I found my keeper was overfeeding my gorillas whenever I had a group size above 4. In retrospect it could have been that one of my feeders was under cover so the animals wouldn't use it properly (an issue I've noticed with my tigers), but in that case the animals should have starved. I had 81k rank 1 food costs per year for one Gorilla pen (5 adults, 4 babies).
Animal feed cost explosion
- Thread starter Vigilante
- Start date
In beta the donation boxes never reset visually so you saw the total donations from year 0. In release they reset each year so when you click on them you only see the donations in that current year.
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Ok so I wanted to start digging into this a bit, see if I could find where things where going wrong. What wasn't adding up.
So first, let's look at my total food costs last year as reported by the finances tab: $58,757.55
That is with 71 animals, across 13 species, and 14 Habitats
Now let's look at the reported "Last year food costs" for each habitat:
ASIA
Chinese Pangolins: $725.96
Komodo Dragons: $2,037.59
Red Pandas: $1,803.52
Gharials: $8,880.00
Bengal Tigers: $1,750.20
Bengal Breeding: $11,760.98 (red flag, this shouldn't be much different then the other Bengal habitat)
Snow Leopards: $1,634.97
Himalayan Brown Bears: $3,059.98
AFRICA
African Plains: $1,440.00
Aardvarks: $250.20
Western Lowland Gorillas: $13,613.37 (Ok that seems high compared to others, but might be normal for gorillas. I don't have a second one to compare with)
West African Lions: $5,900.39
West African Lions 2: $5,900.39 (yes identical)
WL Albino Breeding: $0 (just added this year)
TOTAL FOOD COST: $58,757.55
Ok so the total listed in finances DOES check out against the total from each habitat so that's good.
For me my prices do fluctuate up and down each year, sometimes as much as nearly 50% but I also have a fluctuating animal count due to breeding and selling/releasing.
The Bengal Breeding habitat's food costs are a huge red flag to me though. While that habitat is labeled as breeding, both habitats really are pretty much the same as far as births and sales. There isn't necessarily way more tigers in the one over the other. Furthermore, interestingly, "Bengal Breeding" was originally out of guest view and was made very minimal with only a single enrichment feeder, the blood pumpkin, where as "Bengal Tigers" has a Blood Pumpkin, a restraint feeder, and a large tray. "Bengal Breeding" doesn't even have a food tray. So if either one was going to have a higher food costs I would expect it to be "Bengal Tigers" NOT "Bengal Breeding". Unless maybe there is a bug with food dropped on the ground? Hmm.. Let me try putting some trays in "Bengal Breeding" and see what happens.
Also not sure about the Western Lowland Gorilla habitat. Yes its very high compared to most every other one. That said, it is also grade 3 food and has 3 adults and 3 children.
So first, let's look at my total food costs last year as reported by the finances tab: $58,757.55
That is with 71 animals, across 13 species, and 14 Habitats
Now let's look at the reported "Last year food costs" for each habitat:
ASIA
Chinese Pangolins: $725.96
Komodo Dragons: $2,037.59
Red Pandas: $1,803.52
Gharials: $8,880.00
Bengal Tigers: $1,750.20
Bengal Breeding: $11,760.98 (red flag, this shouldn't be much different then the other Bengal habitat)
Snow Leopards: $1,634.97
Himalayan Brown Bears: $3,059.98
AFRICA
African Plains: $1,440.00
Aardvarks: $250.20
Western Lowland Gorillas: $13,613.37 (Ok that seems high compared to others, but might be normal for gorillas. I don't have a second one to compare with)
West African Lions: $5,900.39
West African Lions 2: $5,900.39 (yes identical)
WL Albino Breeding: $0 (just added this year)
TOTAL FOOD COST: $58,757.55
Ok so the total listed in finances DOES check out against the total from each habitat so that's good.
For me my prices do fluctuate up and down each year, sometimes as much as nearly 50% but I also have a fluctuating animal count due to breeding and selling/releasing.
