Feeding dinos

[❄️The Last Frontier 😊]

Whats the best way to keep your dinos fed? I mean right now I only have 3 being still sort of new to the game but I can just image what it might be like it I had alot more and keeping track of what dino needed food or not so is there an easier way to keep your dinos all fed and happy and alive?

[SMScannonfodder]

Feeding trough.
https://ark.gamepedia.com/Feeding_Trough

[❄️The Last Frontier 😊]

Originally posted by SMScannonfodder:

Feeding trough.
https://ark.gamepedia.com/Feeding_Trough

Cool thanks as would hate to have to manage 100 dinos

[Mickey]

You're going to need to either still keep food in their inventory or use your engram points to get a trough and fill it up with some kibble and park your Dinosaurs in front of it. It may help to have more than one.

[GnarnokRADSKI]

Originally posted by Tack:

You're going to need to either still keep food in their inventory or use your engram points to get a trough and fill it up with some kibble and park your Dinosaurs in front of it. It may help to have more than one.

--Mindful it doesn't have to be "kibble" it can be any meat/berries that dinos will eat.

[MetaLatias]

You don't have to put any expensive food like Kibble into your Feeding Trough, but do be mindful of what food your dinosaurs require since not all are as simple as either berries or meat, for example a Baryonix will only eat FISH meat and an Archeopterix actually eats Chitin. Just make sure that you have a good amount of whatever your dinos eat inside the trough and that they can reach it (you can tell that they can by the little trough icon above their floating name).

[❄️The Last Frontier 😊]

now can you combine foods sources in the same trough? Like lets say Berries and Meat and Fish can it all be in the same trough and the dinos eat what they eat or..??

[Captpickles]

Originally posted by ❄️The Last Frontier 😊:

now can you combine foods sources in the same trough? Like lets say Berries and Meat and Fish can it all be in the same trough and the dinos eat what they eat or..??

Yes. Also cooking meat will extend the spoil timer.

[Sukotto82]

like everyone pretty much said feeding trough but if you have dinos that will eat just about anything like the gotcha you can't use a feeding trough to feed it stones but it will eat meat out of it.

I don't know if this is a bug or what since it puts rocks in the trough it should allow dinos to eat them if they can.

for example a gotcha will eat rocks I put in it's inventory but I can fill a feeding trough with nothing but stone and the gotcha never ate a single stone from the trough even when it had empty inventory.

as soon as I put some rocks in it's inventory after it was down about 25-30 food it started eating the rocks in its inventory instantly so some foods will go in the feeding trough when you use the transfer all button from your inventory to the feeding trough but it doesn't meen that all dinos that can eat some of the more unusual foods will actually eat them from the trough.

I still don't know what that's is all about but as for most of the dinos that eat normal foods like berries and meat they will happily eat from a trough as long as they are in range.

they will have a little trough icon above them much like where the heart appears when they mate boosted.

[Captpickles]

Originally posted by Sukotto82:

like everyone pretty much said feeding trough but if you have dinos that will eat just about anything like the gotcha you can't use a feeding trough to feed it stones but it will eat meat out of it.

I don't know if this is a bug or what since it puts rocks in the trough it should allow dinos to eat them if they can.

for example a gotcha will eat rocks I put in it's inventory but I can fill a feeding trough with nothing but stone and the gotcha never ate a single stone from the trough even when it had empty inventory.

as soon as I put some rocks in it's inventory after it was down about 25-30 food it started eating the rocks in its inventory instantly so some foods will go in the feeding trough when you use the transfer all button from your inventory to the feeding trough but it doesn't meen that all dinos that can eat some of the more unusual foods will actually eat them from the trough.

I still don't know what that's is all about but as for most of the dinos that eat normal foods like berries and meat they will happily eat from a trough as long as they are in range.

they will have a little trough icon above them much like where the heart appears when they mate boosted.

Rock golems eat rock. Phoenix eat sulfur, etc.

[Sukotto82]

so rock golems will eat the rocks from the feeding trough? I only tamed 1 of them so far and it was an elemental gold that looks like and can desquise itself as a rock and throws a rock as 1 of it's attacks might not be the same thing though rock golem might be different than elemental golem

[Captpickles]

Originally posted by Sukotto82:

so rock golems will eat the rocks from the feeding trough? I only tamed 1 of them so far and it was an elemental gold that looks like and can desquise itself as a rock and throws a rock as 1 of it's attacks might not be the same thing though rock golem might be different than elemental golem

Yes, all rock elementals/golems no matter the map will eat rock or sulfur. Chalk golems from valguero, the rock elementals from genesis, Rubble golems, ice golems, etc.

They are all different versions of the same thing similar to the equus and unicorn

[Sukotto82]

ok. cool. thanks

[retsam1]

Originally posted by ❄️The Last Frontier 😊:

Whats the best way to keep your dinos fed? I mean right now I only have 3 being still sort of new to the game but I can just image what it might be like it I had alot more and keeping track of what dino needed food or not so is there an easier way to keep your dinos all fed and happy and alive?

As others have said the trough is the best method in the early game. Meat and berries for most creatures are enough but if you're playing on default settings, you're going to need to keep coming back ever few days to replenish the food stock since it will be eat AND spoil

Some creatures will only eat certain foods to as already mentioned but additionally otters or peragornis(the pelican looking birds) or baryonix, will only eat fish. For those its better to keep the fish in their inventory because the food stat value for fish is lower than meat and all other meat eaters will eat fish -first- before regular meat. This can make your fish only eating dinos potentially starve if not careful if you dont have enough fish for all.


That said though, once you get later into the game and can make cryopods and cryofridges, you can store dinos in the cryopods and then put the pods in the fridge. In that case, they don't need to be fed. You only need to keep the cryofridge power running via the generator required resources. If you're managing tons of dino's this can be a much better method for you.

There are also mods with longer lasting feeding troughs and of course stacking mods so you could stack 5k berries or meat for example and worry even less on the trough part.