Animals

Looking at these categories a little closer:

• Species tells you what kind of animal it is.
• Cost shows you if the animal is sold for Diamonds or Zoo Dollars, and how many.
• Rarity defines how rare the animal is; rarer animals typically have a greater popularity value (see below). Rarity ranges from 1 (common) to 4 (rare).
• Popular with tells you what type of visitors the animal most appeals to; children, men, women or seniors. The animal will draw more of the type of visitor it is popular with than other types of visitors.
• Breeding odds gives you an idea of how difficult the animal is to breed. These odds can be raised significantly with enclosure items, Breeding Station upgrades and fertility feeds.
• Space requirements tell you how much enclosure space is needed for the animal to fit.

Beneath the card will be icons indicating what type of enclosure the animal may be placed in:

^{Enclosure icons.}

Most animals can be placed in two or three different enclosure types. The exceptions are those animals which go in buildings; terrariums, aviaries, aquariums and Amazonian houses. See the enclosures section for more information about specific enclosures.

Once an animal has been purchased, its card will appear in your inventory at the bottom left of the main screen. The animal can now be placed in the zoo, provided there is a suitable enclosure available.

Placing Animals

Animals must be placed in enclosures, and enclosures must be placed in the zoo before an animal can be put inside of it. If a suitable enclosure is not available, or the enclosure is too small, you'll receive an error message explaining the problem when you try to place the animal.

To place an animal in an enclosure, click the animal's card in your inventory, and then place the animal in the desired enclosure. The animal can be rotated using the arrows in the upper right of the card.

^{Peacock being placed. Note the rotate arrows at the upper right of the card. Also note the big blue arrow indicating the suitable enclosure. The red overlay on the bottom enclosure indicates that the enclosure is not suitable, in this instance because it already contains a chimpanzee.}

The first time an animal is placed in the zoo you will receive a certain amount of experience points (XP). Higher level animals grant higher amounts of XP. Additional XP is gained through Tending Animals.

Once placed in a suitable enclosure, hovering the mouse pointer over the animal will provide you with additional information:

^{Hold the cursor over an animal without clicking to display helpful information.}

As you can see above, the tool-tip window tells you the animal's mood, gives you a popularity value, and tells you a little bit about the animal.

• Mood tells you how well tended an animal is (see Tending Animals below). Untended animals will upset visitors and cause them to leave the zoo.
• Popularity tells you how popular the animal is with visitors; more popular animals will attract more visitors than animals with low popularity. This value ranges from 10 (rabbits) to over 1 million (Western Crowned Pigeon). Though there is some variety, lower level animals tend to have low popularity values, while higher level animals tend to have high popularity values.
• Descriptions of animals are simply for fun and have no relevance in the game.

With the exception of the Amazonian House, only one species of animal may be placed in an enclosure, though multiple animals of the same species may go in the same enclosure, provided there is sufficient space. For example, you can place up to 10 rabbits in a large grassland enclosure and 10 sheep in a different grassland enclosure, but you cannot place a rabbit and a sheep in the same enclosure.

Interactions

Once an animal is placed in the zoo, clicking on it will bring up a menu with information about that particular individual as well as interaction buttons:

Taking a closer look at this menu:

• Gender indicates if the animal is male or female.
• Tend, entertain and feed animal are basic needs every animal must have met in order to be happy.
• Happiness indicates the animals mood, which ranges from bad to amazing.
• Species tells you what kind of animal it is. Clicking on the species bar will take you to that animal in the shop.
• Breed, if clicked, initiates breeding (see Breeding below).
• Rotate animal changes the direction the animal faces.
• Move animal allows you to relocate the animal in the same or to a different enclosure without returning it to your inventory.
• Remove animal returns the animal to your inventory.

These menu items will be explained in further detail below.

Herd Size

As mentioned above, multiple animals of the same species can be placed in an enclosure with sufficient space. Multiple animals, aside from looking nice, will increase popularity and bring more visitors to the zoo. See the Increasing Popularity section below for more information.

There are, however, limitations on the number of animals that can be placed in a single enclosure, no matter how big that enclosure is. This limit is referred to as Max Herd Size. Max herd size ranges from 2 to 10 animals, depending on species and enclosure type. Values for max herd size are not provided by the game; it has to be figured out manually.

