The Ranchers Animal Guide: Chickens, Step by Step
Answer first
Bought chickens wait in the fenced field behind the seller Angela's house — grab them there and load the car boot. Feed hay via the trough inside the coop. Buy the coop heater/AC from Angela (the City Hall decoration version does nothing) and mount it on the outside wall. Sick bird → vet. Spare roosters can't be sold alive — dispatch and sell the meat.
Getting your chickens home
Quick answer: after you buy chickens, they are not in your backpack or truck — they appear in the small fenced field behind Angela's house (Angela is the chicken seller). Walk there, grab each bird, and either load them into your car's boot or carry them home one by one on foot. Multiple player reports.
Every documented "Chicken coop mission" stuck report here came from missing the post-purchase prompt: those players never thought to look behind the seller's house. That does not rule out other mission bugs. If the field is empty or the objective still will not advance, record your build and quest screen. Angela is also the correct vendor for the coop heater and AC unit (see below).
Feeding chickens: hay & water
Quick answer: chickens eat hay. Fill the trough inside the coop — animals eat and drink once automatically each morning, which covers the whole day. Official reply.
- Only the interior trough matters. Chickens eat and drink inside before heading out in the morning; with the door open you do not need to fill an outside trough. Official reply.
- Top up by hand: hold hay and walk up to an animal to raise its food reserve directly. (Water reserves do not work this way — water comes from troughs.) Single player report, mechanism confirmed in the same official thread.
- Getting hay: wild grass produces hay at any growth stage — no need to wait for it to mature. Officially documented (pre-EA update notes; matches current-build behavior reported by players).
Heater, sickness & the vet
Quick answer: buy the coop/barn heater and AC from Angela (the chicken seller) — the home-decoration heater and AC sold at City Hall do not work for coops and barns. Mount them on the outside of the coop wall. They prevent temperature sickness but never cure it — a sick animal goes to the vet. Official reply + multiple player reports.
- Wrong heater is the #1 beginner trap. Support confirmed that many sick-animal reports come from players who installed the house-decoration version. If your chickens keep getting sick with a heater "installed," check which one you bought. Official reply.
- Placement: the coop/barn unit goes on the exterior wall of the building. Multiple player reports.
- The vet only treats actual sickness. A famished (starving) animal is turned away — feed it at the coop and it recovers by the next morning. Single player report.
- Vet fee: unknown. No player has posted a number yet; expect a charge and keep a small reserve.
- There is no sickness notification in the current build — check your animals manually each day.
Eggs & large eggs
Quick answer: once chickens are adult and every need and happiness bar is full, they start laying. Egg size (S/M/L) and fertility are random rolls; large eggs are the rarest and additionally need the flock to roam in an enclosed outdoor area. Official reply.
- Check fertility by hovering over an egg — the tooltip shows whether it is fertile. Official reply.
- Large eggs = full needs + enclosed outdoor roaming. An open fence or a missing need blocks them. Official reply.
- Pet your chickens daily. Raising their rating noticeably increases large-egg output in player experience; expect several batches before the first large egg. Player reports, direction consistent across sources.
Farming large eggs is the core of the Gigi quest — see the Gigi large-egg quest walkthrough for the full hand-in route.
Automating the coop: silo, water tower, feeder
Quick answer: a fully automatic coop needs four pieces working together — an Auto-Feeding Kit on the coop, a Silo loaded with hay, a Water Tower, and a signed water contract — plus the trough set to the right food. If it works, the trough switch shows a green light. Official reply.
- Install the Auto-Feeding Kit on the coop or barn.
- Build a Silo within the feeder's range and load it with hay. Hover buildings with the hammer equipped to see what is linked to what.
- Build a Water Tower — note its link radius is much smaller than the Silo's, so place it closer.
- Sign the water contract with the Mayor at City Hall first (map). Without it the Water Tower never fills; with it, filling is automatic. This is the step most "auto feeder doesn't work" reports are missing. Official reply + player confirmation.
- Set the trough inside the coop to the correct food/water type and flip the switch — a green light means the setup is live.
The Air Conditioning Kit (prevents illness through winter/summer temperature control) follows the same linkage logic. Kit prices and exact ranges are not published; verify placement with the hammer view in your own save. More detail: barn automation in the animal database.
Chickens disappearing or not eating: the checklist
- Fixed in 0.8.10.562 · Official Animals disappearing when entering a barn or coop at night.
- Fixed in 0.8.10.562 · Official Chicks disappearing while progressing to their next growth stage.
- Fixed in 0.8.10.562 · Official Chicks stuck inside the coop after growing up.
- Fixed in 0.8.10.562 · Official Newborn mammals failing to appear inside the barn or coop.
- Fixed in 0.8.10.562 · Official Animals failing to appear after loading a save.
- Fixed in 0.8.10.562 · Official Animals stuck between a barn/coop and its doors, appearing lost.
- Fixed in 0.8.10.562 · Official Roped animals freezing after subway travel, or stuck outside the Veterinary Clinic.
Still disappearing on 0.8.10.842 or later? Then work this list. Steam normally updates automatically; only check the title-screen version if the problem still occurs.
