What food can you give chickens? Are they able to sustain themselves?

[Sushi_Rocks]

...if you give each chicken a large enough piece of land? If yes, how much land is that?

Can you give chickens grass cuttings? Do they trim lawn/grass by themselves?

[Armagenesis]

Put them on an open grass field and they are good. Just make sure to build a shelter for them.

[DrLamp]

They will graze, you can also just put grass clippings in their trough. You can collect them pretty quick using a scythe. Don't worry about the ugly brown spots, I think they grow back in like 10-12 days or so.

[Sushi_Rocks]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Put them on an open grass field and they are good. Just make sure to build a shelter for them.

Do I need to close the shelter EVERY night?

[🖤 TAMI 🔪]

I have not tried this yet, but if even possible. DO NOT feed your chickens raw chicken.

[DrLamp]

As far as I'm aware, so long as the hutch is within and enclosed pen, it is not necessary.

[Sushi_Rocks]

Originally posted by DrLamp:

They will graze, you can also just put grass clippings in their trough. You can collect them pretty quick using a scythe. Don't worry about the ugly brown spots, I think they grow back in like 10-12 days or so.

If I have animal feed AND grass clippings in the trough, will they feed on the animal feed or the grass clippings first? Do I need to save the animal feed for winter somewhere else?

Can I put the chicken droppings into a composter?

[Sushi_Rocks]

Originally posted by 🖤 TAMI 🔪:

I have not tried this yet, but if even possible. DO NOT feed your chickens raw chicken.

y?

[MV75]

You only need to close the doors if you have selected meta predators option. I also discovered you can also feed them lemongrass, it increased the food count in my trough when I put it in. All in all though at the very least all you need to provide chickens is a hutch and water trough. If the farm zone is on grass, why isn't it? you're silly if you don't, then they're fine. That goes for all animals. Cows need a LOT of water, build several troughs. House garages and yards are perfect zones, you have the grass and covered area. The best zones are those you find animals in as cows and pigs destroy wooden walls/fences and they are already in metal fencing in game. No one takes notice of where they are and the reasons for it. Just have to make sure found farm zones are properly set, a lot are a bit jank and don't cover the required areas. Also those large 3 long "troughs" you see are not troughs, they are shelves, so get some real troughs in for water.

[🖤 TAMI 🔪]

Originally posted by Sushi_Rocks:

Originally posted by 🖤 TAMI 🔪:

I have not tried this yet, but if even possible. DO NOT feed your chickens raw chicken.

y?

At this point, we are not entering a moral dilemma. Are we to lose humanity when humanity falls due to an unforeseen pandemic of biblical proportions, raising the dead and eating each other.

Are we to stoop to their level and graze upon our fellow man? Well the same would be achieved feeding chicken to chickens.

It's a moral question that guides your gameplay and playstyle.

[DrLamp]

Originally posted by Sushi_Rocks:

Originally posted by DrLamp:

They will graze, you can also just put grass clippings in their trough. You can collect them pretty quick using a scythe. Don't worry about the ugly brown spots, I think they grow back in like 10-12 days or so.

If I have animal feed AND grass clippings in the trough, will they feed on the animal feed or the grass clippings first? Do I need to save the animal feed for winter somewhere else?

Can I put the chicken droppings into a composter?

All good questions, unfortunately I have no idea.

[Sushi_Rocks]

Originally posted by MV75:

You only need to close the doors if you have selected meta predators option. I also discovered you can also feed them lemongrass, it increased the food count in my trough when I put it in. All in all though at the very least all you need to provide chickens is a hutch and water trough. If the farm zone is on grass, why isn't it? you're silly if you don't, then they're fine. That goes for all animals. Cows need a LOT of water, build several troughs. House garages and yards are perfect zones, you have the grass and covered area. The best zones are those you find animals in as cows and pigs destroy wooden walls/fences and they are already in metal fencing in game. No one takes notice of where they are and the reasons for it. Just have to make sure found farm zones are properly set, a lot are a bit jank and don't cover the required areas. Also those large 3 long "troughs" you see are not troughs, they are shelves, so get some real troughs in for water.

I have lived near cows for 20+ years of my live and I have never seen one destroy a wooden fence with barbed wire?

[🖤 TAMI 🔪]

Originally posted by 🖤 TAMI 🔪:

Originally posted by Sushi_Rocks:

y?

At this point, we are not entering a moral dilemma. Are we to lose humanity when humanity falls due to an unforeseen pandemic of biblical proportions, raising the dead and eating each other.

Are we to stoop to their level and graze upon our fellow man? Well the same would be achieved feeding chicken to chickens.

It's a moral question that guides your gameplay and playstyle.

I of course as evident by my former post do not think it is ethically or morally right to feed chicken to chickens, just as I do not think it is in humanity's best interest for living healthy people to eat upon the flesh of other living healthy people, (this includes the undead, however to my knowledge you cannot engage in cannibalism with zombies in the vanilla game).

[MV75]

Also another tip, for ovo farms you will need to build a few water troughs as not all pens have water, just watch that the cockerals don't mess you up, if they run at you, gtfo there, I do the ninja method, open gate, quick place trough, close gate.

You'll notice sometimes that brown patches will appear in farm zones, that's the animals eating the grass.

[MV75]

Originally posted by Sushi_Rocks:

Originally posted by MV75:

You only need to close the doors if you have selected meta predators option. I also discovered you can also feed them lemongrass, it increased the food count in my trough when I put it in. All in all though at the very least all you need to provide chickens is a hutch and water trough. If the farm zone is on grass, why isn't it? you're silly if you don't, then they're fine. That goes for all animals. Cows need a LOT of water, build several troughs. House garages and yards are perfect zones, you have the grass and covered area. The best zones are those you find animals in as cows and pigs destroy wooden walls/fences and they are already in metal fencing in game. No one takes notice of where they are and the reasons for it. Just have to make sure found farm zones are properly set, a lot are a bit jank and don't cover the required areas. Also those large 3 long "troughs" you see are not troughs, they are shelves, so get some real troughs in for water.

I have lived near cows for 20+ years of my live and I have never seen one destroy a wooden fence with barbed wire?

Tell the devs bro. :)

[DrLamp]

Originally posted by Sushi_Rocks:

Originally posted by MV75:

You only need to close the doors if you have selected meta predators option. I also discovered you can also feed them lemongrass, it increased the food count in my trough when I put it in. All in all though at the very least all you need to provide chickens is a hutch and water trough. If the farm zone is on grass, why isn't it? you're silly if you don't, then they're fine. That goes for all animals. Cows need a LOT of water, build several troughs. House garages and yards are perfect zones, you have the grass and covered area. The best zones are those you find animals in as cows and pigs destroy wooden walls/fences and they are already in metal fencing in game. No one takes notice of where they are and the reasons for it. Just have to make sure found farm zones are properly set, a lot are a bit jank and don't cover the required areas. Also those large 3 long "troughs" you see are not troughs, they are shelves, so get some real troughs in for water.

I have lived near cows for 20+ years of my live and I have never seen one destroy a wooden fence with barbed wire?

That's because it wasn't given a reason to. Once a cow figures out that the barb wire isn't a big deal then that fence will never keep them in. However, cows learn VERY quickly to respect a 10,000V electric fence. You couldn't FORCE them to break it. Can't say I blame them.