question Wiki Contradictions and Chicken Behavior Questions

[thegamehugger]

Hello wonderful people of this beautiful form, I come bearing the ravings of a madman!

So I'm very much new to this game and had no idea panning was a thing and couldn't find copper for the life of me.  As I was looking into animal husbandry without having metal (and therefore planks) I discovered quite the goldmine of insanity:

1) On wiki page for animal husbandry (specifically, https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Animal_husbandry#Breeding) mentions that all animals need a trough to feed except hares which can eat food off the ground. "Placing the appropriate amount of dry grass or hay, grain, vegetables, or fruit mash into the proper-sized trough (or, for hares, simply dropping the food items on the ground nearby)...".  Turns out, it works for ALL animals that I tested (Hares, Boar, and Chicken).  I am still early in testing but if it worked for one food type of each animal it would probably work for all of their preferred foods.

2) I'm losing my mind over the chickens.  So, a Hen will supposedly lay an egg at some point... but what is it?  What are the exact cooldowns/restrictions? On the animal husbandry page the "days before mating" is what I assume to be laying an egg which is 0-3days.  But the chicken page of the wiki (https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Chicken#Domestication_and_Breeding) shows that "Hens will lay eggs on their own every 8-15 days..." which is blatantly wrong as in my personal testing world I had a Hen lay an egg twice on the same day.  This leads me to believe in the "days before mating" metric.  So then I did the unthinkable... I. read. code.

Now to be clear I have very shallow knowledge of coding (I can kinda do for loops in python and MAYBE edit a csv), so most of this is gibberish.  The chicken JSON file (\\Vintagestory\assets\survival\entities\animal\bird) has this "multiplybase" thingy which seems to be the egg laying process as it requires 4 portions of food to begin the multiply process with a min cooldown of 0 days to multiply and a max of 3, which is strong supporting evidence.  Then we have the "seekblockandlay" thingy with a cool down from 1-4 hours.  I assume that's the Hen's attempt at laying?  But wait.  A hen can lay an egg by herself, so what is this 'requiresNearbyEntityCode: "chicken-rooster"' part?  I see no other behaviour for laying eggs in the JSON file, so does it REQUIRE a rooster?  In other words is the cooldown of 1-4 hours invalid, or does it still count for laying an egg as there's a 'failBlockCode: "egg-chicken-1"' part?

Now assuming the cooldown question is answered, how many portions does laying an egg cost?  It would seem the Hen was capable of laying 2 eggs before refreshing her food supply, but only sometimes.  Other times she needed to replenish once, and others she lost her entire portion count from the tooltip.  I can't see anything in the code for this and I see nothing from the wiki so I'm pretty lost.

3) Is the henbox not a thing that chickens gravitate towards?  I had my hen sitting in a 3x3 hole with a henbox in the middle so she can lay her (unfertilized) eggs there, but she seems to just plop them anywhere.  I have yet to test on speed 60 as I was just trying to find the egg cooldown period, so there's a chance that at speed 9999 the hen does not have time to navigate to the henbox, but it does seem weird to me that's the case when all other behaviors (eating, breeding, and regular egg laying for example) function just fine with path finding and everything at the higher speed.

 

TLDR;

1) You can feed animals by throwing food on the ground, no trough needed necessarily

2) Chickens lay eggs weird.  I am lost in the sauce

3) Henbox miiiiiight be borked but IDK

 

 

Yes I am definitely over complicating things to find Vintage Story's best animal food source, but I must seek answers.  IN THE NAME OF OPTIMIZATION!

 

Edit 1: After doing some more testing to try and figure out how much nutrition laying eggs takes from hens, the henbox just... worked?  No questions asked, the hen will lay an egg just fine.  Just had to reload the world for some reason.  And no, still no idea how much grain a hen needs to lay an egg.  It seems pretty consistent that 1 grain/day = 1 egg, but then sometimes the portions eaten drops to nothing restarting the grain upkeep of the chicken.  (for anyone wondering, this would only add 80 satiety to a meal if you are using flax seeds to feed if it was a 1/1 ratio of grain/egg).

Edited March 30 by thegamehugger
new disoveries

[LadyWYT]

First off, welcome to the game and forums!

45 minutes ago, thegamehugger said:

I see no other behaviour for laying eggs in the JSON file, so does it REQUIRE a rooster?

Hens don't need a rooster in order to lay eggs. If you want to actually raise chickens though, you'll need a rooster to fertilize the eggs.

