The first animals you adopt decide how quickly a new zoo starts paying for itself. In Franchise mode every zoo opens with 300 Conservation Credits, and launch-week gameplay showed exactly what that budget buys: common warthogs were listed from 15 credits, while meerkats sat around 400. That gap is the whole strategy. Buy a cheap habitat species, stock up on females, breed, and let the surplus fund your next enclosure. The mode's wider rules live in our Franchise mode guide, and every documented species is catalogued in the animals hub.
What Counts as a Starter Animal in Franchise Mode?
A starter animal is simply the first species you adopt into a new franchise zoo, and it is bought with Conservation Credits rather than cash. The Animal Trading market is populated by listings from real players — Geekism's launch build even spotted one shipped in from Siberia — and Frontier keeps some first-party listings up as well. Prices are set by supply and demand, so they shift constantly, and the cheap listings genuinely disappear within minutes. Some species never appear until accreditation improves: a new franchise starts at Tier 1 with 32 species, growing toward the full 136 by Tier 5.
The adoption also needs infrastructure first. The game tells you outright that a new zoo requires a Trade Center and a Keeper Hut, and Geekism's build added temporary paths to connect them before anything else. By the time the first warthogs walked in, roughly $20,000 of starting cash had already gone on buildings and paths — which is why the cheapest viable animal matters so much in week one.
How to Choose Your First Animals: A Four-Step Method
Launch-week footage suggests a repeatable method for spending those first 300 credits well:
- Filter the market to terrestrial habitat animals. Geekism removed exhibit species and set the filter to terrestrial plus habitat, which surfaced aardvarks, camels, wildebeest, ostrich and warthogs as the realistic day-one pool.
- Sort by price, then check appeal. Sorting low-to-high finds what you can afford; checking appeal finds the best-looking option within budget. The highest-appeal warthog listing in the launch build cost around 500 credits — more than the starting budget — so compromise is normal.
- Open the Zoopedia entry before you buy. Check the group range, barrier grade and space needs. Warthogs, for example, were fine in groups of up to seven with just one male, and grade-2 barriers were strong enough to hold them.
- Buy females first. Male listings carried much higher Conservation Credit prices throughout the launch build, so the efficient opening is two females now and a male later, once earnings catch up.
Verified Starter Picks from Launch Week
The table below collects every starter-relevant price and option launch-week footage actually confirmed. Market prices move, so treat these as snapshots rather than permanent values.
| Species | Launch-week market listing | Day-one verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Common warthog | From 15 credits; best-appeal listing around 500 | The cheapest verified starter and the default first buy |
| Meerkat | Around 400 credits, with occasional cheaper cash-only listings | Popular but unaffordable on day one; a strong early upgrade |
| Aardvark | Present in the affordable terrestrial filter | Thrives alongside warthogs once research unlocks the pairing |
| Camel, wildebeest, ostrich | All surfaced in the same filter | Solid cheap habitat options for a first enclosure |
The warthog details are worth knowing because they generalise. The species tolerated a grade-2 barrier, needed shelter, cover and plant life, and famously chewed unprotected scenery, forcing Geekism to shield a wooden post with concrete. Two enrichment items were enough to lift welfare out of the red, and a drinking station solved the water requirement, since drinking stations automatically provide clean water.
Beyond the verified examples, two community guides frame the same logic. Games.gg's starter-animals guide describes the goal as picking first animals that save cash, breed faster and enable bigger habitats from day one, while its companion breeding guide ranks the best breeding animals by litter size and maturity speed — the two stats that decide how quickly an animal repays its purchase price. Leaf's full-roster overview makes the same point about the wild boar, calling it "a pretty damn good animal to have" thanks to large litters of piglets and its popularity in real zoos. For full species data, the animal list and the Zoopedia guide cover every documented entry.
The Starter Loop: Breed, Earn, Expand
Starter animals are not a one-off purchase — they are the engine of your credit economy. Conservation Credits come from releasing animals into the wild, greeting avatars that visit your zoos, photographing animals inside Wildlife Reserves and completing conservation projects. A breeding pair of cheap animals feeds every one of those loops: surplus offspring get released for credits, stored, or sold to other players through the market.
Group limits decide when the loop pays out. Warthogs were fine up to seven animals with a single male, which means extra male calves have to be moved on — either into animal storage or out to a Wildlife Reserve — before overcrowding hits welfare. Fast-maturing species with large litters convert feed into tradeable animals quickest, which is why games.gg's breeding guide ranks its picks by litter size and maturity speed rather than star appeal.
Each new habitat multiplies the loop. More enclosures mean more births, more releases and more reputation stars, and reputation feeds accreditation — the tier system that unlocks the remaining species in the market. The accreditation guide breaks down every tier requirement — three stars per zoo and per reserve is the entire bar, and every starter habitat pushes you toward it.
Getting Welfare Out of the Red on Day One
A freshly adopted animal arrives with rough welfare, and Geekism's first warthog pen showed the standard checklist. The panel flagged no cover, no enrichment, no drinking water and not enough plants. The fixes were cheap and immediate: place a drinking station, which automatically provides clean water; drop in two enrichment items, which was enough to push the rating out of the red; then add a shelter and start planting.
None of this needs creative ambition in week one. Geekism deliberately built an ugly, functional shelter out of breeze blocks and metal cladding, planning to upgrade it later. The point of a starter habitat is that the animals stay healthy and the guests keep arriving while the credits accumulate.
Starter Animal Mistakes to Avoid
Five mistakes account for most bad openings. First, chasing a favourite on day one: a 400-credit meerkat consumes most of a 300-credit budget before you have bought a single piece of enrichment. Second, buying a male first — male listings cost dramatically more in credits, so females-first is nearly always correct.
Third, assuming the market shows the full roster. Locked species are accreditation locks, not absent animals; Frontier's first-party listings sit behind tiers on purpose. Fourth, draining cash on scenery before the habitat works — the opening buildings and paths cost Geekism around $20,000, and guests will not fund anything if the animals are miserable. Fifth, forgetting which currency is which: Conservation Credits are shared across your whole franchise while cash is not, so a purchase in one zoo affects every other zoo on the network. Keep the first purchases small, verify them in the Zoopedia, and let the breeding loop do the rest — the exhibits and biomes guide covers how enclosure types expand.