Tips for animals? (Chickens)

[Yatagan]

I built a Coop and bought 4 chickens. I've had them for ~15 days now and they're all still 0 hearts and I barely make any money off of them. I certainly haven't profited yet. I feed them hay constantly and let them outside. I "pet" them daily and all I get is eggs that I can turn into mayonaise occasionally.

I have ~20 sprinklers and do basically nothing to my crops and make huge profits, what am I missing with chickens? Or are they blatantly not nearly as profitable and require far more effort? If so I think I'll just sell them and demolish the Coop. Can I automate them or somehow make more money off of them at all?

EDIT: Also worth mentioning I don't have a silo yet because I'm waiting to see if they're profitable. I bought a bulk of Hay at the start that I'm still running on, and I'm not counting that against my "profitable" bar since I know the better way to do it is via silo. But that still requires manually feeding every day, correct?

[Utildayael]

I was wondering the same. I've had them quite a bit more than 15 days and while I get an egg every day and feed them, etc... they're both sitting at 1/2 a heart. :(

[NotThatHarkness]

By 15 days you should have at least a half of a heart on those chickens.

Are you setting out hay on the bench? The coop doesn't autofeed until you upgrade to the deluxe version. When you let them outside, do they have grass to eat? They prefer grass, which grows back and is more efficient than hay.

I didn't get regular egg laying until my chicken's heart level was high, maybe >2.5 hearts. Even then they occasionally skip a day. And the higher the hearts the more likely you get large eggs (which are worth more).

Your crops will always make more profits than your animals, for the most part. Animals require daily care, but I don't think they require substantially more effort than crops.

edit: I bought my chickens in early spring. The first ones got up to 5 hearts by late fall? I didn't figure out about the hand feeding for the first week. Anyways, getting animals to 5 hearts is slow. Goats, for me, were far worse than chickens.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Animals are all just waste of time after you got all the community center unlock stuff from them, it's nowhere near good profit as crops or wine making and take some valuable time from your day once you have 16+ of them.
I just sold them all off after I got all the community center stuff from them and have lot more free time now.
But they are necessary evil until you have community center stuff you need from them.

[Utildayael]

Hrm grass might be my issue. Always fed but never let them outside. Will try. :)

[Yatagan]

Yes I set hay out, and I let them outside where there is plentiful grass.

Cool to hear the high end Coop auto feeds. Do the big eggs make better mayo? Otherwise what's the point since i always process it into mayo?

And I do literally nothing to my crops except plant/harvest them as I've fully built in sprinklers; so the animals are considerably more effort.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Originally posted by Yatagan:

Yes I set hay out, and I let them outside where there is plentiful grass.

Cool to hear the high end Coop auto feeds. Do the big eggs make better mayo? Otherwise what's the point since i always process it into mayo?

Yes, big eggs make gold star mayo.

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

Animals are all just waste of time after you got all the community center unlock stuff from them, it's nowhere near good profit as crops or wine making and take some valuable time from your day once you have 16+ of them.
I just sold them all off after I got all the community center stuff from them and have lot more free time now.
But they are necessary evil until you have community center stuff you need from them.

I kind of agree. I did sell most of my animals off once I got the community center bundles done. I only have one last pig left. As long as I'm getting regular truffles I'll keep it. At least until winter. The pig is at 5 hearts, so I can sell for a profit at any time.

[Yatagan]

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

Yes, big eggs make gold star mayo.

Good to know!

Originally posted by TreyNutz:

I kind of agree. I did sell most of my animals off once I got the community center bundles done. I only have one last pig left. As long as I'm getting regular truffles I'll keep it. At least until winter. The pig is at 5 hearts, so I can sell for a profit at any time.

How long did it take you to get it to 5 hearts? I could understand if you bought, raised, and sold them for profit like every 2 weeks or something, but i'm 2 weeks in and literally NO heart progress yet.

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by Yatagan:

...And I do literally nothing to my crops except plant/harvest them as I've fully built in sprinklers; so the animals are considerably more effort.

I would just run in the coop, click on each one, grab the eggs, run out, open the hatch, throw the eggs into the mayo maker and that was it until bedtime when I'd close the hatch door at night. I only had at most 5 chickens and that was just because I was trying to get a brown one. Most of the time I had 2-3.

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by Yatagan:

Originally posted by TreyNutz:

I kind of agree. I did sell most of my animals off once I got the community center bundles done. I only have one last pig left. As long as I'm getting regular truffles I'll keep it. At least until winter. The pig is at 5 hearts, so I can sell for a profit at any time.

How long did it take you to get it to 5 hearts? I could understand if you bought, raised, and sold them for profit like every 2 weeks or something, but i'm 2 weeks in and literally NO heart progress yet.

For the pig? I don't know. I think I bought the pig in summer 2, when I upgraded my barn to whatever level allows pigs. I think I hit 5 hearts that winter. The chickens took at least half a year. I gave up on the goat and sold it after I finally got a large goat milk.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

It takes months to get 5 hearts, not gone happen in few weeks. Think it was 2-3 months if I remember right. You dont need 5 hearts for large eggs or large milk though, if they are happy enough you can get that in a month or so.
I dont think that ducks have large eggs though, at least I never saw any altough they were at 5 hearts.

[NotThatHarkness]

I agree, you don't need 5 hearts to get large eggs or large milk. But the sales value seems to cap at 5 hearts.

I never saw a large duck egg either. I sold the duck once I got the duck feather.

[Tevokkia]

Are you making sure to pet them every day? Mine gained hearts pretty quick; I was getting large eggs within a week, if I recall.

[Yatagan]

Originally posted by Tevokkia:

Are you making sure to pet them every day? Mine gained hearts pretty quick; I was getting large eggs within a week, if I recall.

Yup. I pet them all every day.

[Tenzek]

Make sure you close the coop hatch at night if you let them roam outside. I think it is best to just keep them confined in the coop.