Animals Not Eating Their Tasty Kibble

[amul]

I uncovered a hidden valley and decided to assign all my livestock into a zone covering that and the entrance building, which is a freezer set to include hay, kibble, and silage. I have over 300 units of each in that freezer, but the animals aren't eating it. When I release them to go fend for themselves, they raid my human kitchen and eat all my meals.

If I put grains (barley, corn or wheat, yes, I'm running mods) in the animal feed freezer, they eat that. Just not the hay, kibble or silage.

My animal handlers are all using the kibble to tame wildlife, and to take care of the animals that have passed out from malnutrition, so the food is still working, kind of.

Any advice?

[TwoTonGamer]

Use the zoning feature in the game. It is super useful. For animals and colonists, so useful.

Create a zone in the zone tab where your animals are allowed and restrict them to that zone in the animals tab.
There is also a manage zone screen where you can rename and organize them.

For animals it is common to have a zone for Pasture, Barn, and Raid.


Edit: Your post clearly states you are using zones...my apologies!

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by amul:

...Any advice?

How many animals and of what type?

Using Zones is critical for animal micromanagement. (As stated above)

...If I put grains (barley, corn or wheat, yes, I'm running mods) in the animal feed freezer, they eat that. Just not the hay, kibble or silage.

If when you restrict all your animals to only the areas that contain grazing and then the hay or kibble and the still won't eat it, I'd say it's a problem with your mods. (As long as the animals CAN eat those foods. Check their "i" Info entry to be sure, but be sure the mod didn't overwrite what they can eat.)

I assume that because your Animal Handlers are using kibble for training, then they're trying to train kibble-eaters, which likely means at least some of the animals you have domesticated are kibble eaters. The training-treat/food mechanic might be different than the grazing/regular eating mechanic - I don't know. But, at least we know that your trainers are not likely trying to feed kibble to Wargs, who only eat raw meat.

If all the animals beeline straight for your meals when you let them out to graze/eat/whatever, then that's likely the only thing that they can get to that qualifies as a food item. That means either they can't get to the other food or can't eat it. I know it seems pedantic to walk through the logic, here, but that's what you have to do - Likely, it's "mods."

Check the mods that are applicable and look for conflicts. Post in the discussion threads/forums for the specific mods you're using to see if this is a known issue.

Also - Check your error log to see if there are some obvious errors referring to this being reported. (Not all errors are necessarily meaningful.)

[flu007]

From the info provided, I don't see any obvious cause.

I use this mod:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1547017052

Which lets you set food restrictions for animals the same way as for colonists. There are other mods that do a similar thing. Maybe that'll help?

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by flu007:

From the info provided, I don't see any obvious cause.

I use this mod:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1547017052

Which lets you set food restrictions for animals the same way as for colonists. There are other mods that do a similar thing. Maybe that'll help?

Well, check their Health Tab, set different restrictions, save and exit fully, then reload just to see if those new restrictions actually took effect or if you notice any changes. At least you can try that to make sure the mod is actually working. Otherwise, I'd say that it's likely there's an issue with that mod in some way as long as the animals are allowed to reach all the food types they're supposed to be able to eat.

Edit-add: Did you add this mod to an existing game or start a new game with it already enabled?

[flu007]

@Morkonan: I'm not the OP, I was suggesting the mod as a potential crutch fix. :)

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by flu007:

@Morkonan: I'm not the OP, I was suggesting the mod as a potential crutch fix. :)

<--- Is dumb. Was probably purposefully dropped on his head as a toddler. May have been confined in low-oxygen environments during adolescent development. Can not remember most of college despite everyone who knew him at that time maintaining that they did, in fact, see him there.

:)

[amul]

A-ha! Thank you all for walking me through the steps. I do indeed have some kind of diet-management mod installed, and apparently at some point set the Clearly Meant For Human Pawns "Lavish" menu to not allow people to eat animal feed. At some later point, probably when I ran out of hay, I must have set the animals to the Obviously Will Include Everything "Lavish" diet, and thus starved them to death with my own rules.

Literally just spent my entire Saturday night trying to figure that out.

.....and I JUST found the menu for that, and now I can't find it again.

[flu007]

And there you have it, a post made by a dumdum aimed at the wrong person can often still provide the right clues to identify the issue.

;)

@amul: if it's the mod I linked, the option to set a food restriction for an animal is on its Health tab. If it's another mod, I dunno. :)
General food restriction management is under the Assign tab.

[amul]

I have AFR, Better Pawn Control & RimHUD, which apparently adds additional UI controls for it. I dunno, dude, I saw like 3 youtubers start campaigns this month, all of them posted their mod lists, and I subscribed to everything and turned it all on. Trying to figure out which features came from where and how to adjust them in the mod settings is half the game for me these days. I've been playing Rimworld since WAY before Steam integration.

[flu007]

I had a glance at some of those other mods when I subscribed to AFR, but went for that one because it was very basic and quite sufficient for my limited needs.

But if you have Better Pawn Control, you can probably safely get rid of Animal Food Restrictions. It only does one thing, which BPC also seems to do, plus more.

[amul]

So, I'm feeling slightly better about myself. For some reason, when loading the game, it resets the animals to the Lavish food restriction.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by amul:

So, I'm feeling slightly better about myself. For some reason, when loading the game, it resets the animals to the Lavish food restriction.

Hmm... Is there a load-order recommendation? Do you have any other mods that add food items or mod-specific Medical jobs to the Health tab?

... I saw like 3 youtubers start campaigns this month, all of them posted their mod lists, and I subscribed to everything and turned it all on. ...

Lolz... You nuked Rimworld from orbit. :) That's like going to buy yourself a pair of pants and just buying the whole rack, deciding to sort it all out when you get home.

It seems to be a pretty common habit around these parts, though...

PS - Some youtubers that like to make Rimworld vids don't seem to have a clue about how to actually play Rimworld. Rimworld is "Streamer Gold," quite literally. The game continues to present Events that change-up gameplay and add a bit of excited expectation for any viewer. And... that quality makes people money on their channel and they don't have to do anything but... fail "in front of a live studio audience" to keep everyone happy with the video.

And, the crazier the playthrough with the weirdest-potential mods they can find? Why, you're sure to receive .. "crazy exciting stuffs going's on here today in this session of Rimworld and be sure to give a like and subscribe and a shout-out to all my Pateron homebros out there and I'll be doing a special livestream on Saturday because you guys are so awesome and don't forget to sign-up for..." /sigh

<Entire colony collapses because a pawn "ate without table" and the youtuber never built anything more than a horeshoe pin while all pawns are still just eating raw potatoes>

"Wow, who would have thunk it! And, if you liked this vid be sure to click subscribe and check out my Twitch channel and if you like the video clcik that Patreon..."