First world rancher issue: vomit is too punishing

[CalliopeSoups]

There's a massive roadblock I've hit with ranching on classic, as one of the few people that makes a stink about it.



A LOT of the best chicken breeds come from brown hens, which you get by making white hens super happy. It's one of the few breeds that need happiness to evolve. The way you raise happiness super quickly is petting a bunch, feeding with rice three times when they're born and twice each time you feed them after that, even better if drugs are in the feed. The paradox is that if you're trying to get brown hens ASAP you'll more often cause your hen to not evolve until well into 20 to 30 minutes cause overfeeding them is so easy. Keeping track of the invisible hunger timer is harder than you'd expect especially when you're already micromanaging things. 




To summerise I think considering the classic timeframe and the invisible nature of the chicken's hunger, overfeeding is a bit too punishing. (If only because brown hens are so crucial to some of the best birds.) Classic rounds end early very often for every reason legitimate to silly so the added consistency would be a help.



Interested if others think this is even a problem and how you'd fix it. If I was to change things I'd maybe just add an emote widget that indicates when they're hungry again after feeding, could use the stomach full status sprite.

[crunchwarp]

One thing you can do is put some feed on the ground (I usually just do one bit per chicken so you can tell when it's gone more easily) and then wait for the chick to eat off the ground again before handfeeding. If you do it this way you'll never overfeed. Also, putting regex on "the feed!" will highlight when they eat off the ground but not other feed-related messages.

I haven't really ever tried feeding more frequently than that, though I know you can sometimes double feed a bit earlier than the ~2 minutes (I've never timed it exactly) in between ground eating without getting a vomit. It would be interesting to know how much time you can shave off that way. Perhaps experimentation is in order...

[Lord_earthfire]

To be honest, i dont overfeed them. 3 times feed when they hatch, 2 times any feed when they become hens and just petting a lot. And handfeeding 2 times each tine they eat on their own, like crunchwarp said.

For brown chickens, there is absolutely no need for rice or drugs in feed. Petting and hand feeding is fully sufficient to achieve enough happyness to make them lay brown eggs on their first egg cycle (around 10 - 12 minute into the shift).

[CalliopeSoups]

Thanks for the tips, I'll try to put them to use! Ranching is war

[Silent Majority]

labeling the chickens can also help sort who is feeding off the ground.