Interbirth period bugged for animals with a high age of maturity

[Cool Cats and Kittens]

There are animals like the Reindeer, Dall Sheep and some monkeys which reach maturity late, but have a relatively short interbirth period. That means a mother could get a second born before the first born reaches maturity. But that doesn't work. In my experience, a mother can only become pregnant again when her current baby reaches maturity.

Taking the reindeer as an example. The age of maturity is 5 years. The gestation period is 8 months ans the interbirth period 12 months. So, it should be possible, that a Reindeer gets a baby every second year. But that is not the case as you can see on the picture. The reindeer Helga needed 6 years to get her second baby. She got pregnant almost immediately after her first born reached maturity. Unfortunately, Helga is not a solitary case. I observed this with around 15 Reindeers and Dall Sheeps. I have not seen a single animal, that got a baby while she already had offspring who has not reached maturity yet.

That makes bedding some animals like Reindeers or monkeys very difficult

 

[Dinocanid]

I've noticed this too, it happens in every animal where the interbirth period is shorter than the time it takes for the current babies to grow up. At least in my experience.

This isn't recent either, I thought it was pretty strange ever since I got the game for Christmas last December

 

[NZFanatic]

This is a big thing with the reptiles. I have both giant tortoise species in my zoo and they had three litters each before I put the males on contraceptives, and by that point all the babies were still babies.

 

[Dinocanid]

Now that you mention it, reptiles are the only animals I've seen the mechanic work for. Then again, they take a decade to grow

 

[Locce]

I've noticed this too, it happens in every animal where the interbirth period is shorter than the time it takes for the current babies to grow up. At least in my experience.

This is exactly what is happening. I have tested this with many species, and it makes breeding some animals that the Zoopedia says are easy to breed in captivity actually pretty hard to breed. It is pretty easy to verify with herd animals when you have a whole string of births in one habitat and as the offspring matures you can see the mothers become pregnant again in either exactly or almost exactly the same order as before since only mothers with mature offspring will mate.

This is not so much a problem for animals who give birth to litters of offspring, but for herd animals birthing only single offspring which then take around a fourth to a third of their parent's fertile lifespan to grow up it turns breeding into a lottery, because with a bit of bad luck you end up with so many males or offspring with bad stats that you can easily have a shrinking herd or one with considerably worse stats than their parent generation. I have lost basically whole generations of Reindeer and Bactrian Camels, because around 80% of offspring were males (mostly of golden quality) while the remaining 20% females were of white or bronze quality. It's maddening.

And it's at the same time curious and hilarious that the only animals where the interbirth period actually does something are turtles and crocodiles who take ages to mature, so that - if you don't administer contraceptives - you have habitats just swarming with oodles and oodles of little baby crocs you can't get rid of.

 

[Locce]

This week I could observe that apparently the issue has gotten even worse (or it maybe has always been worse for some animal species):
although I had built several habitats for the Bornean Orangutans there would only ever be one "set" of juveniles. Say, for example, there are 5 juveniles in habitat 1. That would mean that neither in habitat 1 nor in habitat 2 or habitat 3 any female Orangutan would get pregnant until those juveniles mature.
At this rate I am fully expecting this bug to level up at the next opportunity, so that no mother will get pregnant again for as long as her child is alive.

 

[nightcat]

Hm, I don't think this is a bug. For example Orang-Utans can have a second child before the first one reaches adulthood.

It just looks weird in game, because there is only one "baby age", whilst in reality the first baby would be a juvenile and the second a newborn.

 

[Dinocanid]

Hm, I don't think this is a bug. For example Orang-Utans can have a second child before the first one reaches adulthood.

It just looks weird in game, because there is only one "baby age", whilst in reality the first baby would be a juvenile and the second a newborn.

This is not the case for several other animals

 

[Locce]

Hm, I don't think this is a bug. For example Orang-Utans can have a second child before the first one reaches adulthood.

It just looks weird in game, because there is only one "baby age", whilst in reality the first baby would be a juvenile and the second a newborn.