The Bengal Breeding habitat's food costs are a huge red flag to me though. While that habitat is labeled as breeding, both habitats really are pretty much the same as far as births and sales. There isn't necessarily way more tigers in the one over the other. Furthermore, interestingly, "Bengal Breeding" was originally out of guest view and was made very minimal with only a single enrichment feeder, the blood pumpkin, where as "Bengal Tigers" has a Blood Pumpkin, a restraint feeder, and a large tray. "Bengal Breeding" doesn't even have a food tray. So if either one was going to have a higher food costs I would expect it to be "Bengal Tigers" NOT "Bengal Breeding". Unless maybe there is a bug with food dropped on the ground? Hmm.. Let me try putting some trays in "Bengal Breeding" and see what happens.
Also not sure about the Western Lowland Gorilla habitat. Yes its very high compared to most every other one. That said, it is also grade 3 food and has 3 adults and 3 children.
$1750 seems very low food costs for a year of breeding tigers - if anything the other pen seems more in line with my food costs.
My tiger pens are showing $8758 (rank 3 food), $9703 (rank one food) & $21630 (rank one food). No idea what's going on with that last one (that's certainly looking bugged).
The rank 3 food pen is the lowest because I started storing the males when they're not breeding (different zoo), but I honestly can't explain the 21k one.
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Yes, this is happening to one of my habitats, too, while another habitat is receiving thousands of dollars. This is very weird.
In my current zoo the Siberian/Bengal pens tend to float around 10k per year; I'd say they tend to have about 4 cubs per litter.
The cheetahs have 1-2 cubs per litter and they're at $885 last year (seems really low but I think she just gave birth this year).
Lions are at $23626, but there's 5 females in there so I'm not that surprised.
Think I will have to do some recording to see how much it varies year to year. I suspect the number of cubs per litter and the gaps between cubs makes a huge difference in costs (when you have the a year where the parents are breeding/pregnant and no cubs to feed, that year looks really low on food costs).
Yeah and its hard to test with my zoo because I'm in franchise mode so I can't afford to stop breeding. Your lions see super high though compared to mine.
Ok that's weird. So I went to check my lions again, and found something very weird. As noted above both of my main lion habitats have the same food cost last year. The third one is brand new so doesn't count. However those two have the SAME EXACT cost despite the fact that one is set to Grade 1 food and the other to Grade 3 food. What the heck are the odds that two different habitats with two different amounts of animals in them with two different grades of food ended the year with the exact same costs? Seems pretty unlikely to me.
So I ran 3 years and got a couple of weird buggy outliers; the siberians and cheetahs are behaving but there's some weirdness going on with the lions/bengals:
Sib
10341
10335
10332
Bengal
8758
9706
19402 < no animal changes from prev year but cost 10k more
Lions
23626
107861 (yes really that much)
38155 < no animal changes from prev year but cost 70k less?!
Cheetah
885
2212
1770
Ok we need to digging in to get to the root of the problem. Right now we are just looking at prices and seeing issues but that doesn't tell us much about why.
What we need to start recording, year over year is:
What we need to start recording, year over year is:
- How many animals in the habitat, as well as their life stage (juvenile, adult, elder). Might also be worth noting if any are expecting offspring (not sure if the game calculates higher food for these or not)
- How many food enrichment items and what type
- How many food trays and what size
- If any food is dropped on the ground, how many distinct piles
I mean you'd really need to set up a zoo with say 4 control enclosures, each with a pair on animals on contraceptives and the same feeders, then compare costs each year (as they should be very similar and not fluctuate). I'm really too lazy to get that in depth with looking at the food costs, but there's certainly something wonky going on somewhere (can see when it randomly crashes my zoos into a negative profit on certain years). Caused me a hell of a lot of trouble with my first zoo.
Ok so I've done two years so far of detailed tracking of side by side Bengal habitats in franchise mode, so not a controlled test but more a real world one. One thing I'm noticing is one big reason for large variations in feeding costs is how often they get fed. My data set is small obviously, but during this two year test I noticed that one habitat was fed twice both years, while the other was fed twice the first year but only once the second year, despite the animal count not changing between the two years. And it wasn't that keepers didn't visit, they did. In fact just as the year was coming to an end I made sure to call a keeper manually and they decided not to feed. So that alone accounts for a 50% swing in food costs for that habitat year over year due to irregular feeding. Multiply that by other habitats in a zoo and I can see why large swings of 30-50% are seen.