Hovering your mouse pointer over the wall of an occupied enclosure will provide some helpful information as to how many animals will fit in it:

^{Hovering the mouse over an enclosure wall will tell you if there's space for more animals.}

Free animal slots tells you how many more animals will fit in that particular enclosure. In the above image, two more peacocks can be added along with the one already there. If the enclosure were to be expanded, however, creating more space, there would be more free animal slots.

What this tool-tip does not tell you is max herd size.

Peacocks, for example, have a max herd size of 8 animals:

^{Peacocks at max herd size in a forest enclosure. It looks crowded in there!}

Note the tool tip states there are 0 free animal slots. But, without knowing in advance what max herd size is for peacocks, it may appear that the enclosure is simply too small to fit more animals. But if the enclosure is expanded:

^{Additional animals cannot be added to this enclosure because max herd size has been reached.}

The tool-tip still says 0 free slots despite there clearly being enough room to fit more peacocks. This is one way to determine max herd size. An easier way is to reference the animal of interest on the My Free Zoo wiki or consult the database spreadsheet.

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Tending Animals

As in real life, My Free Zoo animals have needs which must be met in order for the animal to be happy. Unhappy animals lead to unhappy visitors, which will begin leaving the zoo in droves if a large number of animals go untended too long — and fewer visitors means reduced income in gate fees and shops. See the visitors section for more information about visitors.

Each animal has three primary needs, which we saw in the Interactions section above:

When an animal is placed in the zoo from inventory its needs are all satisfied, but immediately begin declining. Needs decline at different rates according to species. For example, a rabbit's entertainment need declines fairly quickly, but its food need declines very slowly. The state of decline can be viewed for a particular animal at any time by clicking on that animal, as discussed above.

Needs have a maximum and minimum capacity. When needs are fully met, the icons are grayed out and cannot be clicked. Most of the time needs will be in some state of decline, shown by a meter next to the need icon. Once the meter turns yellow or red (and icons are no longer grayed out) the icon can be clicked and the need will be restored to fully met.

^{Needs fully met, partially met, and at minimum capacity. Note the meter color and active icons in the latter two.}

When a need is at its very minimum capacity, need bubbles will appear above the animal:

These bubbles are actually very convenient, as you can simply click them to restore the need to full, rather than needing to click on the animal first. If more than one need is at minimum, the bubbles will stack on top of one another.

^{Need bubbles. Those lions are really hungry! Clicking each bubble will fulfill the animal's feed need.}

Every time an animal is fed, entertained or tended you will receive experience points (XP), depending on how far the need has declined. Tending animals before the need declined to minimum capacity does not cause a loss of XP; smaller amounts are collected more frequently, so in the end it all adds up the same. Learn more about XP in the Experience Points section below.

Note that animals in My Free Zoo will never die, even if needs are neglected for a very long time.

Mood

As needs decline the animal's mood also deteriorates. Mood can be seen by clicking on an individual animal or hovering the mouse over it until the tool-tip menu pops up. There are four moods:

Meeting the animal's needs (by clicking on needs icons or bubbles) will improve the animal's mood. If all needs are met, the animal's mood will be amazing; if needs are at or near minimum capacity, the animal's mood will be bad.

The mood of the majority of animals in the zoo is also reflected in visitor happiness, using the same icons in the upper left portion of the main screen:

^{That's a lot of happy visitors!}

When the majority of animals are in a fine or amazing mood, visitors will continue to enter the zoo until the maximum number have been attracted. If the majority of animals are in a mediocre or bad mood, visitors will begin to leave. Therefore one of the primary aspects of playing My Free Zoo is keeping animals, and in turn visitors, happy.

Note that an animal's mood can be bad before needs are quite at minimum capacity, meaning there will be no convenient need bubbles above it. To keep animals in an amazing mood at all times requires clicking on individual animals every few moments to satisfy needs. This is generally not a big problem in smaller zoos with relatively few animals, but it can be quite a pain in a large zoo with hundreds of individuals. Fortunately there are several ways to make this job easier, most significantly Enclosure Equipment (below) and Employees.

Enclosure Equipment

Enclosure equipment can be placed in an enclosure with animals, provided there is sufficient space. Each enclosure type can be outfitted with five enclosure items (the Amazonian House is a bit of an exception), two of which relate to breeding and three of which relate to tending animals. Since we are concerned with tending animals at this point, we'll look at those three:

While all enclosures utilize the same types of enclosure equipment---watering trough, feeding trough and play equipment---each enclosure type has its own type of enclosure items. Pictured above are enclosure items for grassland enclosures; they cannot be placed in forest enclosures, ice enclosures, and so forth. Learn more about specific enclosure equipment in the enclosures section.

