New Breeds and Additional Domesticates

Was recently watching Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and a strange thought came to me while watching the section on domesticated animals.

For most of their history, many cultures just didn't have any animals coexisting with them that could be domesticated, while other areas only had one or two available to them; chief among these examples are the Polynesians, who only had pigs, chickens, and dogs, and New Guinea, which only had the introduced pig. So I got to pondering; what if these cultures had worked with what they had to fill those empty roles? It's not like there isn't precedent for it; the Mayans raised dogs for food, Native Americans bred sled dogs, and there was at least one instance of a dog being bred for wool.

What's more, looking over Diamond's criteria for fauna brought quite a few species to mind; species that could likely be domesticated. Many of these live or did live alongside humans, and do fit the criteria that Diamond brought up, not to mention the creatures that could well be domesticated in the same way as dogs or cats.

So far, here is what I've got:
  • Modern-day domestic pigs can already grow to be very large and very strong; it's not out of the question to imagine one or two varieties being bred for their size and strength.
  • Conversely, pigs are also extreme omnivores, able to eat damn near anything and are fully capable of predatory behavior. This could potentially be boosted with a little artificial selection, resulting in sleek, powerfully muscled pigs bred for hunting; given their ability to sniff out treats undergroudn like truffles, I could particularly see them being employed to find wounded game in the manner of bloodhounds, to deal with tougher pests like badgers, or even as guard animals.
  • Even today, the term 'pigskin' is still quite common; with the right breeding, hogs could be bred in order to provide leather.
  • Despite their reputation as food, chickens can be surprisingly tough and aggressive; in a pinch, they could very well be bred into guard animals or even hunters of vermin hiding in barns.
  • The word 'peccary' can refer to any one of a number of New World pigs found from Mexico to South America, often found in more arid regions; they vary considerably in size, but they're generally fairly sizable animals, with a decent amount of meat on them. Like their wild boar cousins, they are hardy animals that aren't picky eaters, and given their desert habitat, they have the added bonus of being adapted to dryer climates, meaning that they consume much less water.
  • South America has a wide range of quite sizable rodents, many of which could make decent domesticates, thanks in no small part to their fecundity and ability to eat damn near anything. Agoutis are roughly rabbit-sized and carry a fair amount of meat to them; even today, it's considered a viable option for 'micro-livestock' in the near future. They adapt well to captivity and easily lose the nervousness found in wild specimens, and breed very prolifically.
  • The chinchilla-like vizcacha is known to thrive in areas ecologically impoverished by cattle and other large livestock, and has quite a lot of meat on it. They could easily make a handy food source, especially when selective breeding is taken into account.
  • The strange-looking lanky mara is the fourth-largest rodent on earth, but they can still reproduce quite quickly like any self-respecting rodent, and they do live together in herds. They're a bit shy, but then again, boars were and still are hyper-aggressive beasts, and we still domesticated them.
  • Largest of them all, however, is the capybara, the single largest rodent on earth. Roughly the size of a large pig, these big beasties naturally live in large herds and bear one or two litters of young every year, with all of the adults working together to raise the young. They are actually farmed OTL, and their meat and fur are quite valued - it's definitely possible to domesticate them entirely, and efforts are already underway to make them even more fecund. They do need access to water, but they are much easier to manage than cattle, famous for their sweet reputations, and they can feed on grasses too short for any cow to take advantage of.
  • Africa has a sizable rodent of its own in the form of the greater cane rat; they naturally live in groups, are very fecund, and are capable of eating either crops or wild grasses. They're actually considered a bushmeat delicacy in OTL - they're definitely edible.
  • Kangaroos and wallabies are extremely well-built grazers, able to do very well even in areas nearly stripped to the roots by cattle and sheep. The red kangaroo in particular provides a quite large amount of meat and displays a multitude of adaptations to ensure that it conserves as much water as it can; while they can be aggressive, it's nothing too different from, say, an aurochs or a boar.
  • The Mayans were known to raise dogs for meat; I could see some canines being coaxed more and more into omnivory and bred for greater size, although it may result in health problems for the breed farther down the line.
  • Monitor lizards are very intelligent animals, capable of solving puzzles, learning commands, and coming when called, and they're actually semi-endothermic. They're also extremely speciose, covering everything from giant carnivores to fruit-eaters. In the tropical regions they call home, I could easily see a timeline wherein these real-life dragons are bred for a wide variety of tasks. Why bother with the always-active, always-hungry wild dogs that prey on your children and take your kills or the aloof, standoffish cat when you could have a lizard that needs less food than either and can fill both roles?
  • Ground sloths like Megalonyx and Eremotherium would make for excellent work animals; not only were they incredibly strong and very tough, they were quite social, living in herds, and were fully capable of surviving in a huge range of climates, with their fossils being found from South America all the way up to Alaska. And that's just the wild types; imagine what they could be like if they were actively bred into new forms!

So I ask all of you people, what do you think? Do you have any ideas for this? If so, feel free to share them!
 
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