Why wont animals eat grain?

[TRB]

I have 500 grain and 0 straw, so the animals starve in winter. I've lived on farms IRL, animals love grain, they generally don't even like straw as food. Hay/lucerne/alfalfa/clover .etc, which can all also be turned into silage, they've happily eat too. Pigs in particular aren't going to be eating straw, but grains, fruits, vegetables and other human left-overs they love.

So which genius came up with the idea that animals eat only grass or straw and would starve if not those 2 even with tonnes of grain sitting around?

I mean I literally have warnings for fruit and bread rotting away in storage and animals starving at the same time.

This is moronic.

[Cheran]

Because it's not real life but a game. Some cuts and restrictions had to be made to balance it.

[jhughes]

Originally posted by TRB:

I have 500 grain and 0 straw, so the animals starve in winter. I've lived on farms IRL, animals love grain, they generally don't even like straw as food. Hay/lucerne/alfalfa/clover .etc, which can all also be turned into silage, they've happily eat too. Pigs in particular aren't going to be eating straw, but grains, fruits, vegetables and other human left-overs they love.

So which genius came up with the idea that animals eat only grass or straw and would starve if not those 2 even with tonnes of grain sitting around?

I mean I literally have warnings for fruit and bread rotting away in storage and animals starving at the same time.

This is moronic.

Instead of whining, stockpile straw. And then make a polite suggestion in the features to add more food sources for animals.

See.. Was that so hard. Rather than being extremely negative (what genius came up with, moronic), maybe not being an absolute jerk might get better results?

[Amigurumi]

It's not that hard to stockpile enough straw if you have as many grain fields as your population can manage. Which also leads to having lots of grain for food, it's silly to have only 50 grain.

[(WTH)benskins]

hi, i have lots of grain fields but never no straw? Is there a certain grain i should be growing e.g. eko, emmer to make straw?

[(WTH)benskins]

i've mad lots of haystacks as well

[VA gamer]

in some of the youtube videos, animals ate grain when straw ran out - did that change?

[Oriflame]

Yeah, this is pretty stupid. I've raised goats, sheep, horses, pigs, and cows. None of them would say no to grain.

[TsPok]

May be that was just a bug or your people were overloaded and has no time to feed all animals?

[Ronald Gordo]

IMO animals eat grain if the following conditions are met:
1. there is grain not previously intended for bread or beer (reduce the limits of flour and beer);
2. a worker is available to take grain to the stable (reduce workload);
3. the grain is stocking near the stable (build a nearby granary).

[Marstil]

I ran out of straw once with over 200 grain in storage and animals were dropping fast. The villagers would not bring any grain until the last piece of straw had been eaten. The problem was that a guy had 3 pieces of straw on a sledge and was slowly bringing it to the stables, got thirsty and went for a coffee break. Game assigns someone else to grab the sled and eventually gets it to a stables. The straw is eaten instantly and then a half dozen people start to go for grain. I lost 12-14 animals while this took place.

Maybe there could be some sort of check to see if straw < # of animals, then feed grain? I know the devs have said they are adding a switch or something to choose to feed grain, but a check like this would still be helpful.

SHORT VERSION: Grain will not go to animals until every piece of straw is gone. If there is 1 piece left on the ground in a field, and you have 100 animals, no grain until that piece of straw is eaten or assigned to construction.

[TsPok]

May be it would be good to keep staw in the stables not only during winter feeding?

I never see it there elsevise, only when person bring is to feed. 2-3 straws max.
At this time a hundred was stored in the huts and a lot more - left to rot on fields. But only one stable has 3 straws with huge amount of empty slots.

[Marstil]

Originally posted by TsPok:

May be it would be good to keep straw in the stables not only during winter feeding?

I would love for the Devs to add this capability to the stables, a way to set a 'get x feed' & 'get x water' that would cause that building to always have the resource, if available.

[Nhosweat]

I thought it was just me. There are lots of slots for food storage in the barns, but they don't fill them up with grain or straw (hay maybe?). It says that items stored there last longer, so it was meant to store their food there. Seems like a glitch. Hope they fix it.

[korac]

This is a year-old thread -- grain has since been added as animal feed when needed. It works just fine (even using up old grain before it deteriorates, in preference to straw, where you have an abundance).

You will find that in a well-run village there really is no problem feeding animals through the winter, even though your people will only place a handful of straw (and / or grain) in each stables at a time. Just make sure you have wells and haystacks near the stables, ideally, and aren't having to bring it from the other side of the village. Use High Priority on the stables if it worries you, and keep Workload reasonable through the winter so free hands are always available.