Chapter 1
Animals in Build 42
Build 42 added real animals. They eat, drink, get scared, have babies and grow old. Look after them and they feed you forever.
Animal Care is the skill for living animals. It is not Butchering, which is for dead ones, and not Tracking, which is for wild ones. Higher Animal Care shows you more about each animal, gives more milk, wool and eggs, and stops stressed animals breaking away while you work on them.
Cows
Milk and lots of meat. The biggest pen.
Sheep
Wool and meat. Some milk.
Chickens
Eggs and quick meat. Need a hutch.
Pigs
Meat. Eat almost anything.
Rabbits
Small meat and hides. Breed fast. Come from traps.
Turkeys
Eggs and meat.
The ranch loop
- FenceMake a livestock zone.
- StockTroughs, water, hutch.
- CatchRope, carry, or trailer.
- CareFeed, water, pet, clean.
- HarvestMilk, wool, eggs, dung.
- BreedKeep the herd going.
Why it matters
A cow is a fridge that refills itself. A hen is an egg every day. Once the shops are empty, the pen is the pantry.
Chapter 2
Build your rancher
Animal Care levels slowly. Every daily chore gives a little XP. The Rancher job skips most of the grind.
Rancher (job, 0 points)
+4 Animal Care, +3 Butchering, +1 Fitness. Knows how to make barbed wire. The livestock job. It shipped as Livestock Farmer and was renamed in 42.13.
Farmer (job)
+1 Animal Care. Mostly a crop job.
Fast Learner (trait)
130% XP. Good because chores give small amounts.
Watch out: point costs change
The game makers still tune traits and jobs. Always read the numbers on your own character screen.
Books and tapes
Animal Care is a normal skill with 5 books at 3, 5, 8, 12 and 16 times XP. Level 3-4 is called Animal Welfare Basics. 2 VHS tapes, A Day on the Farm and The Petting Zoo, give +75 each for your first 3 levels.
Secret: Carpentry 3 is the real requirement
Troughs, hutches and butcher hooks are Carpentry 3 builds. A rancher with no carpentry has nowhere to put the animals. See the Carpentry guide.
Chapter 3
The animals
Each animal has breeds, and each breed is good at one thing.
| Animal | Gives | Needs | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cow and bull | Milk, beef, a large hide, dung | The biggest pen, about 80 tiles for an adult | Holstein for milk, Angus for meat, Simmental in between. A cow only gives milk after she has had a calf. |
| Sheep and ram | Wool, lamb, a medium hide, milk | Shears for wool | Rambouillet is reported as the wool breed. |
| Chicken | Eggs, meat, feathers | A hutch to lay and roost in | The only animal at risk from the night predator sandbox option without shelter. Sandbox: Night Predator |
| Pig and boar | Pork, a medium hide | A pen | Eats almost anything. |
| Rabbit | Meat, a small hide | A small pen | Trapped rabbits become tame when picked up. See the Trapping guide. |
| Turkey | Eggs, meat | A pen | Toms can be aggressive when stressed. |
Watch out: deer cannot be kept
Deer are always wild. You can fence one in, but it stays wild and does not eat or breed. Hunt them instead.
Secret: males fight back
Bulls, rams, cockerels and toms attack when stressed. They can knock you down. Do not corner a stressed male.
Chapter 4
The livestock zone
A livestock zone is a patch of ground you tell the game is "home". Animals stay inside it. Everything they need must be inside it too.
Fence an area
Build or find fences all the way around. Gates are fine. Bigger is better. Small stock needs about 20 tiles. An adult cow needs about 80.
Mark the zone
Right-click inside the fence and create a livestock zone. Drag it to cover the whole pen. Zones that touch join into one big zone.
Put everything inside
Troughs, water, hutch and shelter must be inside the zone lines. A trough one tile outside is invisible to the animals.
Watch out: the trough outside the line
This is the number 1 ranch mistake. The animals starve next to a full trough because it sits just past the zone edge. Check the zone overlay.
Watch out: too small
A cramped pen means stress, slow growth and less milk. Overcrowding shows up as a stress reason when you inspect the animal.
Chapter 5
Food, water and shelter
3 daily needs. Miss any one of them and the animals leave, sicken or die.
Food
Fill a feeding trough with grass cuttings, hay, vegetables, fruit or animal feed. Big animals also graze grass tiles inside the zone.
Water
A water trough. Fill it from a container, or let rain fill it. Sources disagree on whether animals drink from puddles, so give them a trough and be sure.
Shelter
A roofed part of the pen. Animals use it in bad weather. Chickens need a hutch. Walls help. The roof matters more.
Watch out: one trough, one job
A trough holds food or water, not both. To switch, empty it first. The game will tell you the container must be clear.
Watch out: unloaded animals still need you
Animals far from any player still get hungry and thirsty over time. Sandbox: Animal Stats While Away A long trip away can come home to a dead herd. The sandbox has a setting to slow that down.
Secret: cut grass with a scythe
Grass cuttings are free feed. A scythe or a sickle on grass tiles fills a trough for nothing.
Chapter 6
Catching and moving animals
Farm animals are found on farms around the map. Getting them home is the hard part.
Rope and lead
Attach a rope to a large animal and it follows you. Good for short walks.
Carry
Small animals like chickens and rabbits can be picked up and carried. Picking up a wild rabbit tames it.
Animal trailer
Hitch a livestock trailer to a car. Load the animals. Drive. The way to move a herd across the map.
Watch out: catch them before the pen is ready
An animal with no zone, no trough and no water is an animal you are about to lose. Build the pen first. Then go shopping.
Secret: farms are where the animals are
Farm pens around the map already hold cows, sheep, pigs and chickens. Many farms also have troughs you can take.
Chapter 7
Stress and trust
Every animal has a stress score and a trust score. Low stress and high trust mean more of everything.
What stresses animals
- Zombies nearby
- Loud noise. Gunshots and running inside the pen
- Overcrowding
- Dead bodies nearby, including butchering in sight of the herd
- Hunger and thirst
Stressed animals give less, may fight, and may leave the zone. Inspect an animal and it tells you why it is stressed.
Trust, called Acceptance
A hidden score of how much the animal trusts you. Pet it once a day. Trust rises. Higher Animal Care builds trust faster. High trust means less stress and fewer escapes.
Secret: the inspect window
Right-click any animal and choose Info. It shows type, breed, sex, age, health, stress, trust, zone, and whether it is ready to milk or shear. Higher Animal Care reveals more, including health genes.
Watch out: never butcher at the pen gate
Slaughter in view of the herd spikes stress. Do it out of sight.
Chapter 8
Milk, wool and eggs
The daily harvest. This is where Animal Care XP comes from.
Milk a cow or ewe
Bring a bucket. Right-click the animal and milk it. Only females who have recently given birth produce milk.
Shear a sheep
Bring shears. Right-click a sheep with grown wool. Electric shears are faster.
Collect eggs
Right-click the hutch and get eggs. Hens lay in the hutch. Leave some eggs in the hutch to hatch chicks.
Collect dung
Animals leave droppings. Pick them up with gloves or a shovel. They go in the composter for fertilizer. Leaving them makes the pen unhealthy.
Secret: milk becomes butter and cheese
A butter churn turns milk into butter. Milk can be processed further with the right recipes. A dairy cow feeds the kitchen for months.
Chapter 9
Breeding
A herd that breeds never runs out. A herd that breeds too much eats you out of feed.
- You need 1 male and 1 female of the same species, both adults, in the same zone.
- Cows breed all year. Some animals have a season.
- Babies must stay in their mother's zone to drink milk.
- Every animal has genes for milk, life span, strength and more. Breed the best to the best.
- Inbreeding over generations weakens the herd. Bring in fresh animals now and then.
Watch out: 2 bulls, 1 pen
More than one adult male in a zone causes trouble. Keep spare males in a separate pen, or in the freezer.
Watch out: overbreeding
Every new animal needs food, water, space and cleaning. Let the herd grow only as fast as your feed does.
Chapter 10
Sick animals and the hutch
Dirty pens make sick animals. Clean pens make healthy ones.
- Clean the hutch regularly with water and a cloth. A filthy hutch kills chickens.
- Pick up dung so the pen stays healthy.
- Watch the health line in the Info window. Falling health means hunger, thirst, cold or filth.
- Animals cannot catch the Knox Infection. Zombies do not attack them by default. But animal noise can pull zombies to your fence.
Secret: the predator option
Custom Sandbox has a night predator option. If it is on, chickens without a hutch can vanish overnight. The hutch is their shield.
Chapter 11
From pen to plate
Eventually an animal becomes dinner. Do it right and you get meat, a hide and bones.
- Lead the animal out of sight of the herd.
- Kill it and carry it to a butcher hook.
- Hang it. Drain blood, take the hide, take the meat, take the head.
- The hide goes to the leather chain. See the Hunting guide.
Secret: Rancher starts with Butchering 3
The job that raises the animals is also good at butchering them. Everything else is in the Butchering guide.
Chapter 12
Training plan: 0 to 10
XP comes from chores: milking, shearing, giving water, petting and collecting eggs. More animals means more chores means more XP.
Levels 0 to 3: chickens and tapes
Read Animal Care I. Watch both VHS tapes. Start with chickens. A hutch, a trough, and daily eggs and petting. Cheap, small, and every day is XP.
Levels 3 to 6: a dairy cow
Read II and III. Get a cow and a bull. Once she calves, milk her daily. Pet everything. Water everything.
Levels 6 to 10: the full ranch
Read IV and V. Sheep for wool, pigs for meat. Breed for good genes. A big herd is a big daily chore list, and that is the point.
Secret: petting is free XP
Pet every animal every day. It builds trust and gives XP. It costs nothing.
Level by level: Animal Care
The best single thing to do at each level. Read the matching book first when one exists.
| Level | Do this for most of your XP | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 1 | Watch both VHS tapes. Chickens: pet and collect eggs daily | Cheap animals, daily XP |
| 1 to 2 | Read Animal Care I. Water troughs by hand | Giving water is XP |
| 2 to 3 | Get a cow and bull. Pet everything daily | Petting is free XP |
| 3 to 4 | Read Animal Care II. Milk the cow once she calves | Milking is the big daily XP |
| 4 to 5 | Add sheep. Shear when wool is full | Shearing is XP plus Tailoring thread |
| 5 to 6 | Read Animal Care III. A full pen of 8 or more animals | More chores, more XP |
| 6 to 7 | Breed for genes. More milkers | Two milkers double the milk XP |
| 7 to 8 | Read Animal Care IV. Pigs and rabbits for a bigger chore list | Volume |
| 8 to 9 | Daily routine: pet, water, milk, shear, eggs, dung | The whole loop every morning |
| 9 to 10 | Read Animal Care V. Keep the ranch | Months of mornings |
New pen checklist
Build
Inside the zone
Tools
Your ticks are saved in this browser, on this device only.
Chapter 13
Tips, tricks and fixes
20 tips from the ranch
Setting up
- Take Rancher. Level 4 on day 1 and Butchering too.
- Get Carpentry 3 first. Troughs and hutches come from it.
- Build the pen before you catch anything.
- Make the pen bigger than you think.
- Check the zone overlay. Everything must be inside.
Daily care
- Food trough and water trough, separate.
- Empty a trough before you switch what it holds.
- Pet every animal every day.
- Pick up dung for the composter.
- Clean the hutch.
- Cut grass with a scythe for free feed.
- No running or shooting in the pen.
Herd management
- One adult male per pen.
- Milk needs a recent birth.
- Leave a few eggs in the hutch to hatch.
- Breed the best genes. Bring in new blood sometimes.
- Butcher out of sight.
- Use a trailer to move herds.
- Do not leave the ranch unloaded for weeks.
- Deer cannot be tamed. Rabbits can.
Fix-it table
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Animals will not eat. | Trough outside the zone, or empty. | Move it inside the zone lines. Fill it. |
| I cannot add feed to the trough. | It has water in it. | Empty it first. |
| The animals left the zone. | Stressed, hungry or thirsty. | Fix the cause. Lead them back with a rope. |
| No milk. | She has not given birth. | Breed her. Then milk. |
| No eggs. | No hutch. | Build a hutch in the zone. |
| The cow keeps breaking away when I milk. | Stress, or low Animal Care. | Calm the pen. Pet her. Level up. |
| The bull attacked me. | Stressed male. | Do not corner him. Separate males. |
| Chickens died in the hutch. | Filthy hutch. | Clean it regularly. |
| The deer will not calm down. | Deer cannot be tamed. | Hunt it. |
| The herd died while I was away. | Unloaded animals still need food and water. | Stock troughs before trips. Slow the sandbox setting. |
Chapter 14
Rancher's test
7 questions. Get them all right and you can run the ranch.
Chapter 15
Words and sources
Rancher's word list
- Livestock zone
- The marked area animals treat as home.
- Trough
- A container for animal food or water.
- Hutch
- The chicken house where hens lay and roost.
- Stress
- How scared or unhappy an animal is.
- Acceptance
- How much an animal trusts you.
- Breed
- A type within a species, like Holstein cows.
- Genes
- Inherited traits like milk amount and life span.
- Shears
- The tool for cutting wool.
- Dung
- Animal droppings. Compost material.
- Trailer
- A cart towed by a car to move animals.
How sure are we?
Every fact here was checked in September 2026 for game version 42.20.4. Order of trust: the official wiki, then well-sourced fan guides, then player reports.
- What the skill does and how XP is earned. Confirmed on the official wiki.
- Pen sizes. "About 20 to 80 tiles" from a fan guide for 42.19.
- Puddles. One source says animals drink from puddles, another says only troughs. The guide says use a trough.
- Breed specialties. The wool breed is player-reported. Cow breeds are on the official wiki.
- Job values. Rancher's +4 Animal Care and +3 Butchering from a guide citing the wiki's 42.18 page. May change.
Sources
- PZwiki (the official wiki): Animal Care, Animal, Cow, Rabbit, Rancher
- Game-rack livestock guide (skill effects, tapes, Rancher rename), citing PZwiki pages for 42.6 to 42.18
- Guides-factory animal husbandry guide, cross-checked against the wiki (hutch, stress, milk after birth)
- PZfans wildlife and animal care guide for 42.19 (pen sizes, stressed males, troughs)
- Steam Community guide on B42 animals (zone and trough mistakes)
- Item Level Gaming and Bamboo Gaming animal guides (petting, breeding balance)