As you've probably already deduced, these three enclosure items address the three animal needs:

• Watering Trough satisfies the tend need.
• Feeding Trough satisfies the feed need.
• Play Equipment satisfies the entertain need.

Once a piece of enclosure equipment has been placed in an enclosure, clicking on the item will bring up a new menu, which allows you to rotate it, move it, and, most importantly, use it to satisfy the particular need it addresses:

^{These zebras are bored. The play equipment will tend to all their entertainment needs at the same time.}

Clicking on the Tend To button will automatically fill the respective need of all animals in the enclosure. Enclosure equipment can be used at any time to top off needs in the same way clicking on an individual animal can; you do not need to wait until need bubbles appear.

In short, if you have all three pieces of enclosure equipment in an enclosure, you can tend to all the animals in that enclosure with just three clicks, rather than clicking on each animal individually. Enclosure equipment will save you a tremendous amount of time (and clicking!) once your zoo starts to get big, as well as provide you with bonus XP (see below).

Experience Points

As mentioned above, the first time a new animal is placed in the zoo you will receive experience points (XP), and further XP is earned each time an animal is tended.

Enclosure equipment also gives extra XP, equal to the same amount earned for tending the animal. For example, if feeding a zebra gives 10 XP, you'll get an additional 10 XP from the feeding trough, for a total of 20 XP. If you feed five zebras in an enclosure with a feeding trough for 10 XP each, you'll get 50 XP from the feeding trough, for a total of 100 XP. This extra XP can really add up; enclosure equipment is very beneficial for players who want to level fast.

XP can be even further enhanced by 'filling' the enclosure equipment, which is what Refill refers to in the equipment menu. By clicking on the Refill button you can purchase refills with Diamonds:

^{Filling enclosure equipment will provide additional XP bonuses.}

Enclosure equipment works without being 'filled' of course, so you do not need Diamonds to take advantage of them. But if the equipment is filled, it provides a double XP bonus---plus the standard XP bonus for the equipment.

^{Musk oxen in an ice enclosure being tended. Note the light blue watering trough bonus, plus the doubled dark blue 'refill' bonus below.}

Looking at the Musk Oxen in the above picture, 86 XP is received for tending the animal (not shown), another 86 XP for having the watering trough in the enclosure, and 172 XP (86+86) for the watering trough refill, for a total of 344 XP per animal. Considering that the max herd size for the musk ox is 10 animals, a full enclosure would generate 3440 XP per need ― a grand total of 10320 XP. Players who have Diamonds to spare can gain XP very quickly using refills!

STRATEGY TIP

Use your refills on your highest-value animals ― for example, on musk oxen instead of chimpanzees.

Employees

Employees are another way to lighten your zoo workload. There are four types of employees; however, in this section we will focus on only one ― the Zoo Keeper. Additional information about all employees can be found in the employees section of the wiki.

^{Zoo Keeper (bottom right) tending to Koalas. Note the watering trough bonus in the upper left.}

Note that an enclosure wall or building housing animals must be within 2 fields of a path for a zoo keeper to be able to tend the animals contained inside.

Tending, equipment and refill XP are generated exactly the same regardless of if an employee does the work or if you do it yourself.

Zoo Keepers are automatically dispatched from the Administrative Building as soon as you log in, and will remain active until logging out. Unfortunately they are not active while logged out, though animal needs continue to decline. Another drawback to employees, particularly in large zoos, is that they must make a choice at each path junction as to which direction to take. With bad luck this can lead to sections of the zoo being ignored for long periods.

Despite their drawbacks, employees are invaluable in very large zoos with hundreds of animals, cutting player workload to a tiny fraction of what it would be without them.

Logging Out

Logging out and leaving your zoo untended can be somewhat confusing at first. In some respects the zoo goes into stasis when you log out; if you log out with happy animals and a high number of visitors, it will stay that way until you log in again. Friends or other visitors to your zoo will see it in the same condition that you left it. But, some things are also happening while logged out that aren't visible:

• All animal needs deteriorate;
• Employees stop functioning;
• Visitors continue to spend money at shops and the entrance gate.

