Groupings

In general, it is best practice to set up diets to reflect the ways they are both managed and fed. If the animals are fed as a group, the diet should be prepared as a group. If the animals are fed individually, diets should be set up (and also weighed and prepared) individually. And sometimes you want to manage animals as individuals, but feed them as a group. ZDN can do all of these things. The goal is to avoid situations where the Nutrition Center carefully weighs out and prepares multiple individual diets only to have the keepers put everything together in a pan, or for the Nutrition Center to carefully weigh out and prepare food for an area and then the keepers spend still more time weighing and portioning it out to individuals. It is most efficient to handle/weigh/prepare the food once rather than multiple times.

ZDN has two(ish) main methods of grouping animals

• Herd (or flock) diets: one diet plan multiplied by the number of animals. Generally, each animal is considered to have a value of 1. So, for example for a flock of flamingos that gets 100 g of flamingo food per bird each day, you could create a diet for 100 g of flamingo food and assign 50 birds to that diet for a total of 5000 g. However you can set the value (Animal Units) of an animal to be less (a smaller animal) or more (a growing/pregnant/lactating animal) than 1 if needed. If one bird is small, you might set that animal to be worth 0.5 animal units, and then you'd have 49.5 "animals", for a amount of 4950 g. Visual example: 🦆🦆🦆🦆 <- a herd diet
• Grouped diets: multiple diets combined together. For example, in one pond you have ducks (who eat duck food), geese (who eat goose food), and swans (who eat swan food) who are fed together out of the same pans. You can place these three diets together in a Group. The summed diet (duck + goose + swan food) will be what is prepared as a single diet, but you can still maintain the three types of diets separately, which makes it easier when birds move around or you want to see the diet history. Visual example: 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆 + 🦜🦜 + 🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚 + 🐦🐦 + 🐓🐓🐓 <- a grouped diet

Examples

Here are some examples of how to apply Herds and Groups in practice:

• A group of 4 similar zebra fed together - Create 1 diet with the amounts for 1 animal. Add all 4 animals to the diet (on the Edit Diets > Animals & Enclosures tab). The group amount will change to reflect 4x the single diet. Visual example: 🦓🦓🦓🦓
• A group of 4 similar zebra fed together. One zebra gets an additional "treat" for taking medication:
  • Option 1: Create 1 diet with the amounts for 1 animal. Add all 4 animals to the diet (for the diet they have in common). Create a second diet with just the additional treat and assign only the medicated animal to that diet (will generate 2 separate diets for that group). Visual example: 🦓🦓🦓🦓 + 🍎
  • Option 2: Create 1 diet with the amounts for 1 animal. Add only the 3 non-medicated animals to that diet. Copy the diet items. Create a new diet for the medicated zebra. Paste in the diet items from the first diet. Add in the medication treat. This will also generate 2 separate diets for the zebras. Visual example: 🦓🦓🦓 + 🦓🍎
  • Option 3: Begin the same as for either option 1 or 2, but create a Group called "Zebra Herd" and assign both diets to that group. This will generate one combined prep for the zebra group containing all the foods from the two diets. Visual example: 🦓🦓🦓🦓🍎
• A group of 4 adult zebras, plus a newborn foal - Create 1 diet with the amounts for 1 animal. Add all 5 animals to the diet. Set mom's Animal Units to 1.4 to account for early lactation. Set foal to 0 Animal Units for now. In a few weeks, set foal to 0.5 Animal Units and perhaps increase mom to 1.8 Animal Units. Visual example: 🦓🦓 🦓🦓🦓
• A group of 4 gorillas fed together as a family - one 3-year-old, one adult lactating female (mom), one adult female, one silverback male.
  • Option 1: Create 4 separate diets (one for each animal). Create a group called "Gorilla Family" and assign each of the four diets to belong to this group. This will allow you to maintain separate diet histories and individualized diet plans for each animal, yet prepare only one set of food that will be fed as a group to the family. Visual example: 🦍 + 🦍 + 🦍 + 🦍
  • Option 2: Create 1 gorilla diet. Assign all four animals to this diet. Assign Animal Units as 0.5 (baby), 1.2 (mom - late lactation), 1 (adult female), 1.5 (silverback). Doing this may make future diet changes easier - you only have to change one diet rather than 4. However, it is harder to tailor diets to each individual. Visual example: 🦍🦍🦍🦍
  • There is no right answer - either option will work depending on whether you are more likely to make 4 separate diet changes when the group as a whole needs a change, or have to do convoluted work when you want to add diet items specific to each individual.
• A group of 4 gorillas fed together as a family - with enrichment items
  • Option 1: Create 5 diets - one for each animal, a fifth for the shared enrichment items (can put all 5 diets together in a Group if desired)
  • Option 2: Create 4 diets - one for each animal, a portion of the enrichment goes on each diet (can put all 4 diets together in a Group if desired)

Assembly Line Prep - grouping similar diets for individual prep

Sometimes, when you have many diets with similar ingredients, you don't want to prepare them one diet at a time, but rather one food type at a time. A common example is in the preparation of aquatic animal diets. Often you portion out all of the capelin to many diets (then return the box to the freezer), then the herring (and return the box), then shrimp, etc. Many animals will get all three of these foods, even if the animals aren't fed together and may not even live in the same enclosure. There are two ways to accomplish this:

• Ingredient labels - print out labels for each item (select which items are included in Settings > Edit Foods > Include on Ingredient Stickers) .
• Assembly line diets - put the animals into a group to indicate that these diets are similar. But mark that group (Settings > Edit Zoo Areas and Diet Groups > Diet Groups) as "Assembly Line" instead of "Bulk" to say that they are still prepped as individual diets.
  • Paper books: Print out the "Assembly Line" report
  • Touchscreen: If you marked the group as "Assembly Line" style in Settings > Edit Zoo Areas and Diet Groups > Diet Groups, then it should show up as Assembly Line in the Touchscreen. Or you can click the "Assembly Line" button to force it to show this way. Visual Example: Here's what the same two diets (for penguins named Fluffy and Fifi) would look like as non-grouped diets, grouped diets, and assembly line diets:

• Individual Diets
  • Fluffy
    • 1 capelin
    • 2 herring
  • Fifi
    • 3 capelin
    • 9 herring

• Grouped Diet
  • Penguin Pair
    • 4 capelin
    • 11 herring

• Assembly Line Diet
  • Capelin
    • 1 Fluffy
    • 3 Fifi
  • Herring
    • 2 Fluffy
    • 9 Fifi