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NeeNee

Chicken and egg problems

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I can't be the only person who likes to raise chickens, right? When I lived on Release, I never had a problem with hens laying eggs and baby chicks hatching. Sometimes, I had 20-30 eggs on the ground, from just a few hens. Since I moved to Xanadu, I can't get a single egg to hatch, if the hens even lay any eggs. It's maybe one egg every two months and that egg never hatches. Other animals seem to reproduce just fine, but chickens just do not. (Before you try and advise me, yes, I leave enough grass on the ground. More than enough. I've tried hand feeding. I also have a better than acceptable animal/tile ratio.).

 

Since I also almost never see sharks or other sea creatures on Xanadu either, is this because it's just too big of a server and there's an animal numbers issue? I don't really want to move, but this combined with the lack of ability to get non-horse animals to my deed (because they can't swim and I'm a bit cut off in my location) makes me dislike my server just a teeny bit. I'd hate to move though, as I love my deed. 

 

Other servers--do your chickens hatch? Xanadians, do yours? 

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My chickens are on packed dirt and I feed them corn, tons and tons of it. They lay lots of eggs, but the ratio of eggs hatching is rather low I would say 1 out of every 40 to 50.

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There is a hard cap on how many eggs can exist on a server...per WU anyway.  It makes sence why on a smaller server with low population more eggs where laid.

 

I'm not sure about the hatch rate, I thought it was 10%. 

 

I believe once upon a time back on JKH (what 6 years ago?) folks where hording large numbers of chickens and it was messing with the creature caps. We all know how important hunting is apparently so the nerf stick whacked chicken farmers.

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I stopped raising chicken, because it was so hard to keep supply of hens up without wasting a care on egg-laying hens. Getting eggs wasn't problem, there were 50-60 eggs constantly in the stack (from two hens, they were beasts, when it came to laying eggs). But getting a hen from those eggs before the old hens died, was a real problem. Didn't get anything for weeks, then got several roosters and again nothing..

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Old mechanics and limits from when too many chickens would bog down server performance.

 

Even use to be crusades hunting down abandoned chicken farms

 

Before breeding was added, it was the only way to generate more critters to eat up all the excess wemp seed. Not to mention all the current limiters on herds didn't exist then, so chicken farms got out of hand fast.

 

Personally now chickens die far too fast from hunger.

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I am raising chickens as well on Xanadu.  Originally, I had the hens in two 2x3 pens of paved tiles and I fed them with mixed grass and groomed them often.  After several days with no eggs being laid, I tore up the pavements and left them as just dirt.  I switched my feed to pumpkin and strawberry seeds and continued grooming.  Someone had said to me that they only lay eggs when they eat food two times, so seeds do not fill them up as quickly as grass and thus they eat more often, which gives more opportunity to lay eggs.  Soon after switching to seeds, eggs began to be laid.  I have maybe 8-10 eggs now.  After 1-2 weeks, one of the eggs finally hatched.  That was a few days ago.  The chick has not moved from the hatching spot so far nor has it changed into a young hen yet.

 

 

Edited by Eyesgood
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3 hours ago, Klaa said:

Old mechanics and limits from when too many chickens would bog down server performance.

 

Even use to be crusades hunting down abandoned chicken farms

 

Before breeding was added, it was the only way to generate more critters to eat up all the excess wemp seed. Not to mention all the current limiters on herds didn't exist then, so chicken farms got out of hand fast.

 

Personally now chickens die far too fast from hunger.

Haha, good to know that chickens used to rule the world! Maybe hens need to be changed to only breed on deed, or with a rooster around? They certainly do die very quickly!

 

I'll try the seeds method Eyesgood, thanks!

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Was so much easier to feed them when processing wemp would give both fiber and seeds. :wacko:

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I fed them with grass and I had no problems with getting eggs from them.