 

46 minutes ago, thegamehugger said:

I am still early in testing but if it worked for one food type of each animal it would probably work for all of their preferred foods.

To my knowledge, grain will attract any of the livestock animals. However, only large animals can eat from the large trough and only small animals from the small trough, so you'll need a trough of each size in order to attract/feed the animals in that area.

 

47 minutes ago, thegamehugger said:

2) I'm losing my mind over the chickens.  So, a Hen will supposedly lay an egg at some point... but what is it?  What are the exact cooldowns/restrictions?

I don't know the exact restrictions, however, I think the "Hens will lay one egg per week" thing you mentioned likely refers to how often a captured hen will lay without being fed. In my experience though, chickens won't lay eggs if you don't feed them, so if you want tasty eggs to eat then it's best to feed them at least once per day. If you want to hatch the eggs, then you'll need a rooster to fertilize the eggs and want to feed your chickens every other day or so once they start incubating the eggs.

 

50 minutes ago, thegamehugger said:

Is the henbox not a thing that chickens gravitate towards?

The hens will try to lay their eggs in henboxes when they can. However, if the henbox is too far away, or there aren't enough henboxes or space in the henboxes, they might just lay their eggs wherever is convenient. 

[thegamehugger]

Hello

49 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Hens don't need a rooster in order to lay eggs. If you want to actually raise chickens though, you'll need a rooster to fertilize the eggs.

Yeah I figured, but got confused as to why the 'seek block and lay' part had a rooster as a *requirement*.  Essentially, I was wondering if that section of the JSON requires a rooster and therefore is not a part of the egg laying requirements but instead for the breeding requirements (making the 1-4 hour delay invalid, and the 0-3 day delay more accurate).

51 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

To my knowledge, grain will attract any of the livestock animals. However, only large animals can eat from the large trough and only small animals from the small trough, so you'll need a trough of each size in order to attract/feed the animals in that area.

Oh yeah, definitely.  My issue is that I had no access to troughs and the wiki stated only Hares could eat of the ground, where every other animal required a feeding trough.  But I was just trying to get at the discovery that dropping valid food types (such as grain) will feed the respective animal and lure them for ALL valid animals.

54 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

"Hens will lay one egg per week" thing you mentioned likely refers to how often a captured hen will lay without being fed

Still early in testing, but that seems to not be the case from what I've discovered in testing.  A captured hen will not lay any eggs until fed so far from what I've been able to replicate (like how you stated as in your experience).

 

55 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The hens will try to lay their eggs in henboxes when they can

But my issue is that my hen will expressly NOT do that.  It is clear of obstruction and in the center of the hole so pathfinding should not be an issue.  My hen just kinda.   Plops the egg down wherever.  IDK, I'll have to do more testing to figure this part out.

[KahvozeinsFang]

Some rock types don't spawn copper. You may have to go pretty far to find a rock type that does. I had a world with a limestone spawn. Oh good I thought, turns out malachite which is a type of copper does spawn in limestone, but it's rare to find on the surface. I had to travel like 2000 blocks before I found a place that spawns native copper.

 

Chickens are crazy. I usually don't even bother with them, but when I have I just figured they layed eggs when I fed them. Probably best for you not to worry about them either unless you picked the hunter class because you will want those feathers for arrows. They only give you like 1 or 2 poultry meat. Not worth the effort. 

 

If you're looking for the best animal to breed for a consistent food source, it's pigs. They can have up to like 6 babies at a time I think and there is a low chance of getting another male.

 

So most of those 6 babies will be female, when they grow up each of them can have up to 6 babies so it can get out of hand very fast. But the best part is you will have excessive amounts of red meat, hides to make leather, raw fat and bones. 

Edited March 30 by KahvozeinsFang

[Zane Mordien]

11 hours ago, thegamehugger said:

So I'm very much new to this game and had no idea panning was a thing and couldn't find copper for the life of me.

The trick to copper is to find a gravel area and look for surface copper there. Surface copper is really common, but when you are new to the game it's hard to spot. The gravel areas are typicially an easy place to spot it though becuase there is no grass and fewer bushes. 

[Demoncyborg]

can confirm 100% on the animals eat off the ground part-- i've fed rotten veg and grain to my huge flocks and herds via throwing it on the ground. it counts towards portions, gens, creature weight, everything! the main advantage of using a trough is getting around the 10 minute item despawn timer.

