Settings Reference
All Realistic Livestock RM settings live in the RL Menu's Settings tab (it opens on the General sub-tab, where all of the options below are). The quickest way there: open the in-game menu (ESC), go to Game Settings, scroll to the Realistic Livestock section at the bottom, and press Open Settings. You can also open the RL Menu directly with its hotkey - it defaults to Right Shift + O (remappable in Settings -> Controls); look for "Open RL Menu" in the game's input bindings. If your installation was set up before this default was added, the key may not be assigned automatically - bind or reset it manually. (Older versions listed every setting directly on the Game Settings page; those rows have moved here.)
Most settings are saved per-savegame and synced in multiplayer, and in multiplayer can only be changed by an admin - everyone else sees them read-only. The one exception is Maximum Visible Animals (under Customisation below): it is a per-machine display preference, saved locally on your own computer, never synced, and any player can change their own.
Note: This documentation was generated with AI assistance and may contain inaccuracies. If you spot an error, please open an issue.
Death & Accidents
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Death | On | Off / On | Toggles all death mechanics (old age, low health, accidents, birth complications, and fatal diseases). When off, animals live indefinitely. The ModHub build labels this setting "Animal Removal". |
| Accident Chance | 100% | 0% - 200% (10% steps) | Scales the probability of random accident deaths. 0% disables accidents entirely. 200% doubles the chance. Only available when Death is enabled. |
With death disabled, animals never die from any cause - but diseases can still make them sick if diseases are enabled.
Food
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food Scale | 1x | 0.5x - 5x (0.5 steps) | Multiplies all animal food consumption. At 0.5x, animals eat half as much. At 5x, they eat five times more. Does not affect water or straw. |
This setting stacks with metabolism genetics. An animal with high metabolism at maximum food scale will eat dramatically more than a low-metabolism animal at minimum scale.
Dealer & AI
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max Dealer Animals | 50 | 20-200 (10 steps) | Maximum number of animals per species available in the animal dealer. Higher values give more choice when buying. |
| Reset Animal Dealer | - | Button | Restocks the dealer with a fresh set of randomised animals. Use this if you want different genetics or breeds available. Admin only in multiplayer. |
| Reset AI Animals | - | Button | Refreshes the artificial insemination animal pool. Use this if the current AI pool has poor genetics. Admin only in multiplayer. |
Animal Origin
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Country of Origin | Map default | Map default / 16 countries | Sets the country new animals are registered in - the country code on their ear tags and identifiers. Takes effect immediately for newborn animals, dealer stock, and AI animals. Existing animals keep the country they were registered in. |
"Map default" uses the country built into the map you're playing; maps the mod doesn't recognise fall back to the United Kingdom - this setting is the fix if that doesn't suit your farm. Available countries: United Kingdom, United States, China, France, Poland, Germany, Canada, Estonia, Italy, Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Japan, and Spain. A small share of animals are deliberately imported from abroad - roughly 1 in 8 dealer and AI animals and 1 in 100 newborns - so an occasional foreign tag while an override is active is normal, not a bug. Tip: after changing the country, press Reset Animal Dealer to restock the dealer with animals from the new origin right away.
Customisation
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Change Tag Colour | - | Button | Opens the ear tag colour picker. Customise the colour of animal identification tags. |
| Export To CSV | - | Button | Exports all animal data to a CSV file. Useful for tracking herd statistics in a spreadsheet. |
| Set Maximum Visual Animals | 2 | Button (opens a slider) | Sets the maximum number of animals rendered per pen. A per-machine display/performance preference: each player sets their own value, it is not synced in multiplayer or saved per-savegame, and any player (not just admins) can change it. The dialog's Recommended button suggests a value based on your graphics settings. |
Messages
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum Amount of Messages | 500 | 100-5,000 | Maximum number of messages stored per husbandry; older messages are removed when the limit is reached. |
| Message Log Summaries | Off | Off / On | When off, each event (birth, death, disease) generates an individual message. When on, events are aggregated into daily summaries. |
Summary mode reduces message clutter in large herds but provides less detail per event.
Diseases
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diseases Enabled | On | Off / On | Toggles the entire disease system. When off, new infections, disease spread, and disease effects are suspended. Already-infected animals are not cured; their diseases resume when the system is re-enabled. |
| Disease Chance | 1x | 0.25x - 5x | Scales the base probability of all disease infections. At 0.25x, diseases are 4 times less common. At 5x, they're 5 times more frequent. Only available when Diseases are enabled. |
Disabling diseases suspends Mastitis, CVM, Foot & Mouth, PED, and Avian Influenza - it stops new infections, spread, and effects but does not cure already-infected animals; their diseases resume when re-enabled.
Genetics Display
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genetics Display | Off | Off / Short / Long | Shows numeric genetics values in animal names. "Short" shows average genetics as a single number (e.g., [72]). "Long" shows the average plus individual trait scores (e.g., [72-68:75:80:65:70]). |
| Genetics Position | Prefix | Prefix / Postfix | Controls where genetics values appear in the animal's name. "Prefix" places them before the name, "Postfix" places them after. |
| Sort by Genetics | Off | Off / On | When enabled, animals within each group are sorted by average genetics (highest first) before age, rather than the default type and age sorting. Diseased animals always sort to the top. |
The genetics tag format for Long mode is [avg-metabolism:health:fertility:quality:productivity] (productivity only shown for species that have it). Values are scaled 0-99.
Custom Animals
| Setting | Default | Options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use Custom Animals | Off | Off / On | Enables loading a custom animals.xml file instead of the default. Allows modifying animal stats, production curves, prices, etc. Requires game restart to take effect. Not available in multiplayer. |
| Set Animals XML Path | - | Button | Opens a file picker to select the path to your custom animals.xml. Only available when Custom Animals is enabled. |
Custom animals is for advanced users who want to tweak animal statistics. The default animals.xml is located in the mod's xml/ folder and can be used as a template.
Dependencies
Some settings depend on others being enabled:
Animal Death -> Accident Chance (only when Death is On)
Diseases Enabled -> Disease Chance (only when Diseases are On)
Use Custom Animals -> Set Animals XML Path (only when Custom Animals is On)
Dependent settings are greyed out when their parent setting is disabled.