Keepers are not feeding my animals

[Elerre]

It happens at some point in my zoos. I know it's a well known issue in the past, but it is still happening to me in 2021. Do you guys know any possible solution? My poor wolfies will love you.

[Triassic Time Traveler]

try to hire a new zoo keeper and give him a workspace only for the wolfies, make sure a restroom for that keeper is also in that workspace.

[Varick]

Assuming it is not a path, work zone, hut, etc. problem, have you moved your food items away from the habitat barrier? I used to have a problem with feeding and now never do since I moved the food items.

[Cookie]

If it's an emergency if you put them in quarantine they will be fed there. I assign 1 keeper to each habitat with a staff room and keeper station for each one. Sometimes if there's crowding occasionally one of my lemurs will go hungry I just quarantine him and send him back home. Could also be your habitat is too large or there's not enough feeders and food enrichment for the space.

[Nariel]

Also, have a look at your keepers work load and energy levels. If your keepers have too much to do and have low energy it will take them forever to feed your animals and you will keep getting hungry notifications. Either assign more keepers to a particular habitat or train them a bit. Trained staff work faster.

You could also add perks to your staff rooms, such as Staff Healthcare to help them be more resilient against being overworked :)

[Just Kevin]

I once had a bug where keepers would go in to a loop inside a keeper hut, I have not seen the problem for a while, but often the only option was to delete the keeper hut and use redo to replace it and request another keeper to wherever the previous one was supposed to be feeding. The original keeper does not get deleted, he/she just returns via the entrance. When the game was new I had an entire zone of primates not getting fed and I had no idea why. Perhaps that loop? Which I was not aware of at the time. I abandoned that zoo and started another!. And as previously mentioned, you do need a lot of staff, and need to train them up, because they do get tired, and the less trained they are, the faster they get tired it seems.

[Madz]

I have a similar problem when my staff sort of get stuck on their path to the habitat. They tend to get stuck somewhere on the road, sooner or later there is a nice blub of staff walking in the same spot to never be able to get anywhere. Maybe getting another zookeeper hut closer the the problematic habitats solves the problem.

[mohamed.diop78]

it have happened one time in my sandbox zoo. it was so stressful !!

[Just Kevin]

Indeed. Even with the widest paths, there can end up with a whirlpool of people (I often look where I can add shortcuts, even if just across a corner) and staff can get caught up in them. It is possible to click on a staff member or visitors and move them somewhere else. Failing that, delete that section of path and use Redo to put it back. Staff and visitors will return via the entrance. Do make sure that you use zones and anything you wish to be in that group is actually added to them. Staff, habitats, all buildings, etc etc.

[Spector]

You can try this fix using workzones:

https://youtu.be/u-mUbrv5im8

Also,

Try deleting all the food items, regular and enrichment. Saving the game. Quit and restart the game. Then load your zoo and place only one feeder. Use work zones to make only one keeper be responsible for that feeder. Check back here and tell us how it worked out.

[Just Kevin]

That video does not solve the problem of animals not being fed, for no reason at all.

[Elerre]

Thanks for your solutions guys, I think I fixed the problem. I mixed all your answers and also trained my keepers. So, the solution was hire a couple more of keepers, have 2 stars in all of them at least, spread huts and resting rooms all over the zoo, and create zones (that's very important). I hope you can manage to fix it too, it took me some time but I got it!

[Just Kevin]

Yup. zones create greater efficiency. But it's not always required to assign every security and janitor to them. Do note that if you rely on a single feeder, as the group of creatures in a habitat gets larger, they will need more feeders. What I do is start with quite a large staff base, and at first try to radiate habitats off it. As a zone gets larger that's not possible, so I often have a keeper hut per habitat, and a few staff rest buildings scattered around, so no one has to walk very far when tired. For the next zones, I rarely include a vet's shed, or quarantine , or trader shack. Zoned or not, vets and janitor staff will use the nearest one, even if not in their zone.
You will possibly, until they get trained up anyway, need 3 vendors per kiosk, and a large staff rest place as close to the shopping areas as possible.
Try not to go above 5 habitats per zone, but that can depend on habitat size. 3 can be more than enough if they are very very large.

[Mildly scared]

Helped me to assign one job for one keeper in a big habitat for 4 species. 2 only feed, 2 only clean and one highly trained to do both