Kibble vs Hay

[Storm]

Hi,

I have a nice little farm going, a few muffalos, boomalopes, chinchillas and chickens.

Should I feed them hay or kibble? I don't really want to feed them kibble because of the meat that will be consumed there but I'd like to try understand which is better long term (since I'm hoping the chickens are going to start giving me meat).

Also, when is the right time to slaughter the chickens please? I read somewhere you shouldn't wait till they're fully grown as you won't get back the investment but not sure when the right time is.

Thanks!

[MortVent]

Adult chickens are best to slaughter of course (one trick is to kill off the male ones and keep the females till they are near their old age) When the circle is full they are adults. You can see it in the animals tab

As for the hay/kibble. It depends on your base layout. If you build a hay storage freezer then it don't got bad, if you don't want to be bothered with the power consumption. Then go with kibble which just needs to be enclosed

[El Pollo Diablo]

From practicality point of view, keeping animals for their meat is impractical as you'll have new wildlife spawning every day (except of course on events like toxic fallout and things like that). At least I never ran out of animal to hunt for their meat. farm chicken for roleplay, but remember to zone them out of your crops or they'll quickly eat everything. As for hay vs kibble, I usually only use Insect meat + Hay to make it (some people use human meat, but the butcher gets a debuff unless they're psycopath I think), only tbh I don't know if it's worth it, with all the extra work my colonists have to do (lugging the ingredients back and forth to the butchering table, then to the "barn"

[KalkiKrosah]

Depends on what animals you got. You only have herbivores so hay should be fine. Just zone them out of the hayfield because harvested hay nourishes better than the plant itself.

In the warm months on your map try making a field of flowers. They mature very quickly and the animals seem to enjoy eating them. It should keep them out of the hayfields too and give your planter something quick and easy to replant. Also the added beauty doesn't hurt the mood.

Once winter rolls around put hay into the barn and keep the animals indoors all day. Should make egg collecting, milking, fur sheeting a d training a whole lot simpler if they stay in one area all the time.

[Storm]

Thanks for all the great info, really apprecaite it!