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CoL - chicken coop
Simmerville
Posts: 11,673 Member
My sim has just 1 hen and 1 rooster in the coop, and already the next morning there was 1 egg. He collected it, then I noticed it was hathcable, and now I don't figure how to have it hatch? He put it back into the coop, but now there is no longer any eggs showing in the coop info.
Did I bork my first chicken, or will the egg simply be invisible until it hatches? I found no specific options on what exactly to do.
Love the pack so far, but mostly adjusted lots and households, though. Typically, is's early Winter in my save, so I won't get busy farming quite yet.
Added: I found that egg visible inside the coop object, so it's not lost, it was just not showing in the popup that the coop includes an egg. Guess I was just too eager...
Related question: Can both normal and hatchable eggs be placed in fridge for eating later? Or should I rather sell hatchable eggs unless I want more chickens?
Added 2: When chicken wander off the lot, which is super cool, are roosters and hens safe and only small chickens in danger to be hunted? Or might the fox also take adult birds?
Did I bork my first chicken, or will the egg simply be invisible until it hatches? I found no specific options on what exactly to do.
Love the pack so far, but mostly adjusted lots and households, though. Typically, is's early Winter in my save, so I won't get busy farming quite yet.
Added: I found that egg visible inside the coop object, so it's not lost, it was just not showing in the popup that the coop includes an egg. Guess I was just too eager...
Related question: Can both normal and hatchable eggs be placed in fridge for eating later? Or should I rather sell hatchable eggs unless I want more chickens?
Added 2: When chicken wander off the lot, which is super cool, are roosters and hens safe and only small chickens in danger to be hunted? Or might the fox also take adult birds?
Post edited by Simmerville on
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I've played a lot with the Coop and am up to my third generation of chickens, all from the first rooster and hen. You can't avoid putting the eggs in your Sim's inventory because they have to "Collect Eggs" each day. However, you should have the option to click on any hatchable eggs and "Incubate in Coop." Once in the coop, there will be a timer on the egg which counts down until the time of hatching. When the egg is ready to hatch you will get a message and you can click on the coop itself and select "Hatch." Then your selected sim will go to the coop, take the egg in his or her hands and it will hatch right into them.
It also seems fine to store them in the fridge (which I was doing because I started to get a lot of hatchable eggs with 4 roosters and 4 hens) since they are never used as ingredients in any recipes. I also discovered that you can sell any unwanted hatchable eggs at the Grocery Stall. I've been selling the normal ones and keeping the excellent ones.
Your issue of the egg being in the coop but not being interactable or visible in any way might be related to an occasional apparent bug I've been having with the coop. Twice I have sent hens into the coop to sit on the hatchable eggs (which they do automatically) only to have them sort of disappear from the coop. Then a few hours later I would get the message that they were unhappy. On my trying to call them out again, they were not available for selection and were nowhere visible outside either.
However, when something has gone wrong with my coops I find quickly going to "Manage Worlds" and then back into the household seems to reset it. Once I've done that the game seems to be able to see them again, and they can be called out and interacted with. Invariably they are Filthy, Unhappy and Starving when they come out and the Coop is dirty as well, even if I had just had my sims clean it before. (Luckily this is easily fixed by hand feeding the chicken in question and immediately cleaning the coop). As near as I can tell, sometimes chickens (and maybe eggs) get stuck inside the coop and sort of disappear from its menu. Resetting the coop by shift clicking on it with testingcheatsenabled on has no effect but going to the Manage Worlds neighbourhood screen seems to restore it to normal for me.
I've seen foxes attack fully grown chickens in my game. Both times I was lucky and the rooster was able to fight off the fox in question (who skulked away with an amusing-looking animation). My sims keep their chickens pretty happy and with the hunger and social needs filled, though, and so these chickens were well into the green when they fought off the foxes. I think an unhappy or hungry chicken might be vulnerable to death by fox. I usually have my sims shoo them away if I see them anywhere near my lot, especially if I have any elder chickens. As for wandering, I don't let my chickens wander very far; I keep them fenced all the time. There is an option on the Coop "Call in Roaming Chickens" which makes me think it is not difficult to retrieve them if they do wander far afield or into the town.
My coop just produced a top quality *blue* egg. It says it will spoil in so and so hours, but I have no idea what to do with it. It's non-hatchable, so I keep it in my sim's inventory, but because it spoils I might add it to the fridge. Why blue? are there more colors, and where can I find info on what each color/version does?
Hm, bummer then. My blue egg will go bad long before I manage to unlock any recipe. I guess I'll just try selling it to the grocery or garden stall.
Btw: You gave me a new idea, could we actually produce certain chickens and sell those to other households? Hm. Two farms could focus on different qualities - like in good or evil, or perhaps colors as there are 3 versions (no idea if eggs from black hens are different than those from white or brown hens, but I might be tempted to test it.
I store all my non-hatchable eggs in the fridge until I am ready to sell them as they spoil fairly quickly but keep for days in the fridge. Blue (and all the coloured eggs) are ingredients in some treats and/or recipes (I haven't made very many of the treats yet so I can't tell you which ones) and can also be given to the villagers in response to certain quests.
My sim also found a bunch of coloured eggs, including a rainbow egg, using the "Hunt Egg" interaction during the Easter Holiday (from Seasons). I think this is a bug. I ended up selling all my coloured eggs at the grocery stall (where there is I believe a 10% markup over the normal selling price) because I want my sim to find them in the normal ways, by chance or through treats.
As for finding out what the coloured or special eggs do and what the exact make up of the treats will be, or what ingredients are required by the new recipes, Carl from Carl's Sims 4 Guides usually does a guide for new elements so I imagine he will do one for treats when he has time. He will probably also add the new plants to his harvestable guide, and the new recipes to his recipe guide once he gets around to it.
Sims Community may already have their own guide up too (I haven't checked), and eventually Sims VIP will do a very comprehensive guide to all the features. I imagine these sites are still doing their own testing etc but will soon have everything up. Reading the forums is a good way to find out information on gameplay and features as well, although I don't know if anyone has posted about the features and ingredients of all the treats yet.
I've played around a bit more, not focusing on those treats (saving that for later) as I'm working on finding good routines for my farmers, rather than winning contests etc. But I read there are special chickens too, so maybe treats will be good for more than keeping a happy stock and winning prizes. The golden hen seems interesting
Right now I'm getting a chicken farm established. They have 4 coops, and I put black/brown/white in one coop each, not sure why but I felt it might be easier if 3 household members tend to one coop each, and knowing their color will make it quicker to tend to them. I gave the birds names starting with their color first letter; Brown: Bligh, Bella and Beauti-Lill. White: Wiggo, Wendy and Wilma. Black: Nick-Nack, Norma and Nettie (N for Noir as B was already taken, LOL). I think 3 x 8 birds will be hefty, but the household counts 5 sims, so I'm giving it a try. They don't have other farm animals, and grows only a bit produce for their own consume.
The 4th coop might be used later for special cases, but for now I just place hatchable eggs in there. I wonder if eggs/chickens are at more risk without any adult birds in that coop, but I assume the foxes will go for the eggs no matter what birds are assigned to that specific coop.
Have only 6 hens yet. I was surprised to collect 15(?) eggs the first morning, was expecting 1 per hen. Playing rotationally, I appreciate that they are productive. If I fill 3 coops eventually, that might make 3x7x2 = 42 eggs per day, if they are all happy of course. I was curious to find if the 3 roosters would argue a bit (I think they are rivals in RL?) but as they reign in separate coops, there is no fuss at all this far.
This is so much fun, I hardly find time sleeping, LOL.