Breeding

This is a simple guide to breeding quickly and easily.

I shall explain three types of breeding: Natural, Assisted and Artificial.

Natural Breeding

By natural breeding I mean that no external programs, genetics or cobs are used that don't come with the game. There are not all that many tips I can give except that you must make sure:

1) That both potential breeders are of opposite sexes, there are several ways to check this.
The most important one is appearance - all males and females can be sexed by their looks, though this may take a while to learn.
Males often have horns, and usually have shorter hair. Females never have horns, often have fluffier or longer hair, and have usually have long eye lashes.

All norns have their sex listed next to their name in the norn menu, another way to check is on the "register the birth" page in the Owners Kit.
Lastly you can check in the Breeders Kit, only males have a red cross across the diagram of a norn.

2) Both creatures  are adult sized, they usually reach maturity at around 1 hour 20 minutes.
Norns younger (and smaller) than this are sexually immature, also elder norns with greyish hair are often sterile.
When your norn first reaches maturity, you must give them at least 20 minutes to attain their full sexual potency.

3) Both breeders must be healthy, at least 70% health. This is necessary only by proxy, as they will get distracted by eating when courting, this being especially important for females when pregnant. 

4) Check the male has a lot of testosterone and sex drive by using the Breeders Kit. Check the female also has a high sex drive and lots of oestrogen.
In females the level of oestrogen cycles, so you might have to wait for the correct phase in their cycle, which is just after peaking. Cycles are around 20 minutes, so you will not have too long to wait.

5) Pregnancy usually lasts around 20 minutes, it's a good idea to get her somewhere safe to lay her egg with plenty of food. She must eat more than usual while pregnant.

6) After she has laid an egg, she will require 40 minutes to recover her health and for the pregnancy chemicals to reduce. While they linger, she will not become fertile again.

7) Males take little time to recover from mating, and as long as they are well fed, can keep on mating.

The main problems preventing the breeding of norns are:

Wrong 'time of the month' - when a female is not ovulating, you need to make sure she is at the peak of her cycle.

Bad behaviour - if your norn spend all their time slapping each other, playing, sleeping or running scared, they will not breed.
They must be encouraged to be friendly to each other, tickling and kissing each other.
Also distractions from other creatures, toys and vehicles interfere with the process.

Assisted Breeding

By "assisted" I mean with the help of cobs, cheats and programs. For my method you will need the following things:

1) Creatures BORG
2) The Observation Kit
3) The Injector Kit
4) The Advanced Breeders Pack, for the C-Section & EggBoost cobs it contains
5) The Registry Cheat Mode, so that Creatures begins in "Skirty" or "Cheese" cheat mode depending on the version you are using

Here is how it is done, follow the instructions carefully:

1) Load BORG (it will automatically run Creatures)

2) Separate the couple you want to breed from other norns, as you are in cheat mode you can pick them up by hand using right click.

3) Select the male, hit "full power" in BORG from the "Edit Chemicals" menu.
This makes the norn happy by satiating their drives, gives them full health and increases their sex drive to full.
Then inject him with testosterone to make him extra-fertile.

4) Select the female, hit "full power" in BORG then inject her with oestrogen from the same menu.

5) Open the Observation and Injector kits, select but don't inject the "C-section" cob

6) Bring the two norns together, encourage them to mate with phrases like "push norn" and "push norn yes"

7) Select the female, watch the observation kit, when she becomes pregnant (numbers appear)
inject the C-Section cob as quick as possible (this is why you need  the injector kit open)

8) Now inject the "EggBoost" cob, the egg will become fully grown then start to hatch!

9) If you are lucky the whole process should take less than 20 seconds.
As your female has only been pregnant briefly, she shall recover quickly.
You can now start another cycle of breeding if you wish.

Remember you can use "forged ageing" menu option to make the new baby norns grow up swiftly.

Artificial Breeding

This form of breeding doesn't require creatures at all. You only need the program CGM.

Select the monikers representing the creature or creatures you want to be the parents.
Find this information using the Genetics Kit.
Select "clone mum" or "clone dad" to make a genetically-identical baby of one norn,
or choose "mate mum + dad" to create a baby norn or egg by mixing the DNA of both parents.

The problem with this process is that your norns will not contain any natural mutations, so variation will be destroyed after a while.

Other notes

Additionally to breed species other than norns you might need appropiately scripted world, and fertile individuals. Natural grendels are sterile.

 
Also, some breeds such as Bain Shee and Tomte Norns are genetically sterile, so natural breeding will be impossible.