Do hens have to be moved into hen house?

[Cybagran]

When I buy a cow etc. it always is at the front of my house and will not follow to the back where there is lots of space. I took a tree down to make more space up the side of the house but even a sheep would not follow. If I build a hen house will the hens I buy appear in it or at the front of my house and have to be moved? It would be a great help if we could set a flag for where animals could appear when purchased. Of if we had the PICK UP like the dog and cat in the commands it would also help.

[MizMeow1]

If you put fencing around the chicken house, the chicks will stay within the fenced area. Without the fencing, they will wander around everywhere. You can do the same for your other animals. I made a large fenced in area where my larger animals stay. And, yes, they stay within the fenced in area.

If your animals are showing up at the front of the house, you should be able to click on them and choose "follow me" to walk them to the area that you want them to be. Once there, though, make sure to uncheck the "follow me" so they don't keep following you. :-) (I found that if I walk too fast, though with them, they get lost a bit at times when going around the house. ) Also, when you get the animal to where you want it, make sure to go in and check "stay here" (or whatever the correct wording is). That *should* keep the animal where you want it while you are playing the game. Without the fencing, though, I'm guessing that the animal will be at the front of your house again when you come back to the game. The "stay here" setting doesn't usually still work with my dog when I come back to the game, so I'm guessing it will be the same with the larger farm animals. As I said, I've got mine in a large fenced in area. I don't have any of the options (follow me, stay, etc.) checked on the farm animals, but they all pretty much stay in their fenced in area. Occasionally one will have escaped when I come back to the game, but not too often.

[Cybagran]

I have managed to get the hens to follow to the Hen house. However the other animals only follow up the side of the house then will not turn the corner into the back area where I have built a fenced area with gate. The gates are a bit small. I am using the house provided so I don't think I can change the size down. Only add on to it.

[MizMeow1]

I did find that if the fenced in area is too small, the animals won't stay in it. Initially, mine escaped quite a bit. Then, I built a large fenced area and put the sheep, cow, pig,and goat in there. They have all stayed in the area since then. I don't think that they had enough room before because it was too small. I do have an alpaca in a pen by itself and the horse in the barn. Both of them do get out on occasion. My plan was to add the alpaca to the pen with the other animals, but I have since changed my mine. I don't like the farm that I'm using as an office, so I'm planning on building a new one. When I move, I'm not taking all the animals. I'm going to get rid of some of them as they keep freezing on me when I interact with them. Because of that, I haven't bothered to add the alpaca to the rest of the clan. From my experience, if the penned area is too small, the animals won't stay in it. And, as for the chickens, I believe that you can make the fence around the house as big as you'd like. It's been awhile since I put it up, though.

[Cybagran]

I like my office so I am just keeping the chickens and growing the vegetables. I sold the other animals and just have a dog which I take out on jobs when doing the cleaning then if building I put it in the pet hotel as it can get in the way.

[Cybagran]

By the way my real dog did not think of it as a Pet Hotel more like a Pet Prison. He was happy to see me when getting out but then would do his best to ignore me and look the other way.