Chicken Coop population question...

[RetroACE135]

All of the chicken coop descriptions say the can hold up to certain amounts of flock sizes. Are these hard amounts, or are they just "recommended" sizes? Can you build a custom indoor chicken coop by only using small or medium coops that can hold over the amount in the build book description?

[melmmhs94]

The flock sizes are a hard limit. If you too many chickens locked in a coop or in an enclosure, the extra chickens will die.
Chicken coops cannot be laid down indoors.
I like to use the coop for my breeders and egg-layers, with the drawers so I can easily access eggs. And then I’ll put any chicken that will be killed in an enclosure or large coop. I’ll have one coop for roosters and one for hens so they don’t breed.
Also if you’re wanting a lot of eggs for whatever reason, then you’ve got a limited number of space for eggs as well. With the coop with drawers, the max was about nine days. After that, I saw that new eggs weren’t appearing and chickens were dying. So I try to collect daily or at least once every three days to prevent that from happening again.

[Draken Kiele]

With the large coop (houses 30). I had about 18 chickens and collected about 80 eggs every other day. When I wanted to breed them, I allowed 3 roosters out of their separate enclosure for 24 hours and then separated them again. This would produce about 6-10 fertilized eggs. I pulled them into a different coop and matched their numbers with random chickens. This worked. Repeating this I was bringing in about $750 every two to three days selling eggs and any grown chickens beyond my stock of 18. The new roosters are worth the most. If you close the front/top doors on the coops and place the chickens inside before you collect eggs, they cannot attack you for collecting fertilized eggs. Just remember to let them back out when you are finished.

[RetroACE135]

Originally posted by Draken Kiele:

With the large coop (houses 30). I had about 18 chickens and collected about 80 eggs every other day. When I wanted to breed them, I allowed 3 roosters out of their separate enclosure for 24 hours and then separated them again. This would produce about 6-10 fertilized eggs. I pulled them into a different coop and matched their numbers with random chickens. This worked. Repeating this I was bringing in about $750 every two to three days selling eggs and any grown chickens beyond my stock of 18. The new roosters are worth the most. If you close the front/top doors on the coops and place the chickens inside before you collect eggs, they cannot attack you for collecting fertilized eggs. Just remember to let them back out when you are finished.

If I were to fence in a Large Coop with side doors, but leave the front and back doors open to give the chickens free range, would the hens still lay the eggs inside the coop? Reason why I'm asking is that it's a hassel to clean the poop out of when I have a dozen chickens inside it, but I don't want to hunt for eggs outside.

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

The flock sizes are a hard limit. If you too many chickens locked in a coop or in an enclosure, the extra chickens will die.
Chicken coops cannot be laid down indoors.
I like to use the coop for my breeders and egg-layers, with the drawers so I can easily access eggs. And then I’ll put any chicken that will be killed in an enclosure or large coop. I’ll have one coop for roosters and one for hens so they don’t breed.
Also if you’re wanting a lot of eggs for whatever reason, then you’ve got a limited number of space for eggs as well. With the coop with drawers, the max was about nine days. After that, I saw that new eggs weren’t appearing and chickens were dying. So I try to collect daily or at least once every three days to prevent that from happening again.

I have seen where some players have made "indoor" coops by building a floor and placing a small or medium coop on top of it, I assume to make finding eggs easier if they let them free range in that area.

[melmmhs94]

Originally posted by RetroACE135:

Originally posted by Draken Kiele:

With the large coop (houses 30). I had about 18 chickens and collected about 80 eggs every other day. When I wanted to breed them, I allowed 3 roosters out of their separate enclosure for 24 hours and then separated them again. This would produce about 6-10 fertilized eggs. I pulled them into a different coop and matched their numbers with random chickens. This worked. Repeating this I was bringing in about $750 every two to three days selling eggs and any grown chickens beyond my stock of 18. The new roosters are worth the most. If you close the front/top doors on the coops and place the chickens inside before you collect eggs, they cannot attack you for collecting fertilized eggs. Just remember to let them back out when you are finished.

If I were to fence in a Large Coop with side doors, but leave the front and back doors open to give the chickens free range, would the hens still lay the eggs inside the coop? Reason why I'm asking is that it's a hassel to clean the poop out of when I have a dozen chickens inside it, but I don't want to hunt for eggs outside.

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

The flock sizes are a hard limit. If you too many chickens locked in a coop or in an enclosure, the extra chickens will die.
Chicken coops cannot be laid down indoors.
I like to use the coop for my breeders and egg-layers, with the drawers so I can easily access eggs. And then I’ll put any chicken that will be killed in an enclosure or large coop. I’ll have one coop for roosters and one for hens so they don’t breed.
Also if you’re wanting a lot of eggs for whatever reason, then you’ve got a limited number of space for eggs as well. With the coop with drawers, the max was about nine days. After that, I saw that new eggs weren’t appearing and chickens were dying. So I try to collect daily or at least once every three days to prevent that from happening again.

