For a better start, which one is more convenient?
There is a lot of old information regarding nerfs and whether or not to eat them, ignore any post regarding nerfs that were writen before the expansion came out.
SWGB: You had to build a nursary and power core, which required more carbon then what you started out with. An unpowered nursary barely added anything to your food economy.
SWGB CC: With the expansion, the nursary becomes self powered, so it's much more effective. 10 nerfs garrisoned in a nursary is all that is needed to produce 50 food fast enough to make workers non-stop.
Typically, in the expansion if I see nerfs when the game starts, I immediately drop a nursary and start my scout circling my base looking for more. Most maps that have nerfs, give 12 to 20 nerfs per player, be sure to scout every bit land around your base so that you find your fair share of them.
If you find a ton or nerfs on a map, you are going to need more than one nursary to garrison them all, so put all your workers on carbon right so you can make the second nursary before your opponents start scouting your base and harrassing you.
If you only find two nerfs, or have 2 nerfs left over after filling up one nursary, then go ahead and eat them. The return on your carbon investment isn't worth it for just 2.
If you immediately find a bunch of nerfs, ie. enough to fill your nursery and/or more, i'd put em in the nursery straight off.
On the other hand, like Mudder said, just one or two nerfs isn't going to give you anything at all until you've started upgrading, and by that time the question is irrelevant.
If you only find a couple of nerfs immediately, there's always a chance that there's more- even entire herds- out there, so be careful what you pick. I normally put down a nursery and pop my couple of nerfs in there, on the hope that there will be more.
The majority of times there are, so with your scout running around, you're more than likely to find enough nerfs to get a worthwhile return on your investment.
Come to think of it, you should always build an animal nursery at some stage anyway, because mounted troopers are a definite return on your investment. Even if there are few to no garrisonable animals, I normally build a nursery in tech 2 in order to start getting the mounties.
It is up to your overall strategy. If you are going to rush then kill them to raise food for the rush and if it is unsuccessfull. Other wise store them, they greatly over pay for themselfs. Save them for missions, for they are more then destorying everything, but will support your ciz should the devs. get the evil idea to wip you off the face of the map. :)
Remember that in the expansion it's also a lot easier to deliver enemy nerfs to your base now that water/air transports can carry them. I'll usually build nurseries even if I only have a 2 or 3 nerfs to put in them, since I tend to take out my opponents' nurseries asap and plunder the nerfs.
Kryllith
Whenever i see 4 or more nerfs i will make a nursery. If you get around 7 definly make a nursery. If you get like 3 nerfs which wont fit into the nursery make another, each nerf makes the difference. Even 3 can help you. I often eat 1 nerf and garrison the rest, the reason i eat it is to get the worker flow going. More Workers earlier = more food and carbon earlier. Even when rushing make a nursery for the nerfs, even if only 5 of them.
I think you should always store nerfs and banthas. eventually they will return the investment. I have reg. GB so im stuck with the power core but its still worth it for me even if im a little behind at first cause itll help more in the long run to store the nerfs than to kill them and get a wuick rush of food.
There's actually a neat little thing you can do to ensure that a rush from your side is more difficult to counter.
As soon as you've found nerfs (usually about 6), use your scout to start circling the enemy's perimeter when you've found them. You're bound to pick up / steal some precious fast resources from him that way.
I've done it on occasion and it works a treat !
problem with that is usaully they get to it before you do...
Definitely keep them. I'm real stingy, even if a map just has 1 or 2 nerfs/banthas. I immediately build a nursery and send them on in. Even if it's just 1 or 2 nerfs/banthas, it's still food which can always help.
I've done the stealing the enemy's nerfs/banthas trick with about a 50% success rate. It usually depends on whether or not the enemy has found them all yet and how far away from my base they are. If I have one available, I send over a transport ship to pick them up and take them back to my base.
what about when you dont have the transport capability (i.e. reg swgb)?
If your transports can't carry nerfs/banthas then you just gotta do it the old fashioned way... If you keep a fighter or something with them you can usually keep them in your command to wander them to your nearest animal facility...
Kryllith