Also as a side note, not that Frontier will probably see this, but doing this testing and watching my keepers like a hawk, really makes me wish the fundamental system for managing staff was different/better. For example instead of setting a frequency of visits to habitats, I'd much rather be able to make out an actual schedule of when the habitat will be fed, cleaned, and repaired. IE Set this habitat to be Fed in February and September, Cleaned in March and December, and Repaired in July each year. Or something like that. Just one more example of how this is light on the management options.
When looking at Food Quality in the Habitat window, Grade 1 food is listed as "$349.88 per feed". This is clearly misleading as my numbers show it actually means "per kg" and even then its a bit off. Best I can tell its $360.78 per kilogram in this case.
Anyway. Data. This is from the initial two years of detailed notes.
Year 69 (First year of detailed tracking)
Bengal Tigers: $18,760.66 (Total of 52kg of food, or $360.78 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 9, 4 in Trade Center. 2 Adults, 3 Juvenile in Habitat
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin, Restraint Feeder, Food Tray Large
February Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Food Tray Large: 16/20kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 2/10kg Left
Food Tray Large: 6/20kg Left
No Hungry Animals
Keeper cleaned left overs out in June/July
October Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Food Tray Large: 16/20kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 3/10kg Left
Food Tray Large: 6/20kg Left
No Hungry Animals
Keeper cleaned left overs in February Year 70
Bengal Breeding: $11,760.98 (Total of 20kg known, estimated ~32kg total, or 360.78 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 6, 3 in Trade Center. 2 Adults, 1 Juvenile in Habitat
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin
Late March/ Early April Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Piles: 1 (est 6kg per pile)
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 2/10kg Left
Piles: 0
No Hungry Animals
June Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Piles: 1 (est 6kg per pile)
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 3/10kg Left
Piles: 0.5
Keeper cleaned leftovers out in Sep
July: Juvenile matured. Now just 2 Adults in Habitat
Year 70
Bengal Tigers: $9,380.33 (Total of 26kg, or 360.78 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 9, 4 in Trade Center. 2 Adults, 3 Juvenile in Habitat
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin, Restraint Feeder, Food Tray Large
June Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Food Tray Large: 16/20kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 3/10kg Left
Food Tray Large: 5/20kg Left
No Hungry Animals
Keeper cleaned left overs in October
Bengal Breeding: $10,010.22 (Total of 20kg known, estimated ~26kgs total, or 385 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 6, 4 in Trade Center. 2 Adults
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin
February: Female expecting
March Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 1/10kg Left
Keeper cleaned leftovers out in July
May: 1 Birth. Now 2 Adults, 1 Juvenile in Habitat
November Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Piles: 1 (est 6kg per pile)
Also as a side note, not that Frontier will probably see this, but doing this testing and watching my keepers like a hawk, really makes me wish the fundamental system for managing staff was different/better. For example instead of setting a frequency of visits to habitats, I'd much rather be able to make out an actual schedule of when the habitat will be fed, cleaned, and repaired. IE Set this habitat to be Fed in February and September, Cleaned in March and December, and Repaired in July each year. Or something like that. Just one more example of how this is light on the management options.
When looking at Food Quality in the Habitat window, Grade 1 food is listed as "$349.88 per feed". This is clearly misleading as my numbers show it actually means "per kg" and even then its a bit off. Best I can tell its $360.78 per kilogram in this case.
Anyway. Data. This is from the initial two years of detailed notes.
