Feeding/watering mounts and beasts of burden (or a 12,000 lb lizard?)

[Snapdragyn]

You can go weeks without food, your dead within the week without water.

The 3-3-3 rule: 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 minutes without air.

Given the setting, I'd go for the lizard meeting its ordinary water requirements from food if it's a carnivore (or if it eats fruit or other plant matter with high moisture content, but that seems unlikely for a desertified setting). It would likely produce very dry waste (some species of desert rodents have crystallized urine to better retain moisture). Heck, with the size of the thing, you could even have a subecology grow up around smaller animals seeking out the large deposits it would leave as salt licks.

 

[Arravis]

But your humans must be on the super model thin side.

Those numbers aren't my own, they are from the DMG and from Sandstorm:
In normal climates, Medium characters need at least a gallon of fluids and about a pound of decent food per day to avoid starvation. (Small characters need half as much.).
Sandstorm goes into much more detail, which we use but I won't add that to the mix here

Any new info you can send my way would be most welcome, it sounds like you know it well! Thanks.

 

[arscott]

On the mekillot specifically, the intro adventure that comes with the boxed set suggests something about a mekillot drinking most of the water from an oasis in a single drinking session, but being able to store water in it's stomachs for quite some time, iirc.

 

[Rothe]

Those numbers aren't my own, they are from the DMG and from Sandstorm:
In normal climates, Medium characters need at least a gallon of fluids and about a pound of decent food per day to avoid starvation. (Small characters need half as much.).
Sandstorm goes into much more detail, which we use but I won't add that to the mix here

Any new info you can send my way would be most welcome, it sounds like you know it well! Thanks.

Those numbers are interesting. I'll try to find my own sources and forward those so you can make your own decison. I find the need for a gallon of water too high and a pound of food too low for non-desert environments. But it seesm the food requirement is qualified with "avoiding starvation", since people can live a very long time on "half rations" 1 lb makes sense. I'm of course thinking "normal" food with the 1 kg amount. If you start dehydrating it, etc. I guess 1 lb of iron rations per day makes sense. On water, I'd say 1 quart of water, about 1 liter, per day for pure drinking in a non-desert environment.

The animal unit stuff I know but the tip of the iceberg, my farming relatives would put me to shame, what with my uncle and his "hobby herd" of 150 angus.

Another internet source of info might be the military the US Army, and especially the Natick Army Labs, have reams of data on how much water and food one needs for combat effectiveness.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Hey guys, I'm running a modified Darksun campaign and a question has come up that I'm not sure how to rule on. The party has a number of beasts of burden and steeds with them now, and I'm trying to find out the food/water consumption on them as they travel. The huge 25' long, 12,000 lb mekillot (massive domesticated lizard) is of particular interest.

I know that small creatures eat and drink half as much as a medium character... but does that mean that a large creatures needs twice as much, and a huge eats four times as much? Or would it be that each square the creature takes up equals that much food? Thus a large creature needs 4x as much food, and a huge eats 9x as much? Of course, that's not even counting their height... so would a large be 8x and a huge be 18x? Any advice on this?

Actually, there's a point you should notice... this is a lizard.

Reptiles eat 1/20th the amount that mamals of the same size consume.

You think i'm crazy. I know. But here's why.

Reptiles are coldblooded, and have very, VERY low metabolisims. I would like to point out Pythons, which, despite weighing hundreds of pounds, may eat only once a month, or less.

However, that one meal is very LARGE.

Like, "antalope" sized.

If you want your giant reptiles as plodding beasts (more similar to donkeys than gallant steed) then maybe a chicken or so a day. If you want them to be fleet footed raptors, then you might be looking at feeding them in a manner akin to feeding a lion (make a survival check for their "hunting")

 

[mir]

I happen to have my old Darksun boxed set handy. It says Mekillots need 300 pounds of food and 16 gallons of water per day.

 

[mmadsen]

Historically, armies could carry roughly enough food for eight days. A horse can carry around 200 lbs, and it eats around 20 lbs of fodder per day -- so it can carry 10 days' food for itself, if it carries nothing else. That's a good starting point for your fantasy mount.

As has been pointed out, reptiles eat less than warm-blooded mammals -- but that's because reptiles are lazy and don't exert themselves. If you want a mount that can go into a near-torpor while you delve into a dungeon, I guess a reptile might make a good choice, but I wouldn't expect a cold-blooded reptile to make a good beast of burden.