These things seem to conflict; how can animals and visitors stay happy if needs are declining and not met? All of these background changes will come to the forefront once you log in again; if logged out for more than an hour or so, you'll likely be met with a wall of need bubbles and unhappy animals. Visitor mood and numbers will very quickly drop until animal happiness is restored.

It is important to log out with animals and visitors in good moods if possible, as this will generate the maximum revenue for your zoo while you're away.

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Breeding Basics

^{Male horses in separate enclosures being moved to the same enclosure, which, on the right, now contains two male horses. Moving an animal using the 'move animal' function will cause it to keep its gender.}

For the second animal added to an enclosure to be a female, it must be placed from inventory.

^{Placing a second horse in the enclosure from inventory. This time the second horse is a female.}

Gender can be confirmed by clicking on the animal and looking for the gender symbol at the top:

^{Gender symbols at top of animal menu.}

Horses, used in the above images, are sexually dimorphic, meaning males and females look different; in the case of horses, males are white and females are brown. Most animals in My Free Zoo are not sexually dimorphic; both genders appear identical. Likewise most babies are miniature versions of adults, but some species look quite a bit different, such as the baby Snow Geese in the image at the beginning of this section.

Success Rates

Once a male and female animal are in the same enclosure breeding may begin. However, for most My Free Zoo animals, the odds of success are very small without the bonuses given by equipment and Breeding Station upgrades. Failed breeding attempts are not a big deal with low-level, inexpensive-to-breed animals, but with higher level animals that cost tens of thousands of ZD ― and can take up two days to breed ― it matters a great deal.

The basic success rate can be seen on an animal's information card:

As you can see from the heart icon on the lower right of the above card, the Porcupine has a 10% base success rate for breeding ― which in turn means a 90% failure rate!

Success rate is another subject which tends to cause confusion. The rate applies to each breeding attempt; previous failed breedings do not improve the odds of having a successful breeding next time. Think of it like flipping a coin; there is a 50% chance it will land on tails. If you flip the coin 100 times, it still has a 50% chance of landing on tails. Breeding success rates are the same way ― the porcupine has a 10% success rate the first time, the 50^th time, and the 10,000^th time.

That is, unless you utilize breeding bonuses like breeding equipment and Breeding Station upgrades.

Improving Odds

As mentioned above there are five types of enclosure equipment, two of which have to do with breeding:

As can be seen on the card descriptions above, the habitation gives a 10% breeding chance increase, while the watering hole gives a 5% chance increase. With both of these items in the same enclosure with a pair of porcupines, the chances of a successful breeding would be increased to 25% (10% base + 10% habitation + 5% watering hole).

As with other enclosure equipment, each enclosure type has its own variation. Values remain the same, however; they differ only in appearance.

There are also a few ways to improve success rates in the Breeding Station, though they require Diamonds. See the Breeding Station section for more information.

Babies

^{Numerous species placed in all available enclosure types. Click for larger image.}

Most animals can be placed in two or three different enclosure types, but not all. Animals that go in water enclosures or in houses, such as terrariums or aviaries, can only go in one.

There are additional popularity bonuses from certain enclosure types not discussed here. See the enclosures section for more information.

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Selling, Donating & Releasing

Once your zoo gets going you may find you have excess animals that you'd like to get rid of. There are three options for getting rid of animals:

• Sell the animal for a fraction of its purchase value.
• Release the animal into the wild.
• Donate the animal to an organization. You must belong to an organization for this to be an option.

To do any of the above, you must first return the animal to your inventory. Then click on the i button on the animal's card to get to the shop menu:

^{Click the green button to get to the shop menu for that animal.}

Once at the shop menu, you'll see the Return Animal to Wild or Sell It button below the animal information:

^{Click the carrier button to get to the next menu.}

This will bring us to the final menu:

^{This menu is pretty self-explanatory.}

From here you can choose to sell the animal, or donate it either to the wild or to your organization.

While selling the animal gets you Zoo Dollars, returning the animal to the wild or donating it both earn you XP. The amount of XP earned is the identical regardless of if the animal is released or donated. Returning animals to the wild works towards meeting some achievements, and some Story-Tasks require certain numbers specific species to be released into the wild.

Animals that have been sold, returned to the wild or donated to an organization cannot be returned to you.

TIP:

Most organizations do not need any more zebras, parrots or rabbits. Just release those back into the wild.

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