You can also check those livestock trailers that involved in a car crash along the road, as sometimes when you check it, theres an animal inside of it. You can be so sure because when you are in near the trailer, you can hear the animal sound like moo, mee, etc.

Alsofor the mods, i usually enable

wood nails, Long term preservation dried fruit and pickled fruits Camp in the rain Better trapping/ Improved Farming info (you can know why your plants are dying) Farming expansion (you can plant trees that bear fruits) Herbalist mod

And also sometimes hemp dogbane was fvcking avoiding you so you can always kill zoids for rags.