Chickens

[Krith]

I have a coops with 4 chickens inside and fenced so they can go outside.
Every day i get the eggs and put the hays on the 4 slots so they can produce more eggs.

My question is:
Do I have to feed them somehow? That's how the heart meter raises? Because I planted one slot of grass on the fenced area and a chicken eat the grass spot and it was gone.So not worth it.

[Gray]

Putting the hay on the slots is feeding them. Alternatively they can eat the grass that grows outside - if they eat that, they won't eat the hay inside.

As you have found out they can easily destroy one grass before it has a chance to grow into a larger patch. I fenced off an area, planted several grass starters - and only let the chickens into that area once a good sized patch of grass was established.

[Krith]

It's the same with cows and other animals?

[Zyme]

Yes. And right click them will increase the hearts.

[rknight718]

Right clicking is akin to petting them. They like it

[Austruck]

Right-clicking my three chickens almost always tells me they are grumpy or too thin. I thought the auto-filling hay hopper in the coop was feeding them. I've gotten a few eggs here and there but it seems random.

What must I be doing with the chickens in order to keep them happy and producing eggs?

[SilentCaay]

1) Pet them daily. Right-click on them so that a heart pops up.

2) Make sure they're fed. You can either harvest grass to make hay and feed them inside the coop by filling the feeding trough or you can let them outside and they can eat the grass outside. Right-click on the small shutter to the right of the door to let them out.

3) If you let them outside, make sure to close the shutter at night. If you leave it open, your animals will produce less.

4) Don't open the shutter when it's raining or during Winter. They won't go out on those days anyway.

5) Make sure you have a heater inside your coop during the Winter.

[Austruck]

Thanks! I wasn't refilling the trough. I was assuming they ate from the refill hopper. DUH. Now they're producing like crazy and always have the red hearts. :)

[SilentCaay]

Austruck: "Get it yourselves!"
Chickens: "But we don't have hands and are only 1 foot tall... )="

Lol, but seriously, once you max upgrade the coop it will auto-fill the trough which is nice even if you don't want rabbits.

[Austruck]

Ha ha! "We don't have opposable thumbs! We don't have ANY thumbs!"

Autofill sounds nice. If only my kitchen worked that way. :)

[Rafein]

Well, when you fully upgrade the barn/Coop, it then comes with an autofeeder, that keeps the trouph full at all times.

[Spenny]

grass starter is like 20-50g? (forget) common mannnnn

[dynastystar]

Originally posted by Spenny:

grass starter is like 20-50g? (forget) common mannnnn

100g each.

[Spenny]

I thought that literally right after i posted. my apologies.

[Sonja]

Sorry, that my sound like a stupid question but why do the chickens in Stardew eat hay? Shouldnt it be corn?

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by Pete:

Sorry, that my sound like a stupid question but why do the chickens in Stardew eat hay? Shouldnt it be corn?

Likely just to keep the game simpler. It would be bothersome if you needed to have different food for every different animal. Pigs, goats, chickens, rabbits, and more, plus Dinosaurs, would be a pain to have a different meal for each and every one of them.