My Zoo keeper wont feed the animals.

[Hotdog]

I had this problem in the beta to. My zoo keepers goes in to the habitat then they just stand there...and then walks out. i tought they would have fixed a big bug like this! anyone who knows how to fix it?

[Nova]

Originally posted by Dad's Gaming Addiction:

My, someone woke up on the wrong side of the litter box this morning.

My apologies if this isn't a bug. I simply expected the zookeepers to, you know, do their jobs. If there is an empty bowl, go fill it. I didn't have this issue with Zoo Tycoon or any other similar-esque games. By the by, both my enrichment AND bowls are completely empty and the zookeeper won't fill them, so it has nothing to do with priority. "I am willing to bet" that if you had asked some probing questions first to get the facts of the situation, your snarky and rude response would have been worded differently.

There are many threads on this and I've along with many, many others have explained it before. It gets tiresome having people constant claim that this and other things are glitches and being blunt seems to get people to pay attention better.

So top tips, every habitat needs a keeper with a work zone set to it, right outside the door of the habitat needs to be a keepers hut and I would also advise a staff room and the keeper gets assigned to both and the habitat and nothing else. As you learn more about the mechanics you can use work zones to cover multiple habitats if it can be managed by the workers. If you have 2 habitats in a work zone with 2 keepers just make it 1 and 1 as keepers have a priority system of which cleaning is last. Keepers go to the closest keeper hut when they exit the gate AS THE CROW FLIES, if that means he has to walk the entire circumference of your park he will which will make him tired and he will go to a break.

Enrichment feeders are better for animals and the keepers only feed the amount needed, if they fed everything to max you would quickly go broke. It's good to have an empty tray as a safety net for breeding as it's easy to see when it's full so you know you're getting close to max available food but you can just use enrichment feeders.

[CelestialRaptor]

Here's the thing though Nova, half the time the keepers won't even fill up the enrichment feeders either. I literally have an enclosure with 3 Indian Peafowls and they haven't been fed yet. Furthermore, it doesn't say the keepers are going to the keeper hut when they exit the enclosure, it just says they're wandering. I HIGHLY doubt that's intended.

[Funky Stunt]

Originally posted by Dad's Gaming Addiction:

I can confirm the bug. I have a one zookeeper per animal pen, plus some free-roaming. They'll walk in, turn around, and go back out without feeding the animals. Are the developers aware of this bug?

Since keepers visit monthly by default, if they're walking in and doing nothing it means there was nothing to do, not that he isn't doing his job.

If animals are starving it's either your hut/staff rooms are too far away, access is too hard or they have too much work (which you can identify easily). I also recommend planning ahead and training ahead. You'll be surprised how much better feeding does work when you use trained staff.

[Chromer]

Originally posted by Nova:

Keepers prioritise enrichment feeders over trays, if the enrichment feeders hold enough food they won't fill trays. I am willing to bet that if you seek help rather than just assume it's the fault of the game, even if it's not a bug, you might be able to figure it out.

You have to research animals to unlock enrichments items. so before that time you only have the
species specific trays to place down. And they never get filled so eventually the animal(s) starve and die. I've tried having keeper huts nearby, staff room and habitat in work zones. trained the keeper max level, researched the animal max. removed replaced. doesnt matter. For whatever reason some people experience this alot, some people report only with specific animals. but its definetly not suppose to be complicated. Keeper simply does not register the task after checking on the habitat, he does not go an prepare food.
So many people have spent hours trying to figure out solutions with no luck. And they're just expressing their frustration. For me the workaround is simply to research the animal until i get the enrichment items unlocked and i use water pipe for water since it doesnt need to be filled by a keeper (requires water treatment facility) but i think i will wait for a patch to fix this bug and other possible issues. I want a smooth experience with this game, I had no problem with Planet Coaster or Jurassic World Evolution, so im sure it will be sorted eventually :)

[Funky Stunt]

Originally posted by Chromer:

You have to research animals to unlock enrichments items. so before that time you only have the
species specific trays to place down. And they never get filled so eventually the animal(s) starve and die.

You do realise that in order to research those items you must have the animals alive in the first place.

[Chromer]

Originally posted by Funky Stunt:

Originally posted by Chromer:

You have to research animals to unlock enrichments items. so before that time you only have the
species specific trays to place down. And they never get filled so eventually the animal(s) starve and die.

You do realise that in order to research those items you must have the animals alive in the first place.

Yes they dont die right away, thankfully. Its just my only solution at the moment if i want them to stay alive at all. Also to quote your previous post "Since keepers visit monthly by default, if they're walking in and doing nothing it means there was nothing to do, not that he isn't doing his job.

If animals are starving it's either your hut/staff rooms are too far away, access is too hard or they have too much work (which you can identify easily)." No, this is not the case.

[Alphakuh]

I never had a problem due to I understand the mechanics. Learn to understand them instead of spam another thread to this forum. Thanks

[Chromer]

Originally posted by stefizzle:

I never had a problem due to I understand the mechanics. Learn to understand them instead of spam another thread to this forum. Thanks

The mechanics arent that complicated, It's just not working properly for some people.

[Alphakuh]

And I think, and I read a lot of forum last 7 days, that most of them don’t understand where the fault is. And it’s not the game itself. Most people here cant read why should they learn how to poay?

[Chromer]

Originally posted by stefizzle:

And I think, and I read a lot of forum last 7 days, that most of them don’t understand where the fault is. And it’s not the game itself. Most people here cant read why should they learn how to poay?

