Animals won't eat hay planted in pens?

[DrakenKin]

I have a fence with animals inside, i planted a ton of hay inside so they can feed on that. There is no roof and the hay is growing.

The wooden pen marker says that the nutrition growth is 3.6 and consumption is 1.9 so it seems i have plenty.

Yet i keep seeing animals starving and miscarrying because of malnutrition.

What am i missing to do this properly?

EDIT: The animals are mostly Alpacas.

[Premu]

You shouldn't plant the hay inside the pen. They'll only eat grass which is growing "naturally".

Put your haygrass field outside and store the harvested haygrass in roofed area accesible for your animals, and they will eat the hay there, too, if they're hungry.

[Azrak]

Did you set any food restrictions for them?

[Azrak]

Originally posted by Premu:

You shouldn't plant the hay inside the pen. They'll only eat grass which is growing "naturally".

Put your haygrass field outside and store the harvested haygrass in roofed area accesible for your animals, and they will eat the hay there, too, if they're hungry.

98% sure they do eat hay/plants growing near them unless you specifically set up food rules for them.

[DrakenKin]

Originally posted by Azrak:

Did you set any food restrictions for them?

How do i do that?

[Choosechee]

Originally posted by DrakenKin (twitch):

Originally posted by Azrak:

Did you set any food restrictions for them?

How do i do that?

That's not a vanilla feature.
Also, even if they did eat the growing hay, it would be better to harvest the hay and put it in a barn connected to the pen. If you want a plant to grow in the pen for animals to eat, use dandelions instead.

[DrakenKin]

I am observing an Alapaca walking over the hay, completely starving but it's not eating it. So i think i can confirm that they won't eat the hay that is growing... Could it be that they only the hay that is 100% grown?

By barn you mean some roofed area so the hay doesn't go bad quickly? Or are you talking about an actual door and a freezer where the hay can be permanent?

I am trying to avoid having my limited pawns spend time harvesting hay. I'll try the dandelions next, thanks.

[Zane87]

There was a change that animals won't eat crops under a certain growth threshold though, can't recall when it was but that might be the issue

"Animals are unwilling to eat plants under 10% growth."
Found it, 1.3 release changelog. Though that's not much so I doubt that's the issue here

[side]

This may or may not apply to the situation, but if grass is cold enough animals cant eat it because its no longer "flowering", and theres no leaves or things to eat from it. Its tricky because theres no visual cue, and its not really explained except by the community.

[DrakenKin]

The temperature of those hay tiles is 19 so i don't think it is too cold.

The most grown hay is around 58%, so if there is a threshold it has to be higher. Again i have Alapacas starving while plenty of grass around.

Can someone explain the barn thing? is it closed behind a door (with animals going there when hungry or sleeping?) or just in open air? What's the barn's purpose?

[Zane87]

Originally posted by DrakenKin (twitch):

The temperature of those hay tiles is 19 so i don't think it is too cold.

The most grown hay is around 58%, so if there is a threshold it has to be higher. Again i have Alapacas starving while plenty of grass around.

Can someone explain the barn thing? is it closed behind a door (with animals going there when hungry or sleeping?) or just in open air? What's the barn's purpose?

Having a warm place in very cold temperatures. That's the purpose of a barn and just that. And sth your pawns can enter through doors from their side but pen animals can't (only flappy doors).

Also maybe a place to store harvested hay for them to eat (that's how I did it in the end)

[MortVent]

Animals in pens do not eat crops, it's why the feed value of the pen goes down when you try to plant in them. They will only eat wild grass or stacked hay/kibble due to the pen AI mechanics

[DrakenKin]

Originally posted by MortVent:

Animals in pens do not eat crops, it's why the feed value of the pen goes down when you try to plant in them. They will only eat wild grass or stacked hay/kibble due to the pen AI mechanics

Does that mean that if i get rid of the pens and use regular walls they will eat the hay? I don't mind removing the doors or blocking them so they can't get out, or using pen doors without the pen?

Again, looking for a workaround.

[Dominian]

You can put a zone into the animal's pen and they will eat nutrition which is placed inside that zone.

So you do a zone for hay growing and a second zone within the pen and the animals will eat this harvested hay, which you have put in front of them. You will have to harvest and haul it, but it works. I presume the same goes for a pen full of tamed carnivors, where you put down meat in front of them.

This isn't exactly related, but I have found that the nutritional value given at the pen marker doesn't change when I cut all vegetation inside a pen. It seems only to be related to what type of floor there is. Planting hay inside the pen also doesn't change the nutrition value. I haven't observed animals eating crops planted inside their pen.

[DJ Capper]

What i did is that i made a hay farm outside the animal area and then put some wooden shelves inside the animal area where my colonist delivers the hay that the animals then eat, remember to set the shelf to only stock hay or other food you want to feed your animals :)

[DrakenKin]

Ok i experimented a bit. I can confirm that :

1. Animals won't eat growing hay
2. Animals WILL eat GROWN hay. Meaning hay that is ready to harvest.

I can say that because i set a whole field of hay to "do not harvest" and it was still being eaten, meaning no pawn was harvesting, it was the animals eating it when it fully grew. Someone said there was a threshold of growth before they eat it, that is not true, it has to be fully grown. Unless i missed something. I have seen hay up to 74% grown and not eaten.

What i am doing now, i split my pen area into two regions. One doing hay, the other doing dandelion. It seems to be working, no more starvation. OFC it could be just all the hay maturing, i am not sure what helped the most, might experiment more with doing isolated dandelion pens and see if that's enough to feed the animals, at least during the warm seasons.

More observations :

- Dandelions grows without the need of being sown by a pawn! Just create an area and they seem to grow automatically. This is big, because in the summer you can simply create very wide pens and spam dandelions, saving your pawn's time for more important thing.
- The wooden pen markers are just broken and bugged, don't trust the information there. I am hoping a mod or a future patch can fix them.

I'll end by saying i didn't need the barns so far (warm season), i am simply creating roofed areas inside the pens and use shelves to store the hay and kibble created and brought from outside the pens.