How to Feed Animals in Dwarf Fortress

Feeding your livestock in Dwarf Fortress is not as simple as interacting with them and giving them a selected food item. And this “not-so-direct method” is what makes it a daunting task to feed animals in the game. Seeing that, we are here with a handy guide on how to feed animals in Dwarf Fortress. 

How to Feed Animals in Dwarf Fortress

In Dwarf Fortress, you can feed herbivore animals by placing them in a Pasture. In contrast, the carnivore animals can automatically feed themselves using the Eggs and Meats available in your Stockpile. 

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That being said, grazing animals is one of the activities in Dwarf Fortress that you must know about, or else you will find your screen flooded with icons and messages about the animals being hungry. 

How to Build a Pasture in Dwarf Fortress

To build a Pasture in Dwarf Fortress, dig an area or use an unused zone and press i to define it as a Pen/Pasture. 

Once that is done, select Pasture and press N (it is case sensitive so use Caps or Shift + n), select the animals that you want to place into the Pasture using the keys +/-, and then hit the enter key to finalize. 

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Alternatively, you can select the Pasture, navigate to the info tab, and click on the Rabbit icon with a + sign to add animals to your Pasture. 

After that, the animals will start feeding stuff like Grass, Floor Fungus, and other things from your Stockpile. 

That is it. That concludes our guide on how to feed animals in Dwarf Fortress. 

For more on Dwarf Fortress, check out our dedicated guides section. 

Dwarf Fortress is a roguelike construction and management game currently available on PC and macOS platforms.