I have seen where some players have made "indoor" coops by building a floor and placing a small or medium coop on top of it, I assume to make finding eggs easier if they let them free range in that area.

I did not know that. I’ll have to look into that.
As for the enclosure, I’ve done that myself. When egg laying time comes around, all hens drop their eggs wherever they are. Hens that are inside the coop will drop their eggs in the straw area. Hens that are outside the coop will drop their eggs in the grass, or on the floor is there is one.
You also don’t have to pick up the poop unless you have crops and you want to fertilize them with the composter. Uncollected poop will not harm the animals, and it will despawn after a day or two.

[RetroACE135]

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

I did not know that. I’ll have to look into that.
As for the enclosure, I’ve done that myself. When egg laying time comes around, all hens drop their eggs wherever they are. Hens that are inside the coop will drop their eggs in the straw area. Hens that are outside the coop will drop their eggs in the grass, or on the floor is there is one.
You also don’t have to pick up the poop unless you have crops and you want to fertilize them with the composter. Uncollected poop will not harm the animals, and it will despawn after a day or two.

Awe man... I guess I'll have to keep them in the coop to make things easier. And that's exactly why I like to clean out the poop. I use it for fertilizer in my garden crops. lol

Also, I just realized I hit my current coop cap (got the big coop that holds 20) and am thinking about building a new coop or two next to the one I have built, but I don't want to have too many accidental fertilized eggs appearing (I've got 5 roosters I used for breeding up the ones I have now). How far away does a rooster need to be to not affect any hens? One fence length away? Or further? I'm planning on having a coop for egg production and another for meat, and don't want to have them too close to interfere, but not too far away that it's inconvenient to check on both.

[Draken Kiele]

On the Large Coop, the hens cant get out the back door. Only the front door. The back door is up off the ground about a foot. They all go to the coop every evening at a regular time. Around 6PM I think. When they do that you can close them in. I keep one water bucket and one small food trough inside. They will drop eggs inside. Then, when you wake up, you let them out. I just keep my roosters in a 1x1 corner pen inside the hen enclosure. I have not noticed any fertilized eggs this way. But, the hens usually stay close to the coop and it is diagonally located from my roosters. So maybe that is why no breeding. That is about 3 fence lengths for me.

[martinthomas2009]

are eggs hatching now then?

[melmmhs94]

Originally posted by martinthomas2009:

are eggs hatching now then?

What do you mean exactly?

[martinthomas2009]

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

Originally posted by martinthomas2009:

are eggs hatching now then?

What do you mean exactly?

there has been a bug where chickens lay fertile eggs but they do not hatch i myself have over 100 fertilised eggs that have been sat for over 14 game days and not hatched.

[melmmhs94]

Originally posted by martinthomas2009:

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

What do you mean exactly?

there has been a bug where chickens lay fertile eggs but they do not hatch i myself have over 100 fertilised eggs that have been sat for over 14 game days and not hatched.

That makes more sense.
I’ve had that problem before. They were fertilized in one play session, then I saved and quit the game before they could hatch. When I came back, they wouldn’t hatch.
So I recandled them, verified they were fertile, and put them back. And they hatched just fine after that. Haven’t had that problem since.

[martinthomas2009]

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

Originally posted by martinthomas2009:

there has been a bug where chickens lay fertile eggs but they do not hatch i myself have over 100 fertilised eggs that have been sat for over 14 game days and not hatched.

That makes more sense.
I’ve had that problem before. They were fertilized in one play session, then I saved and quit the game before they could hatch. When I came back, they wouldn’t hatch.
So I recandled them, verified they were fertile, and put them back. And they hatched just fine after that. Haven’t had that problem since.

i will try this now thank you hopefully it works :)

[martinthomas2009]

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

Originally posted by martinthomas2009:

there has been a bug where chickens lay fertile eggs but they do not hatch i myself have over 100 fertilised eggs that have been sat for over 14 game days and not hatched.

That makes more sense.
I’ve had that problem before. They were fertilized in one play session, then I saved and quit the game before they could hatch. When I came back, they wouldn’t hatch.
So I recandled them, verified they were fertile, and put them back. And they hatched just fine after that. Haven’t had that problem since.

no didnt work my chickens still bugged

[melmmhs94]

Originally posted by martinthomas2009:

Originally posted by melmmhs94:

That makes more sense.
I’ve had that problem before. They were fertilized in one play session, then I saved and quit the game before they could hatch. When I came back, they wouldn’t hatch.
So I recandled them, verified they were fertile, and put them back. And they hatched just fine after that. Haven’t had that problem since.

no didnt work my chickens still bugged

Then I’d send in a bug report. Not much more you can do, I think.