines near the max of these traits.
Inbreeding
Your immunity will go to 0 in no time. If you follow the above procedure but CHANGE OUT YOUR ANIMALS regularly, you will never need to be concerned about immunity. It will naturally rank up without you needing to focus on it.
Here's what I do. Choose two mates using the compare mates function. Breed them until you get a baby that surpasses both parents in quality (or if it's a great pairing, keep breeding the parents until they near the end of their lifespans). Then sell both parents and purchase a new mate for the baby. This way you're breeding up your quality through generations and you're never inbreeding.
I hope this helps anyone who had questions. Through this method I've accumulated over 5k cc and most of my animals regularly produce gold offspring. If you have any questions you can ask and I'll try my best to answer.
I am learning this game with the rest of you, so there are still many things I'm doing poorly at, but I'd like to think I have a good handle on the breeding system and I think a lot of people are going about breeding the wrong way. I hope this information helps some of you who may not be getting the offspring you'd hoped for.
Fertility
This is the thing most people seem to be confused about, so here's what I can tell. Fertility partially determines the chance that an animal will have offspring when it mates. Other factors include it's mate's fertility, the species' ease of breeding in captivity, your vet research, and the animal's welfare.
More importantly, the fertility seems to determine the number of offspring in a litter. From what I see, females with higher fertility have bigger litters (if the species can have more than 1 baby at a time). I'm unsure if this is true for males, too.
Please understand that an animal with 0% fertility CAN still breed. In my zoo I have many animals with 0% fertility who produce incredible offspring. My red panda with 0% fertility had 4 babies, all gold. It's fairly easy to do if their mate has high fertility and your vets have fully researched the species.
Size and Longevity
I believe (barring inbreeding) that players should focus on breeding for size and longevity rather than fertility. Why, you ask? Because it's far harder to raise these stats than it is to raise fertility and immunity. I can raise an animal's fertility and immunity incredibly high in only one generation, whereas it takes many generations to breed large, long- living animals.
Part of the reason I call this a PSA is because it's very hard to find mates on the market with high fertility and longevity because too many people are hyperconcerned about fertility. Animals with size and longevity sometimes just don't exist!
Comparing Mates
This is very important to do. You may have two gold animals, a male and female, but when you compare mates you may notice that the stats are almost all red. This is the range that they can produce in their offspring. Imagine the animal was on the lower end of those red bars. That wouldn't be a gold animal, would it? It's important to realize that two gold animals don't always produce gold offspring.
The same is true the other way around. It's also possible that two low ranked animals WILL produce gold offspring.
So how can you use the compare mates function to your advantage? Here's what I do. Look for mates whose red bars are very thin, in other words, there's barely any range for each trait. This way you can be pretty confident of what offspring you'll end up with. As I said before, I breed for size and longevity, so I look for an animal pairing whose offspring show thin red lines near the max of these traits.
Inbreeding
Your immunity will go to 0 in no time. If you follow the above procedure but CHANGE OUT YOUR ANIMALS regularly, you will never need to be concerned about immunity. It will naturally rank up without you needing to focus on it.
Here's what I do. Choose two mates using the compare mates function. Breed them until you get a baby that surpasses both parents in quality (or if it's a great pairing, keep breeding the parents until they near the end of their lifespans). Then sell both parents and purchase a new mate for the baby. This way you're breeding up your quality through generations and you're never inbreeding.
I hope this helps anyone who had questions. Through this method I've accumulated over 5k cc and most of my animals regularly produce gold offspring. If you have any questions you can ask and I'll try my best to answer.