How to provide penned animals food without spoilage?

[ApathicAlpaca]

Situation:
Warm climate.
Penned donkey, ibex etc.
No natural gras in pen.
I have a cooled warehouse but I can't make it part of the pen.
If I set a zone in the pen and limit it to e. g. kibble it (the kibbel) will decay in no time.

Can I somehow limit the amount of kibbel that is in the zone at any point of time? Like, refill it only so there are ~5 around? That would deal with the issue, at least, a bit.

[Seal Enthusiast]

No not really. Colonists set to animals will auto feed hungry animals though, they will just put the food near the pen marker. You should also grow hay for large animals, unless growing zones are scarce for your region.

[The Blind One]

use a shelf, animals can still eat from shelves without the food deterioration, it will still spoil if it can spoil though.

However kibble technically never spoils as long as it is indoors and under a roof (or on a shelf). So you should be able to safely put it in their barn if you don't want to build a shelf.

Animals will also prefer to eat fresh food afaik, so you won't need to worry about them eating all your food first. They'll only eat the food added when they run out in the pen.

Hay is by far the superior fodder for animals. Kibble is best for your meat eaters as you can mix the hay in it to stretch your meat reserves for longer.

Always keep a nice fat stack of the stuff ready for harsh winters if those are a thing on your map.

[Helios]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Situation:
Warm climate.
Penned donkey, ibex etc.
No natural gras in pen.
I have a cooled warehouse but I can't make it part of the pen.
If I set a zone in the pen and limit it to e. g. kibble it (the kibbel) will decay in no time.

Can I somehow limit the amount of kibbel that is in the zone at any point of time? Like, refill it only so there are ~5 around? That would deal with the issue, at least, a bit.

the animal flap door is for that you can setup a freezer and they can use that animal door to eat inside.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Originally posted by Helios:

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Situation:
Warm climate.
Penned donkey, ibex etc.
No natural gras in pen.
I have a cooled warehouse but I can't make it part of the pen.
If I set a zone in the pen and limit it to e. g. kibble it (the kibbel) will decay in no time.

Can I somehow limit the amount of kibbel that is in the zone at any point of time? Like, refill it only so there are ~5 around? That would deal with the issue, at least, a bit.

the animal flap door is for that you can setup a freezer and they can use that animal door to eat inside.

Yeah but they cannot use the flap because it's outside their pen...

[UltimateTobi]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Originally posted by Helios:

the animal flap door is for that you can setup a freezer and they can use that animal door to eat inside.

Yeah but they cannot use the flap because it's outside their pen...

The pen needs to be connected to the building/room the flap leads to, so the building/room is considered a barn and belongs to the pen.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

use a shelf, animals can still eat from shelves without the food deterioration, it will still spoil if it can spoil though.

However kibble technically never spoils as long as it is indoors and under a roof (or on a shelf). So you should be able to safely put it in their barn if you don't want to build a shelf.

Animals will also prefer to eat fresh food afaik, so you won't need to worry about them eating all your food first. They'll only eat the food added when they run out in the pen.

Hay is by far the superior fodder for animals. Kibble is best for your meat eaters as you can mix the hay in it to stretch your meat reserves for longer.

Always keep a nice fat stack of the stuff ready for harsh winters if those are a thing on your map.

Kibble does spoil, definitely. Had to put it in cooled warehouse to prevent that.
I am a bit limited on pawns (too much to do for everyone) but I guess I'll have to add a hay-growing zone then.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Yeah but they cannot use the flap because it's outside their pen...

The pen needs to be connected to the building the flap leads to, so the building/room is considered a barn and belongs to the pen.

Ah, that's clever. Thanks.
And they won't eat the other food in there? Like my regular meals or simple meat lying around?

[The Blind One]

You should build a building connected to their pen (will cause it to be called a barn by the game) and use an 'animal flap', not a normal door, so animals can move in and out. You can put the food in the barn and they'll eat from it. In harsh winters you can put a heater in the barn and the little critters will stay indoors if it is too cold outside.

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Kibble does spoil, definitely. Had to put it in cooled warehouse to prevent that.
I am a bit limited on pawns (too much to do for everyone) but I guess I'll have to add a hay-growing zone then.

Kibble does not spoil, 100% guarantee that. What it does do is it deteriorate when it is unroofed and outdoors. It will do that quite fast as well but it will technically never spoil. You're confusing the two concepts with each other.

[UltimateTobi]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

The pen needs to be connected to the building the flap leads to, so the building/room is considered a barn and belongs to the pen.

Ah, that's clever. Thanks.
And they won't eat the other food in there? Like my regular meals or simple meat lying around?

It should definitely a separate room from everything else (by walls or doors), else animals will wander inside. The barn should be an enclosed room connected to the pen by animal flaps and doors on the backside (or anywhere you like) for colonists. (Colonists can also use animal flaps, so doors are optional.)

[ApathicAlpaca]

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Ah, that's clever. Thanks.
And they won't eat the other food in there? Like my regular meals or simple meat lying around?

It should definitely a separate room from everything else (by walls or doors), else animals will wander inside. The barn should be an enclosed room connected to the pen by animal flaps and doors on the backside (or anywhere you like) for colonists. (Colonists can also use animal flaps, so doors are optional.)

Wa... wait, WHAT? Colonists will use ANIMAL FLAPS?


That's it guys, my colony has officially banned all doors and will feature a LOT of crawling on your knees ahahahahahaha. Awesome!

Or even better, I just amputate everyone's legs so they HAVE to use the flaps. Aaahahahahahahaaaa!

[UltimateTobi]

https://imgur.com/a/c0z2ar8 example pen. (blue squares are sleeping spots (optional)

[boytype]

You can absolutely create a limited size stockpile for only kibble and hay inside the penned area and set the Bill to create kibble to Do Until You Have X, where X is the number of stockpile squares you placed times 75 (stack size for kibble)

[Helios]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

The pen needs to be connected to the building the flap leads to, so the building/room is considered a barn and belongs to the pen.

Ah, that's clever. Thanks.
And they won't eat the other food in there? Like my regular meals or simple meat lying around?

If you use air ventilation (vent)you can use one side for nomal food one side for the animals and dont need seperate cooler.

[Big B]

There used to be an ANIMAL FEEDER, that was something like a shelf, where you could bring food for animal without getting rot... Maybe it came from a mod ... But I can't find it anymore lately!