[thegamehugger]

4 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

Surface copper is really common

I believe you.  I spooled up other worlds to try and practice cave diving and found copper lying around.  Maybe it's my area, maybe I'm blind XD
I'll keep the gravel area in mind though

 

1 hour ago, Demoncyborg said:

i've fed rotten veg and grain to my huge flocks and herds via throwing it on the ground

Oh yeah, if an animal can eat poisonous mushrooms it makes sense they can eat mostly spoiled foods as well.  This is a great way to preserve satiety on otherwise useless junk!  Ty

1 hour ago, Demoncyborg said:

the main advantage of using a trough is getting around the 10 minute item despawn timer.

Yeah, but I was under the issue of not having access to a trough (at the time I started my research to not starve).  There's no doubt the trough would be so much easier to work with though

[thegamehugger]

10 hours ago, KahvozeinsFang said:

Some rock types don't spawn copper

Sorry boss, I dunno how I didn't see you there.  Now then, excuse me?  What?  Wait how do I know which rocks spawn surface copper?  My original spawn had basalt but I moved down the mountain to a more claystone area (where I found the 4 copper bits).

 

10 hours ago, KahvozeinsFang said:

They only give you like 1 or 2 poultry meat

Well not just that, but they also give you eggs.  If each grain can become 1 egg thats +80/grain using flax grain specifically.  Then if you instead decided to feed the Hen to fatten it up (let's say 4 grain, the requirement to "multiply"... whatever that is), it would be using 4*120= 480 satiety in a meal while poultry (average 1.5/chicken according to the wiki) would give 1.5*375= 562.5 satiety in a meal.  Which still gives you about +80 satiety in a meal per grain.

 

10 hours ago, KahvozeinsFang said:

If you're looking for the best animal to breed for a consistent food source, it's pigs

Ah yeah, I was thinking pigs are pretty jacked with the whole litter size of 4 on average according to the wiki and an average drop of 9 redmeat from what I can see on the JSON file.  Issue though is how long they take to gestate, how much they eat, and just overall produce results.  I'm thinking of making a spreadsheet to calculate satiety/day/animal to try and find the best food source at this point bc idk.  This all started because I am prior to my first winter and wanted to have a consistent food source so I can avoid starving come my first harsh winter.... but considering I've been spending more time in the lab than the game I might need to rethink XD

[PoisonedPawn777]

11 minutes ago, thegamehugger said:

Sorry boss, I dunno how I didn't see you there.  Now then, excuse me?  What?  Wait how do I know which rocks spawn surface copper?  My original spawn had basalt but I moved down the mountain to a more claystone area (where I found the 4 copper bits).

Bauxite is your only issue there as ores don't spawn in bauxite. Limestone will generate malachite instead of copper, smelts into the same thing. Outside of that, deep copper can spawn anywhere as the base layers of the world will be one of andesite, granite, peridotite or basalt. Doesn't mean it is there, but it can spawn there. I find claystone to be one of the hardest to notice surface copper as the texture blends in a bit, the copper color stands out a lot more in the darker or white stones. Basalt is one of my preferred spawns.

Sidenote on the wiki, it is volunteer run and often has outdated info due to that. It's also entirely possible that what you've come across is just a longstanding bug rather than intention.

[thegamehugger]

14 minutes ago, PoisonedPawn777 said:

I find claystone to be one of the hardest to notice surface copper as the texture blends in a bit, the copper color stands out a lot more in the darker or white stones

That would help contribute to the blind theory.  Guess I'll have to go on an adventure in the future to test the theory out

15 minutes ago, PoisonedPawn777 said:

Sidenote on the wiki, it is volunteer run and often has outdated info due to that. It's also entirely possible that what you've come across is just a longstanding bug rather than intention.

Noted, that would make a lot of sense to be fair.  How would I be able to volunteer to correct some of the information (or nudge someone to do so)?

[PoisonedPawn777]

5 minutes ago, thegamehugger said:

Noted, that would make a lot of sense to be fair.  How would I be able to volunteer to correct some of the information (or nudge someone to do so)?

I believe there is a link towards the bottom of the main wiki page. I've never personally looked into it beyond that.

[thegamehugger]

1 minute ago, PoisonedPawn777 said:

I believe there is a link towards the bottom of the main wiki page. I've never personally looked into it beyond that.

Might be blind, but I'll look into it, ty