Feeding animals outside.

[jameskuyper]

I've learned of the technique of placing an object on top of a grass tile to prevent it from being eaten, while allowing it to spread, and letting the animals eat up the part that spreads. What I haven't been able to find is any hard figures on how many of these I need to set up in order to feed a given number of animals. Just to be specific, if I have a Deluxe Coop filled with 12 chickens, how many do I need to keep them fed on sunny non-Winter days?

I've also learned that Ducks will swim on accessible water, and can feed from it, rather than consuming Grass or Hay. How much water is needed? For instance, how many Ducks can remain well-fed using only one of the mini-ponds in three of the four corners of the Four-Corner map?

I could test to find out, but I don't have a lot of spare time to spend on such testing. if somebody has already found out, I would prefer to not duplicate their efforts.

 

[Ereo]

Ducks will not feed of the water unless it’s on the riverland or beach farm. They will swim on other farms, but it’s purely decorative. Whether they will find water seems very random to me so wouldn’t want to rely on that for feeding them. You also need to pet them before they even attempt to swim.

the wiki has some numbers on grass propagation probabilities but I can’t find the info on how much the animals eat.

 

[MogBeoulve]

The wiki is giving a 65% chance that a tile of fully grown grass will try to generate more grass. If that check succeeds, then the four adjacent tiles each have a 25% chance to grow some tufts of grass (not a full tile of ready to eat grass - so I believe it takes more than a day to become ready for eating). I cannot put together the math that neatly expresses how the chances play out, but I suspect you'll need a LOT of protected grass tiles. If all the growth checks fail, even one tile per animal may not be enough, since you aren't guaranteed to get more growth. So I don't rely exclusively on the regrowth strategy to keep my animals fed.

What I do is grow lots of fiber, then turn that into grass starter and plant it a couple times a month. I put down garden pots on untillable soil to grow the fiber, so this operation doesn't interfere with using farmable land for more profitable crops.

 

[jameskuyper]

It didn't strike me as plausible that the Riverland and Beach farms would be treated as special cases, even though those are the only two mentioned in the Wiki. I suspected that it was actually the fact that there were rivers going through those farms that was the key factor, and the fact that the Hill-top farm wasn't included was due to an oversight. Of course, the guy who programmed this game had some very weird ideas, so it was possible, but I decided to put it to the test.
On the Hilltop Farm, I built a Big Coop near the north bank of the river. I didn't want to use a Deluxe Coop, because the auto-feeder would make it difficult for me to tell how much hay the Ducks were eating. I left one land tile in from of the door for humans, so I could get in and out, and one in front of the animal door. Later on, I found out that the tile in front of the animal door was mandatory - while Ducks will swim in the water, they won't jump directly from a Coop into the water. I filled it with baby ducks. I put in fences with gates, so they had to go into the water in order to go anywhere other than those two tiles of land. When I opened the animal door, all of the baby ducks immediately ran out the door, jumped into the river, swam to the other side and started eating Grass there, thereby invalidating my test.
I added fences along both banks of the entire river, blocking access to all of the Grass on my farm, and quickly confirmed that the ducks stopped eating the hay that I put out, yet still were happy and healthy enough that, when they reached maturity, they started laying eggs regularly. I conclude that they were feeding themselves entirely from the water. However, they seem to prefer Grass if it's available.
I then moved the Coop over to the north side of the pond south of the Hilltop Quarry, and completely surrounded the pond with fences. With free access to Hay, and no access to Grass, they left the Hay untouched, and continued laying eggs regularly. Therefore, they must have been feeding exclusively off the water.
I moved the coop so it faced a fenced barnyard containing one protected grass starter. I checked each day, and if they ate any Hay, i added another protected grass starter. By the time I added my tenth protected Grass Starter, they weren't eating any Hay, and were still laying Eggs regularly. Therefore, 10 protected starters is sufficient to keep 8 ducks fed.
My next test will be on the 4 Corners Farm. I will try to see if I can feed my Ducks from one of the tiny ponds on that map. If so, I'm going to try to figure out how many one tiny pond can support. I won't be surprised if it's an unlimited, but if there is a limit, I hope to find out what it is.

 

[Aspen Way Dragons]

The problem I have with feeding my animals is they eat it too fast. I have two areas with gates so one can be open, for feeding, and one closed to grow. The only problem is when I have a certain one open, none of the animals in my barns go over there and eat it. I could experiment and find out why, but I'm too busy trying to get 1000000

 

[Moss Goblin]