That is exactly what I am saying is not happening. It is what should happen going by the Zoopedia, but it doesn't. For other species we have already found that, for example, if there is a female animal "Emma" in a habitat, and let's say for that species there is an interbirth period of 36 months and the juveniles mature at an age of 12 years old, "Emma" won't get pregnant again until those 12 years are over, rather than the merely 3 years inicated as interbirth period. (Unless "Emma" is a crocodile or turtle who seem to be mating as expected.)

And for Orangutans in particular, it seems to be even worse, as I described. I could be wrong about the multi-habitat effect of existing juveniles and my apes were just extremely lazy and mated only once per female, in rare cases twice, during the course of their lives for some unrelated reason. But it is a fact that at no point during this week, with 3 habitats - each with 1 male and 5 females - there were ever more than 5 juveniles of any age in my zoo, and never two at a time from the same mother.
Potentially, if the interbirth period wasn't bugged in some way, this number could have gone up to as much as 30 juveniles of different ages as in each habitat 5 new juveniles could have been born before the previous 5 matured, but it never did go anywhere near that. The maximum was 5, the number you would expect with just one habitat and the interbirth period being identical to the age of maturity.

 

[Tuky]

And for Orangutans in particular, it seems to be even worse, as I described. I could be wrong about the multi-habitat effect of existing juveniles and my apes were just extremely lazy and mated only once per female, in rare cases twice, during the course of their lives for some unrelated reason. But it is a fact that at no point during this week, with 3 habitats - each with 1 male and 5 females - there were ever more than 5 juveniles of any age in my zoo, and never two at a time from the same mother.

Thats pretty weird. I cant confirm this at all, seems like a very extreme case in your situation. I had like 6 habitats for Orangutans and that was never an issue. They would all breed just fine (only exception, when the male died and it wouldnt "update" to the new male as a mate, so they couldnt breed. This was fixable with deleting the habitat gate though)
And I also never had this problem with other animals.


For the "normal" interbirth period problem however, there is a workaround, though you could say its rather mean, but it works. If you remove the offspring from the mother and put them in another habitat or zoo, the interbirth period gets triggerd again and the female can get pregnant again, even though her other offspring is not adult yet. (you can then bring the first one back to the mother again, of course)

I dont do it always and for every species, but usually with my elephants for example, that way the females can have at least 6 offspring in their lives.

 

[Cocolori]

That is exactly what I am saying is not happening. It is what should happen going by the Zoopedia, but it doesn't. For other species we have already found that, for example, if there is a female animal "Emma" in a habitat, and let's say for that species there is an interbirth period of 36 months and the juveniles mature at an age of 12 years old, "Emma" won't get pregnant again until those 12 years are over, rather than the merely 3 years inicated as interbirth period. (Unless "Emma" is a crocodile or turtle who seem to be mating as expected.)

And for Orangutans in particular, it seems to be even worse, as I described. I could be wrong about the multi-habitat effect of existing juveniles and my apes were just extremely lazy and mated only once per female, in rare cases twice, during the course of their lives for some unrelated reason. But it is a fact that at no point during this week, with 3 habitats - each with 1 male and 5 females - there were ever more than 5 juveniles of any age in my zoo, and never two at a time from the same mother.
Potentially, if the interbirth period wasn't bugged in some way, this number could have gone up to as much as 30 juveniles of different ages as in each habitat 5 new juveniles could have been born before the previous 5 matured, but it never did go anywhere near that. The maximum was 5, the number you would expect with just one habitat and the interbirth period being identical to the age of maturity.

Definitely true for me as well. The Orangs wouldn't breed again until the offspring had matured. If other people could weigh in it would be helpful - I was under the impression it was intentional but that's because I hadn't checked the interbirth period like Locce. If this isn't true for everyone we can definitely confirm it is a bug and report it.

 

[DrBurrito]

I'm pretty confident this is intentional for animals that display parental care. For tortoises, or even crocodilians (which normally protect their eggs and young) having several litters before the previous ones reach sexual maturity makes sense, as the duration of care is much shorter than the time needed for maturity. However I believe it is an intended mechanic for certain animals not having additional offspring before the current one reaches maturity. You'll have to remove the young after the interbirth period is complete for them to try conceiving again. Although this feature should be made more apparent to the average player if it is not already.

