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[Paul]

I was looking through the creature files the other day and was disappointed to see that only a few domestic animals are milkable. Some of the other large mammals should be milkable.

Goats are a definite candidate. Elephants are also a good candidate (people actually do milk them, I once saw it done at a zoo to get milk for other calves they were hand feeding). I'd imagine elephants probably produce quite a bit of milk. You could balance out for the animal sizes by either making the amount of milk gotten from animals set in the raws, or just use the already existing parameter to make the larger animals milkable more often.

Other creatures might be some of the mammalian underground critters, like Dralthas and maybe Rutherers. It might be fun to have special named cheeses from these creatures, which dwarves trade (in that regard I personally would rather see dwarves stop trading normal human cheese, it kinda ruins their uniqueness imo).

This would be a simple change, and is easily done by modding, but I thought it would be nice to have more exotic milkables in the standard game.

[Safe-Keeper]

I'm not happy until we get geitost!


Source: http://jugalbandi.info/2009/03/click-cheesetofu-the-winners-are/

Milking elephants for milk for human, sorry, dwarven consumption seems a bit odd to me, though. Fair enough to feed elephant youngsters, but dwarves?

[Arrkhal]

Milking an elephant is weird, but milking a cow is not?  How's that work?

Anyway, some kind of templates would probably be the best bet.  Like a [PLACENTAL] template has hair everywhere, milkable females, and live birth.

[h3lblad3]

...can we milk she-dwarves one day?

[Paul]

I don't know for a fact, but I'd bet that someone has milked elephants for food over the years. Especially in areas like India where they use them for all kinds of things. Their size would probably pose a bit of a challenge, though - good luck milking it if the elephant doesn't want to be milked!

The big reason that folks in the US and Europe don't have elephant farms and elephant milk is probably the international laws meant to protect them - you can't sell any elephant product and you need licenses just to own them. If it was made legal we would probably have elephant ranches raising them for the meat, ivory, and who knows - maybe the milk.

As far as milkable dwarves, we can't have that. That would require a new type of "Dwarven Cheese." Then they would have to rename the current dwarven cheese, and "Maggot Cheese" just doesn't have the same appeal. It would destroy the very fabric of dwarven society! Plus it would rob the dwarves of an important trade good - what human would buy the newly renamed Maggot Cheese? (Milkable dwarves actually IS doable with mods, hehe)

[Pilsu]

Not all milk cattle should be equal production-wise. Additionally, breeding should be required for production with realistic production period following.

[varkarrus]

- good luck milking it if the elephant doesn't want to be milked!

In DF 2011, Dwarves will be valued for their legendary milker status, rather than legendary swordsman.

[Hyndis]

Milking buxom female elves?

 

[Warlord255]

Muskoxen should be milkable, as should goats, at the very least.

[Misterstone]

Are camels in the game as livestock now?  I think they could be purchased in 40d, right?  Anyway, they should def. be milkable.

As for underground critters, I'd nominate naked mole dogs.  Come to think of it, I haven't encountered a single one in this version... but if they could be milked, that would be p. cool.   

[Kagus]

You can already milk camels.  Both kinds, even.

I'd have to say no to the naked mole dog milking though...  It really doesn't make sense, for a number of reasons.  First off, they're not that large, and they haven't been domesticated, so milking any decent amount from them would be difficult.

Second, naked mole dogs are based off of naked mole rats, where most of the females don't even get pregnant.  No pregnancy, no child, no milk.  At least not in a wild animal.


The reason goats and sheep and such are the primary milk-producing animals of today is because they have been bred to do it.  They produce far greater amounts of milk than their offspring would normally consume, and they've been "tweaked" over the generations to produce milk even if they don't have children to feed.  It's completely oddball behavior and it makes no sense in the wild, but it works great for a domestic animal.


But I do think we need some sort of underground milkable animal, aside from the maggots (has anyone made dwarven cheese lately?  I think most folks have been too busy with their horse and donkey cheese to be too caught up with that).  I'd personally recommend the Draltha, seeing as they're large herd animals that graze on vegetable matter.  The hairy manes would also suggest a mammalian biology.

[Pilsu]

and they've been "tweaked" over the generations to produce milk even if they don't have children to feed.

They've been tweaked to produce 10 times the milk their offspring would need. The requirement of pregnancy hasn't gone anywhere however.

[Kagus]

That's odd, I thought they were bred to produce milk regardless of having children, or at least beyond the standard period of production.  Admittedly though, I don't know much about the industry.

Not quite sure I follow your comment on vegetarianism though.


By the way, I forgot to mention something in my last post...

I'm not happy until we get geitost!

I love you.

[Pilsu]

The vegetarian quip just referred to them acting high and mighty about not eating meat, seemingly ignorant to the fact that their precious milk is the result of the tears of baby calves. Don't get me wrong, that's what makes the milk so delicious but vegetarianism ends up falling flat when it comes to preaching morality. Opting for just a little bit of torture really isn't all that commendable.


Hmm, it seems year-round production is actually a product of artificial insemination outside of natural reproductive cycle. On the other hand, when the milk does flow, they're milked once a day which poses a problem seeing a year in the calendar is more like a day in The Sims. The years really should be made a lot longer, it's wreaking havoc with a lot of things, including wound healing and combat.

It should be noted that the 6 fold (not 10 claims Google) production increase is a modern development. Not sure how much should be produced or how the amount varies during the lactating period. Also, if you miss milking, the milk dries up quickly. It needs to be made an automatically generated task.

[alfie275]

I'm a, I think its something like petisarian? Or pestisarian? One who eats seafood as their source of meat (no red meat or birds). I find milk makes me sick so I drink rice milk or soya milk.

We should have kangaroo farms, they don't fart so it would reduce greenhouse gases whilst raising kangaroo numbers.