It didn't strike me as plausible that the Riverland and Beach farms would be treated as special cases, even though those are the only two mentioned in the Wiki. I suspected that it was actually the fact that there were rivers going through those farms that was the key factor, and the fact that the Hill-top farm wasn't included was due to an oversight. Of course, the guy who programmed this game had some very weird ideas, so it was possible, but I decided to put it to the test.
On the Hilltop Farm, I built a Big Coop near the north bank of the river. I didn't want to use a Deluxe Coop, because the auto-feeder would make it difficult for me to tell how much hay the Ducks were eating. I left one land tile in from of the door for humans, so I could get in and out, and one in front of the animal door. Later on, I found out that the tile in front of the animal door was mandatory - while Ducks will swim in the water, they won't jump directly from a Coop into the water. I filled it with baby ducks. I put in fences with gates, so they had to go into the water in order to go anywhere other than those two tiles of land. When I opened the animal door, all of the baby ducks immediately ran out the door, jumped into the river, swam to the other side and started eating Grass there, thereby invalidating my test.
I added fences along both banks of the entire river, blocking access to all of the Grass on my farm, and quickly confirmed that the ducks stopped eating the hay that I put out, yet still were happy and healthy enough that, when they reached maturity, they started laying eggs regularly. I conclude that they were feeding themselves entirely from the water. However, they seem to prefer Grass if it's available.
I then moved the Coop over to the north side of the pond south of the Hilltop Quarry, and completely surrounded the pond with fences. With free access to Hay, and no access to Grass, they left the Hay untouched, and continued laying eggs regularly. Therefore, they must have been feeding exclusively off the water.
I moved the coop so it faced a fenced barnyard containing one protected grass starter. I checked each day, and if they ate any Hay, i added another protected grass starter. By the time I added my tenth protected Grass Starter, they weren't eating any Hay, and were still laying Eggs regularly. Therefore, 10 protected starters is sufficient to keep 8 ducks fed.
My next test will be on the 4 Corners Farm. I will try to see if I can feed my Ducks from one of the tiny ponds on that map. If so, I'm going to try to figure out how many one tiny pond can support. I won't be surprised if it's an unlimited, but if there is a limit, I hope to find out what it is.

i found your comments in this thread so interesting that i decided to replace my chickens with ducks, move the coop and the fencing to include a pond, remove all grass, and see if the ducks would just feed on the water. my ducks are in a deluxe coop with the autofeeder (beach farm) and i thiiink they're eating hay; maybe that's what happens when the autofeeder is available? it's only been one in-game day, but i'm having fun, so.

i'm going to start taking screenshots of the amount of hay in the silo each day and report back in case i'm misremembering how much hay was in there. the last day i played was rainy and the next day was forecasted to be rainy as well, which is why i didn't just play an extra couple minutes to find the answer tonight.

why? honestly, i just love ducks

 

[jameskuyper]

I've completed my test with the Four Corners farm. I built my Coops near the the pond in the NW corner of the farm, which has an area of only 4 tiles, one of the smallest bodies of water on any of the farm maps. I used fences to ensure that they pond was the only source of food they had access to. I tested with up to 16 ducks from two Big Coops, and only about eight of them were able to feed off the pond - the rest relied upon hay. They gained hearts normally, and occasionally produced Duck Feathers as well as Eggs. The ones who didn't get enough food were disproportionately from the Coop that was farther away from the pond. I don't know if it was a matter of first-come, first-served, or whether they had more trouble finding the pond. Anyway, I'm tentatively assuming a carrying capacity of two ducks per pond tile. I'm not sufficiently interested to see if that relationship holds up with a larger pond, but someone else could test it if they wish. The next biggest size pond appears to be the eight-tile pond on the Beach farm.

 

[Moss Goblin]

I've completed my test with the Four Corners farm. I built my Coops near the the pond in the NW corner of the farm, which has an area of only 4 tiles, one of the smallest bodies of water on any of the farm maps. I used fences to ensure that they pond was the only source of food they had access to. I tested with up to 16 ducks from two Big Coops, and only about eight of them were able to feed off the pond - the rest relied upon hay. They gained hearts normally, and occasionally produced Duck Feathers as well as Eggs. The ones who didn't get enough food were disproportionately from the Coop that was farther away from the pond. I don't know if it was a matter of first-come, first-served, or whether they had more trouble finding the pond. Anyway, I'm tentatively assuming a carrying capacity of two ducks per pond tile. I'm not sufficiently interested to see if that relationship holds up with a larger pond, but someone else could test it if they wish. The next biggest size pond appears to be the eight-tile pond on the Beach farm.

i have the beach farm and 5 ducks in a deluxe coop fenced in without grass and with the 23-tile pond fully enclosed. half of my ducks eat hay from the autofeeder every day; hay in silo goes down by 2 or 3 on sunny days. they're all happy and laying well, so no issues there. i think it's just 50/50 whether a duck will feed on water or hay if you have the autofeeder. no idea what would happen if there were no hay available tho. i'm going to obtain more ducks and see whether they continue to eat half as much hay as there are ducks.

 

[Moss Goblin]

i'm finally back with more info! i obtained a couple more ducks since last time. these numbers concern 7 happy adult ducks in a relatively small pen. no access to grass, but access to the autofeeder and the small pond in the middle of the beach farm.

on consecutive sunny days in the summer, my 7 ducks ate this much hay per day: 6,7,4,7,7,7,3,5,4. which i think is an average of 5.5 hay per day.

i think it might be tied to daily luck? or maybe i now have too many ducks per tile of pond. it might be about the same as when i had 5 ducks; i didn't test that for as many days, just 3 or 4.

part of why this took me so long is that i forgot to check my duck's moods while petting them AND i was doing a skull cavern run, so i didn't go into their coop and notice that their feeding bench was empty! they ran out of hay and the pond was evidently not enough to keep them happy because after some time (probably a few in-game days? or a week?) they had scribbles over their heads instead of hearts when i petted them. i refilled the silos and waited until the ducks were all happy again before i started keeping track of their hay consumption.

i might see if having all the ducks at max hearts makes any difference here...