This bug becomes very apparent once you try to build a park from scratch. Then you can look at it with just 1 or 2 habitats, move buildings around, remove replace, fire rehire, train and research. It doesnt matter for people who experience this. not everybody does, thats whats so confusing and causing arguments. But its great for people to come with possible solutions, sometimes it might actually be a workzone issue or whatever. Maybe they should make a pinned thread for people with this problem, where they can explain their issue, and people who want to help/give input can choose to do so.

[Norton]

Are the animals starving? no? then its working fine. They only give animals food if they actually need food! Since spoiled food makes your animals sick.(food items sometimes have green smoke comming from them indicating its rotten) Its not a bug, its a feature. That why we have keepers hut where they go and prep the food.

Just read the TOP STICKIED post

[Funky Stunt]

Originally posted by Chromer:

Originally posted by Funky Stunt:

You do realise that in order to research those items you must have the animals alive in the first place.

Yes they dont die right away, thankfully. Its just my only solution at the moment if i want them to stay alive at all. Also to quote your previous post "Since keepers visit monthly by default, if they're walking in and doing nothing it means there was nothing to do, not that he isn't doing his job.

If animals are starving it's either your hut/staff rooms are too far away, access is too hard or they have too much work (which you can identify easily)." No, this is not the case.

Then explain why most players don't have the issues some are experiencing?

Admittedly my zoo is not very big atm, about 1300 people as I speak, but I have zero issues with feed since the very beginning. I start with one small simple enclosure and train my keepers from there. Now, perfect operation with fully trained keepers, good access, plenty of staff rooms within reach (which seem to cause issues) and I train a keeper in advance of every new enclosure.

Originally posted by Chromer:

This bug becomes very apparent once you try to build a park from scratch.

I build all my parks from scratch, it's never been an issue. See above paragraph.

[Neptune ♥]

A lot of people have variations of the zookeeper bug, ranging from them genuinely messing up the setup to having it ACTUALLY be a bug. For me, it's a bug. There are no enrichment items to take up food, the animals literally die because the zookeepers refuse to feed them, and yes there are millions of huts/staff rooms and power available that should be making them stop to prepare the food along the way and they won't. They just rush to the enclosure, look around, then walk off like they have something else to do.

I really loved this game at first but this bug is game breaking and it's been days. I genuinely can't play because building any exhibit that doesn't contain small animals like frogs or gila monsters will result in starvation. I don't like that everyone wants to boil this down to misunderstanding mechanics. Yes, some people are missing important steps that are keeping zookeepers from feeding animals--but a lot of people genuinely have a bug and the fact it's not even marked as "acknowledged" on the issue tracker is frustrating beyond belief.

[Chromer]

Originally posted by Funky Stunt:

Originally posted by Chromer:

Yes they dont die right away, thankfully. Its just my only solution at the moment if i want them to stay alive at all. Also to quote your previous post "Since keepers visit monthly by default, if they're walking in and doing nothing it means there was nothing to do, not that he isn't doing his job.

If animals are starving it's either your hut/staff rooms are too far away, access is too hard or they have too much work (which you can identify easily)." No, this is not the case.

Then explain why most players don't have the issues some are experiencing?

Admittedly my zoo is not very big atm, about 1300 people as I speak, but I have zero issues with feed since the very beginning. I start with one small simple enclosure and train my keepers from there. Now, perfect operation with fully trained keepers, good access, plenty of staff rooms within reach (which seem to cause issues) and I train a keeper in advance of every new enclosure.

Originally posted by Chromer:

This bug becomes very apparent once you try to build a park from scratch.

I build all my parks from scratch, it's never been an issue. See above paragraph.

I am happy for you, you dont have this bug, some people get different bugs happening.

[The Former]

Guuuuuuys. If it's not a bug it can't be fixed.

Either your keeper huts are too far from the enclosure or you have too many enrichment feeders, most likely. There's a bunch of stuff in a stickied post wherein a developer addresses this. They've looked at it over and over again. It's not a bug.

See, the way we determine if something is a bug is to look at the behavior. If the game isn't behaving as it should, we see a bug. Often this is true. However, the way developers look for bugs is different. They try to mimic the behavior, then use that to narrow down the core process of actively looking through the code and see if something is incorrect.

They can verify these things 100%, whereas we can't. They're not going into it blind like we are. If the devs have looked at the code over and over again and found no issue, there's no issue. It's something you're doing wrong.

I don't say that to be accusatory, but to try and help people diagnose and correct the issue. If your animals aren't getting fed, something in the chain of processes leading up to feeding isn't being accounted for on the user end.

I've had ~12 zoos between beta and today with all sorts of enclosure configurations and all kinds of animals and I've had exactly three issues with feeding. In every instance, I did something wrong: My setup didn't allow the keeper access to the food. Either an overhang was too low or the feeder was on a hill that was too steep. Once I fixed that, I was golden.

If I haven't had this bug with as many different setups as I've tried, you can't possibly call it a bug at this point. Behavioral bugs aren't derived from hardware. We're all playing the same software. I'd have definitely experienced this at some point, at least once, if it were a bug.

Originally posted by Chromer:

I am happy for you, you dont have this bug, some people get different bugs happening.

This is true of things like "If you walk into this certain area of the map when this certain NPC is present, you'll get teleported through the floor." This isn't true of core features that everyone uses on the regular. If a game-breaking bug was affecting a feature that literally everyone uses all the time, everyone would experience it at some point.