 

[Rothe]

Arravis, some numbers.

1 Animal Unit (AU) requires 354 kg dry feed per month, or 26 lbs per day;
Reptiles require about one tenth the amount of food as a mammal;
I have one data point, for dogs, that a carnivore requires about twice as much food as a herbivore (that is about 54 lbs per day for a 1000 kg dog. )

Your lizard weighs about 5,357 kg = 5.36 animal units = 139 lbs/day of food if it was herbivorous mammal, about 279 lb/day if a carnivoruos mammal;now if a reptile divide by ten. Edit 7/17/2006 so not to artificially bump thread, error in AU 1 AU=1000 lbs NOT kg so multiply all numbers in this paragraph by 2.24

The last number is very close to the 300 lbs/day quoted so it looks like you "lizard" is warm blooded/has a higher metabolism. This sounds good since reptiles have poor stamina which would make them poor long distance mounts.

EDIT: should have caught up with the thread, the 1/10 number for reptiles I found was for an active reptile with young to feed comapred to an active mammal with young to feed.

 

[Steverooo]

Those numbers are interesting. I'll try to find my own sources and forward those so you can make your own decison. I find the need for a gallon of water too high and a pound of food too low for non-desert environments. But it seesm the food requirement is qualified with "avoiding starvation", since people can live a very long time on "half rations" 1 lb makes sense. I'm of course thinking "normal" food with the 1 kg amount. If you start dehydrating it, etc. I guess 1 lb of iron rations per day makes sense. On water, I'd say 1 quart of water, about 1 liter, per day for pure drinking in a non-desert environment.

These numbers are right-on! One pound of DRIED rations, per person, per day, and one gallon of drinking water, per person, per day, under normal conditions, meaning temperatures around 72 degrees F, doing "normal" exertion (walking, but not running, working, but not strenuously). When exerting strenuously, double the water, and when in hot weather, double it, again.

Now note, this is enough water for surviving on DRIED food, and not exhausting the body's resources. Yes, you CAN get by on one quart of water, per person, per day, but if you are also eating DRIED Food, you will have parched mouth, and be VERY uncomfortable! If you can get fresh plant food, with water within it, you can probably get by on that... OTHERWISE, you will begin dehydrating (and that's bad)!

Also note that, in a hot desert (two gallons of water, per person, per day), when doing strenuous work (four gallons, per person, per day), that this includes enough water to COOK with (and also a modicum to wash with, occassionally). If you are doing no cooking, and no washing, you can get along with a bit less (and about one quarter that, for short periods, although the risks of heat exhaustion & stroke go up, and the body begins to dehydrate).

Also note that, when low on water, the eating of fat is to be avoided! Lean meat can be eaten (and if cooked in some broth is very good for you), but that breaking down the fat, in the body, sucks the water out of it, as water is necessary to metabolize the fat!

Surviving on dried rations, high in nuts and fat (as granola, nuts, trail mixes, etc., usually are), with only one quart of water, per person, per day, will get you killed. It is possible, in the short run, but expect to lose body weight (and more importantly, muscle mass), dehydration, and generally weakening yourself. You might survive, but it's a lousy idea to try it!

One gallon of water, per person, per day, doubling that for strenuous exertion, doubling for heat, is the amount that a human needs. I believe that the DMG says that a horse being fed with a Murlynd's Spoon needs four times that much, IIRC (you can look it up). With FRESH food, maybe you could halve that, but the cooking would require some water...

Lizards mostly eat their foods raw, so no cooking. They mostly eat insects, IIRC, so that adds some fresh water (eh, ichor!) to their diet, which is low in fat, so multiply by your 16x, or whatever, then halve that, due to low fat diet & no cooking, and cold blooded metabolism. That seems about right, to me...

 

[Thunderfoot]

I happen to have my old Darksun boxed set handy. It says Mekillots need 300 pounds of food and 16 gallons of water per day.

If that's the case, then you need a mule sized herbivore (approximately of course) for your lizard to munch upon, per day... Not looking too good for the gecko.

I see alot of herbviore quotes through the thread, I think we should all be on the same page... Reptiles are carnivores, not herbivores (for the most part), think raptors not stegosaurs. However, if you want your reptiles to be herbivorous, then you have a really big problem, I don't think there is enough vegetation above ground on all of Athas to support your mekillot for more than a few weeks total.