 

[Cool Cats and Kittens]

But even animals which are displaying a lot of parental care will have a second baby before the first baby reaches maturity. Many mammals will have a second baby when the first baby is weaned, which can be years before it reaches sexual maturity.

 

[DrBurrito]

But even animals which are displaying a lot of parental care will have a second baby before the first baby reaches maturity. Many mammals will have a second baby when the first baby is weaned, which can be years before it reaches sexual maturity.

Sure, some animals can be tweaked to make it more accurate. What I was saying is, I believe said feature is intentional at least to some extent.

 

[Locce]

For the "normal" interbirth period problem however, there is a workaround, though you could say its rather mean, but it works. If you remove the offspring from the mother and put them in another habitat or zoo, the interbirth period gets triggerd again and the female can get pregnant again, even though her other offspring is not adult yet. (you can then bring the first one back to the mother again, of course)

Ah, thanks, I always suspected that it might work this way but never got around to testing it due to storage space restrictions and still needing to be able to trade. This makes it even more regrettable that we can't get rid of offspring with bad genetic values. And I don't feel particularly inclined to build "quarantine zoos" where I could just stuff all those juveniles into quarantine units until they mature just so that I can finally release or transfer them to a proper zoo. Given the constraints of the game literally throwing juveniles with bad values to the wolves might actually be the "best" solution, and it sounds pretty wrong saying it like that.

Sure, some animals can be tweaked to make it more accurate. What I was saying is, I believe said feature is intentional at least to some extent.

That might indeed be the case, but it would be such an odd design choice in dire need of tweaking when we see that animals which are "easy to reproduce in captivity" both in reality and according to the Zoopedia are barely able to sustain their population.

 

[Nekno]

I've had luck shortening this period by putting the parent animals into storage once the babies are born, and letting the babies grow up on their own. Or doing the opposite, shelving the babies and letting the parents have another baby sooner. I'd chalk the difference between the reptiles and the other animals up to parental care, something most reptiles don't really do, but most mammals are known for.

 

[Locce]

I've had luck shortening this period by putting the parent animals into storage once the babies are born, and letting the babies grow up on their own. Or doing the opposite, shelving the babies and letting the parents have another baby sooner. I'd chalk the difference between the reptiles and the other animals up to parental care, something most reptiles don't really do, but most mammals are known for.

Unfortunately storage is not really a working solution for me since I am still waiting for opportunities to snatch up some animals that are rarely if ever traded, let alone at a reasonable price and age - I am looking at you, panda traders trying to foist super-expensive almost-elderlies onto the community - and given the amount of animals significantly hampered by this my storage would probably be permanently over the cap. So, I will probably have to go the wolves-and-tigers route to at least get rid of the offspring that I don't want to keep.

 

[rdsidwe]

This may be the case for some animals, but for many animals it is not. Gharral, Tortoises, Flamingo's, Peafowl, Bison, Lemurs, Warthogs, Ostrichs are all animals I know will have multiple children at different ages before the first mature. The reptiles and birds are the most extreme as you can easily have a habitat overrun with babies if your not paying attention.

 

[Cool Cats and Kittens]

It's true that it works for the reptiles, as others have already mentioned.

But Flamingo's, Peafowl, Bison, Lemurs, Warthog are affected in my experience. But their population growth is not that handicapped because of their low age of maturity, their relative high age of sterility (which means a female can have more than 2-3 offspring before she becomes sterile) and/or their big litter sizes.

 

[Valinor]

Yeah, this is a bug for sure for some animals. Buffalo are the worst for this. Most of the females you can buy in the trade centre (sandbox) are already 8yo+ and they become sterile at 15, so you're super lucky if you manage to squeeze two babies out of each mother, seeing as babies take 5 years (!) to mature. It's frustrating. I hope they fix it soon. Also, I'm just getting back into the game after taking a massive months-long break waiting for them to iron out some of the issues, so bear with me if this seems a bit obvious at this point, but does anyone else think it's weird that the babies stay small the WHOLE time they are maturing? You'd think they'd have made buffalo (for instance) use the adult model after about 2 years, but no. They stay tiny babies for 5 years, following their mothers around and everything. Super weird.