- Confirm the exact version. A reproduction on 0.8.10.455 or earlier is historical. A 0.8.10.842+ reproduction is useful current evidence.
- Is the coop actually linked? Walk up to the door: the dark panel should show a counter like 0/6 or 3/6. No counter means the animals are not linked to that coop. Official reply.
- Is the yard fenced? An open gate plus an unfenced entrance area means chickens simply wander off. Multiple player reports.
- Did you install the right heater? Missing (or decoration-version) heating/cooling kills birds to temperature stress. Multiple player reports + official reply.
- Record the transition. Note whether it happened at night entry, growth, birth, loading, subway travel, or a doorway — those are the exact paths named in the official patch.
Historical workaround, not current advice: before 0.8.10.562, players sometimes recovered a bird stuck at the coop door by moving the other chickens out and demolishing the coop; one report also said a reload restored a vanished bird. Do not demolish a current coop before confirming the new build still reproduces the issue.
If a bird still vanishes on 0.8.10.842 or later, note the coop counter (x/6), door/fence state, care state and exact transition, then send in your case with the version and screenshots.
Selling animals & making a profit
Quick answer: you cannot sell live animals — there is no sale option in the current build. The officially recommended way to cash out spare birds (extra roosters, excess chicks) is to dispatch them and sell the meat. Official reply.
- Put the chicken on the ground first. Tools do nothing while you carry the animal — that is intended, not a bug. An axe or pickaxe works and is "cheaper than bullets," per support. Official reply.
- Sell the meat through the normal sale routes — see the CashIn chest walkthrough for how settlement works.
- How much? In the "Livestock profit" discussion, one detailed player report prices a mature (10+ day) Legendary chicken at roughly 24,000C of meat products, while another reports 5,000+ for an ordinary mature bird. Each figure is a single-player report — use them only as rough scale references. The more reliable direction is that meat usually earns more than eggs.
Goats, cows and bunnies
The official Steam store page names chickens, bunnies, goats and cows as ranch animals. Pre-EA update notes additionally document species-specific diets, pregnancy for mammals, egg hatching for egg-laying species, an animal sickness mechanic, and outdoor raising without a barn (with long-term consequences) Officially documented pre-EA; current-build behavior not independently rechecked.
What those species eat, cost and produce per cycle in the current build is still being measured — no numbers are published here until they are observed. Reported purchase prices and pending fields live in the animal database. If you are testing a non-chicken species, run the same chain as above: housing, interior trough, correct heater, one full care cycle, then scale.
Animal care FAQ
I bought chickens but they're not in my inventory. Where are they?
In the small fenced field behind the chicken seller Angela's house. Grab them there and load them into your car boot, or carry them home on foot. Every documented case here came from missing the post-purchase prompt, but that does not rule out other mission bugs.
My chickens keep getting sick even though I installed a heater. Why?
You probably bought the home-decoration heater from City Hall — it does not work for coops. Buy the coop/barn heater (and AC) from Angela and mount it on the coop's outside wall. Heaters prevent temperature sickness but never cure it: an already sick animal needs the vet.
Do I need to feed my chickens every day by hand?
No. Keep the interior coop trough filled and animals eat and drink automatically once each morning. Hand-feeding hay is only a way to top up an individual animal's food reserve.
How do I get large eggs?
Adult chickens with every need and happiness bar full, plus access to an enclosed outdoor area, have a random chance at large eggs — the rarest size. Pet them daily to raise their rating and improve your odds; expect several normal batches first.
Can I sell my extra roosters?
Not alive — live-animal selling is not in the game. The officially recommended route is to dispatch spare birds (put them on the ground first, then use an axe or pickaxe) and sell the meat, which players report earns far more than eggs.
Sources
- Official hotfix 0.8.10.562 announcement — fixes for night entry, chick growth, newborn spawning, load-time appearance, door gaps and roped-animal travel (August 10, 2026).
- Steam discussion: "Chicken coop mission" — chickens spawn behind the seller's house, car boot transport (Aug 2026).
- Steam discussion board — official support answers (moderator Jennoula) on chicken feed, interior troughs, heater vs. decoration versions, egg size/fertility RNG, enclosed-roaming large eggs, the auto-feeding chain and the water-contract requirement, and dispatching excess birds (Aug 2026).
- Steam discussion: "Livestock profit" — chicken meat and egg returns reported by Numinex and BeBeForever16; each exact figure remains single-source.
- Steam discussion: "A temp chicken issue fix!" — coop-door delivery bug and the walk-inside deposit workaround (Aug 4, 2026).
- Official Steam news — pre-EA Ranching v2 notes (hay from wild grass at any growth stage; automation kits) and the Steam store page for the confirmed roster.
Related guides
- Animal Database — reported prices, automation kits and pending evidence fields.
- Gigi Large Egg Quest — the two-large-egg quest built on the care rules above.
- Money-Making Guide — how the CashIn chest turns harvests and meat into settlement income.
- Farming & Fields Guide — the crop side of the ranch economy: watering, seasons and the fertilizer warning.
- Beginner's Guide — your first week, before the barn.
- Profit Calculator — break-even math for your own in-game prices.