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40 minutes ago, Klaa said:

Was so much easier to feed them when processing wemp would give both fiber and seeds. :wacko:

WHAT? Scandal! Nerfing! The end of days! (Seriously that would be nice though)

 

 

16 minutes ago, rixk said:

I fed them with grass and I had no problems with getting eggs from them.

 

Are you on Xanadu? 

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No, chickens were on indy. But I heard also theories, that grass doesn't work.. it did.

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As I mentioned, someone told me it seems they drop an egg the moment they consume two seeds very close together, like when they get hungry and go to eat something.  If the first seed does not make them full, I was told they will immediately eat another seed - which triggers the egg to be dropped the moment they are full.  

 

I have no way to confirm this rumor, but at least I know that my chickens were not laying eggs when fed with grass and they did once I switched to seeds.  Since grass weighs more, I am leaning on the rumor being true.  But there could be exceptions.  Who knows....

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Need a chicken update, they should be able to graze also.

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I have about 20 chickens, I have gotten 15 eggs in the past 2 days. And sold a bunch a few weeks ago, and many of them hatched. Ive never had any issue with them on Xan. Also did chickens on Cele without issue.. I do cultivated dirt in their pens, and lots of seed or dropped veggies.

 

Update to mine : Today I had another 13 eggs laid in the last 12 hours. (I cleared 12 hours ago)

Edited by Aniceset

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Chickens are actually omnivores. They are vicious creatures that will even devour their own kin at the sight of blood on one of their brethren. I kid you not.

If they were switched to omnivores from herbivores then we could feed them whole pumpkins. It would be much easier and cheaper to keep them at full.

 

 

From WU code Creature.checkEggLaying(), for a egg to be laid all this stuff is checked about every second:

* It's female and it can eat (duh!). "Can eat" in this case means it's possible for it to eat, not that it's hungry and it should always be true afaik.

* Chicken must be full enough that it can't eat anymore

* Total egg count must be less than some amount (WU is a inline coded magic number of 1000. I doubt its different for Xana because of the nature of this kind of code.)

* 1 in 20,000 chance every second.

* It's on the surface or basicly it's not in a cave.

* The tile where the chicken is must be either: grass, field, dirt or packed dirt

 

Edited by joedobo
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That's amazing, Aniceset! That's the level of egg-laying I was getting on Release. 

 

I'm down to one non-venerable chicken, but I put out piles of seeds instead of grass and we'll see what happens. I wonder if venerables will lay eggs, too. More pumpkin seeds!

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1 hour ago, NeeNee said:

That's amazing, Aniceset! That's the level of egg-laying I was getting on Release. 

 

I'm down to one non-venerable chicken, but I put out piles of seeds instead of grass and we'll see what happens. I wonder if venerables will lay eggs, too. More pumpkin seeds!

My chickens are chowin down on taters atm lol.

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12 hours ago, Eyesgood said:

As I mentioned, someone told me it seems they drop an egg the moment they consume two seeds very close together, like when they get hungry and go to eat something.  If the first seed does not make them full, I was told they will immediately eat another seed - which triggers the egg to be dropped the moment they are full.  

 

I have no way to confirm this rumor, but at least I know that my chickens were not laying eggs when fed with grass and they did once I switched to seeds.  Since grass weighs more, I am leaning on the rumor being true.  But there could be exceptions.  Who knows....

How much it fills depends on QL too.. if you feed them with 1ql grass, it takes several grass to get them full, while only one 90ql.

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Also on Xanadu:

 

One young hen in a pen with plenty of dropped seeds. Hen produced 7 eggs before it died of old age. Of these 7 eggs one spawned a chicken.

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On ‎8‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 10:31 PM, NeeNee said:

Other servers--do your chickens hatch? Xanadians, do yours?

 

Maybe the problem is that you are putting the chicken before the egg? Or is it vice-versa?

 

=Ayes=

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I genuinely thought this thread was to ask which one came first

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20 hours ago, Sila said:

We all know that easter bunny bring first egg

 

Naw, that's just Silaness...

 

=Ayes=

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