Feeding livestock in Adventure

Give feed by hand

In Adventure, stand beside an owned animal, including diagonally, and choose Feed. A successful feed spends one item and one turn. It resets hunger, raises happiness and starts a fresh 100-turn feeding interval. Hay Bale gives 5 happiness, Grain gives 6, Herb Mix gives 7 and Premium Feed gives 10. Happiness stops at 100. If the selected feed is unavailable or protected, the game tries Premium Feed, Herb Mix, Grain, then Hay Bale. Protect prevents manual spending. Retain allows it.

Fill a trough

One feed item adds 10 meals when you fill a trough yourself. Animals use the nearest nonempty trough within 8 horizontal and vertical steps in total. Each feeding check uses one meal. The latest fill changes the feed type for all meals remaining in the trough. Repeated manual fills can exceed 10 meals. A successful Fill action takes a turn. A refused context-menu fill does not. Bumping a trough takes a turn even when no feed is added.

Grazing and feeding checks

An animal that finds no trough meal can graze for free when standing on grass, tall grass or flowers. Grass on a neighbouring tile does not feed it. Each ordinary animal checks for food after at least 100 turns since its last check. These checks run in the overworld while the herd exists. A new animal starts its clock on its first world check. After time away, one delayed hungry check adds at most 300 hunger turns. Hand-feeding moves the clock to the current turn.

Happiness, shelter and healing

A trough meal or grazing adds 2 happiness, plus the feed bonus. A hungry check removes 5. Rain, heat haze and ash fall remove 1 more happiness. Heavy rain and snow remove 2, light snow removes 1, thunderstorms and sandstorms remove 3, and blizzards remove 4. A Barn within 3 tiles, including diagonals, prevents this weather loss. A successful feeding check also restores 2% of maximum health rounded down, with a minimum of 1 HP and a maximum of full health. Every current livestock species recovers 1 HP at its normal maximum health. Giving feed by hand starts the clock and does not heal immediately.

Hunger and produce

At 100 accumulated hungry turns the animal gives a hunger warning. At 500 it cannot be milked, sheared for wool or have eggs collected. Crossing 800 removes 5 HP, with a floor of 1. Reaching 1,000 kills it. A delayed check can skip a warning. Feeding resets accumulated hunger to zero. Milk, egg, wool and silk timers still count down on each overworld livestock turn. Better feed does not shorten these timers.

Milk quality and other yields

Milk quality is happiness divided by 100, multiplied by the feed factor, plus the species quality bonus. Quality stops at 1. The factors are 1 for Hay Bale or grazing, 1.1 for Grain, 1.15 for Herb Mix and 1.25 for Premium Feed. Milk quantity is base yield times quality, rounded to the nearest whole number, with a minimum of 1. A milking stool also multiplies quantity by 1.5 and adds 0.1 to the collected milk quality, up to 1. The stool quality bonus does not enter that quantity calculation. Eggs, wool and silk use happiness directly, with a half-yield floor before rounding and a minimum of 1. Their quantities do not use the feed factor.

Silk Weaver and Hoarfrost Spider

Silk Weavers and Hoarfrost Spiders need hand-feeding. They skip troughs, grazing, automatic hunger loss, weather happiness loss and starvation. Hand-feeding raises happiness and marks them fed. Once fed, they can recover health on their own 100-turn check without another meal. Their fed state is not cleared by the ordinary world feeding checks. Both current species have a base silk yield of 1, so feeding does not increase the collected quantity above 1.

Hire a farmhand

Speak to a herder and choose Hire Farmhand for 200 gold. The service is anchored where you are standing when hired. It can fill troughs and use feed in chests within 25 tiles of that home point, including diagonals. It aims for 10 meals in each trough. Each item adds one meal on this route. Hay Bale is used first, then Grain, Herb Mix and Premium Feed. A mixed top-up gives all remaining meals the last feed type spent. Protected feed in these chests can still be spent. Supplies in other storage layouts are not automatically included.

Farmhand timing and wages

Farmhand work happens before the animals eat, so a newly filled trough can feed the herd on the same turn. The service runs when an ordinary animal is due a feeding check, or on a 100-turn boundary, within the overworld livestock pass. At that check, a wage of 5 gold is due once at least 500 turns have passed since the last wage. If you cannot pay, the farmhand leaves after that top-up attempt. No herd means this pass does not run. A demolished trough is ignored even if an old food count remains.

Get more feed

Herders sell Hay Bale. You can also cut tall grass with a scythe for Fresh Grass. Deposit it on a Drying Rack and collect one Hay Bale per slot after 300 turns. A rack has 3 slots. Farmers can sell Grain, and higher-tier herders also carry it. Herb Mix needs 2 Wild Thyme and 2 Meadow Blossom. Premium Feed needs 1 Grain, 1 Herb Mix and 5 gold. Both feed crafts start known. Herders can also offer Premium Feed. The exact shop shelf can vary by settlement and stock.