Looking for tips: Breeding pack animals with alpha pair

Zoe Thallian

Z
I love breeding, but I always stuggle with pack animals that have an alpha pair like wolves or african wild dogs. Especially when they get sterile as they age.

For example, I have a pack of african wild dogs. I started with two young dogs and they got several litter during their live. I always kept one of the male offspring and gave away the female offspring. The alpha pair then got sterile and now my female alpha died of old age. So currently I have 4 male dogs at the age of 15, 11, 9 and 5 years (sterile age is 10).
I would love to add a new female to that pack for further breeding. But as two of my males are already sterile and the third is not far away from getting there, I fear the youngest one won't get a chance to breed.

How do you handle this? The only solution I can think of is to build a second habitat and start a new pack with the youngest male and a new female and let the first pack die out...
 

iloveyourzoos

I
Would it work to move everyone to the trade center except for your desired male/female. Wait for them to register as the new alphas in the habitat and animal lists, and then re-introduce the older dogs. Haven't tried it enough to be sure, but it seems like the older dogs might join the (now newly) existing pack? Of do they fight to reclaim their dominance when you do that?

Of course, if it does work, you'd need to repeat the process each time that you want to manually change alphas.
 

Zoe Thallian

Z
I had the same idea and tried this yesterday.

I had moved the youngest brother to the trade center to stop him aging. After the father and the oldest brother had died and only one brother was left, I moved him to trade center and moved the youngest brother and the new female to the habitat. Interestingly the youngest brother immediately got the alpha status, usually you have to wait some time.
I then moved the older brother back to the habitat and was expecting a fight, but it didn't happen :) They immediately started to play with each other and the older one happily settled as beta.

I don't know if the result will be different if I move out the current alpha and bring him back to the pack. In my case the older dog has never been alpha in his entire life. But if I have to rehome the former alpha(s) only and can keep the rest of the pack with a new alpha couple, I'm happy with that. I will test this with the next generation, my male alpha is 9 years old now and had his last litter.
 

Cocolori

Cocolori
That's the approach I take. I also sometimes sneaky cheat a bit by having two females I want to produce litters with the alpha. Move one to the trade centre whilst the other gets pregnant and has her litter. Then swap them until the second female gets pregnant and then move the other female back whilst the pups grow up together.
 

r0dger

r0dger
Zoe Thallian said:
I love breeding, but I always stuggle with pack animals that have an alpha pair like wolves or african wild dogs. Especially when they get sterile as they age.

For example, I have a pack of african wild dogs. I started with two young dogs and they got several litter during their live. I always kept one of the male offspring and gave away the female offspring. The alpha pair then got sterile and now my female alpha died of old age. So currently I have 4 male dogs at the age of 15, 11, 9 and 5 years (sterile age is 10).
I would love to add a new female to that pack for further breeding. But as two of my males are already sterile and the third is not far away from getting there, I fear the youngest one won't get a chance to breed.

How do you handle this? The only solution I can think of is to build a second habitat and start a new pack with the youngest male and a new female and let the first pack die out...
Click to expand...
I think your solution is not bad
 

Zoe Thallian

Z
Yesterday generation four was born - within a pack consisting of their uncles and grandfather :love:
Moving everyone out and back in after the new alphas established works really well, at least for the african wild dogs. I had no fights, the only incident I encountered was one of the older dogs suddenly escaping the habitat I haven't changed for over 30 ingame years :unsure:

I will test this with wolves as well in the future.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom