Animal breeding is an important aspect of any zoo and it must be carefully nurtured and managed to control your animal populations.
Chance of Success
The chance of a successful mating encounter is based on a number of factors:
- The current welfare of both parents
- The fertility level of both parents
- Breeding programmes
- Species fertility
- Animals will never successfully mate if the overall welfare of either animal is below 66%.
The best possibility of animals having offspring comes from good welfare, well researched breeding programmes and good animal husbandry practices.
Animal Genetics
Every animal in Planet Zoo has its own genome, passed down to it from its parents. Breeding animals can accentuate these genetic expressions with results both positive and negative.
Each animal has genes that express the following traits:
- Additive Genes - tend to reinforce a trait, such as size, when two animals breed.
- Size
- Longevity
- Appearance
- Diversity Genes - provide improved genetic outputs in offspring when the genetic information from both parents is different.
- Fertility
- Immunity
Parents with similar genetic information tend to occur with inbreeding and the offspring of these mates will have compromised traits such as low fertility.
Contraception
To control a population, it may be necessary to moderate breeding. This can be done in the following ways:
- Physical separation
- Contraception
Contraception can be modified either in the animal's info panel or in the Animals Overview screen.