Year 69 (First year of detailed tracking)
Bengal Tigers: $18,760.66 (Total of 52kg of food, or $360.78 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 9, 4 in Trade Center. 2 Adults, 3 Juvenile in Habitat
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin, Restraint Feeder, Food Tray Large
February Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Food Tray Large: 16/20kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 2/10kg Left
Food Tray Large: 6/20kg Left
No Hungry Animals
Keeper cleaned left overs out in June/July
October Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Food Tray Large: 16/20kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 3/10kg Left
Food Tray Large: 6/20kg Left
No Hungry Animals
Keeper cleaned left overs in February Year 70
Bengal Breeding: $11,760.98 (Total of 20kg known, estimated ~32kg total, or 360.78 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 6, 3 in Trade Center. 2 Adults, 1 Juvenile in Habitat
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin
Late March/ Early April Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Piles: 1 (est 6kg per pile)
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 2/10kg Left
Piles: 0
No Hungry Animals
June Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Piles: 1 (est 6kg per pile)
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 3/10kg Left
Piles: 0.5
Keeper cleaned leftovers out in Sep
July: Juvenile matured. Now just 2 Adults in Habitat
Year 70
Bengal Tigers: $9,380.33 (Total of 26kg, or 360.78 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 9, 4 in Trade Center. 2 Adults, 3 Juvenile in Habitat
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin, Restraint Feeder, Food Tray Large
June Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Food Tray Large: 16/20kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 3/10kg Left
Food Tray Large: 5/20kg Left
No Hungry Animals
Keeper cleaned left overs in October
Bengal Breeding: $10,010.22 (Total of 20kg known, estimated ~26kgs total, or 385 per kg)
Animals: Habitat Tab: 6, 4 in Trade Center. 2 Adults
Food Contents: Blood Pumpkin
February: Female expecting
March Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
+2 Months:
Blood Pumpkin: 1/10kg Left
Keeper cleaned leftovers out in July
May: 1 Birth. Now 2 Adults, 1 Juvenile in Habitat
November Feeding
Blood Pumpkin: 10/10kg
Piles: 1 (est 6kg per pile)
The feeding cost prices make no sense.
Two adult ostriches and one chick cost 166,71 $ per feed, 2 adult warthogs cost 10,05 $ and 4 adult wolves and 3 puppies 187,49 $ (all quality 1).
The ostriches only eat seeds and their food is supposed to be nearly as expensive as meat for the wolves? And why are the warthogs so cheap?
Two adult ostriches and one chick cost 166,71 $ per feed, 2 adult warthogs cost 10,05 $ and 4 adult wolves and 3 puppies 187,49 $ (all quality 1).
The ostriches only eat seeds and their food is supposed to be nearly as expensive as meat for the wolves? And why are the warthogs so cheap?
I have been monitoring the situation in my franchise as well. When the costs exploded, I first tried moving all my juvenile animals to trade center, to put them in another Zoo, but it did not help. I then started looking at changes made in the enclosures themselves, and realised that I had added enrichment feeders, so I took a closer look at them.
It seems that some enrichment feeders bypass the enclosure's setting for food quality.
I removed a large part of my enrichment feeders when I noticed this, but I put a few of them back in.
Here's what I have:
Japanese Macaque: 7 animals, grade 1, 419.99 per feed
EDIT: So I made a few changes to the lions and let the game run for a couple of years.
Lions 1: 5 animals, grade 1, 500.04 per feed. Last year's Cost: 35'483.18
6 4 animals (cubs had to be taken out), grade 1, 500.04 per feed. Last year's Cost: 10'111.88
It seems that some enrichment feeders bypass the enclosure's setting for food quality.
I removed a large part of my enrichment feeders when I noticed this, but I put a few of them back in.
Here's what I have:
Japanese Macaque: 7 animals, grade 1, 419.99 per feed
- Fruit Spike tree: Grade 1 (currently 1/5 kg). Type: Monkey Chow
- Block of Frozen Fruit: Grade 3 (currently 6/10 kg)
- Arboreal Feeding Platform 3m (currently empty)
- Pinata Enrichment: Grade 3 (3 in habitat, one in use, currently at 6/15 kg)
- Food Tray Large (currently empty)
- Frozen Blood pumpin (currently empty)
- Frozen Blood pumpkin: Grade 3 (8/10 kg)
- Pinata Enrichment (currently empty)
- Food Tray Large (currently empty)
- Large Fixed Roller Feeder: grade 1 (11/40 kg). Type: Leaves, nut and meat
- Bamboo Feeder: grade 1 (11/12 kg). Type: Leaves, nut and meat
- Food Tray Large: currently empty
- Dog Ball: grade 1 (2 in habitat, both at 4/4 kg). Type: hay
- Fruit Spike Tree: grade 1 (2 in habitat, both at 4/5 kg). Type: hay
- Block of Frozen Fruit: grade 3, 10/10 kg
- Food Trough Medium (currently empty)
EDIT: So I made a few changes to the lions and let the game run for a couple of years.
Lions 1: 5 animals, grade 1, 500.04 per feed. Last year's Cost: 35'483.18
- Pinata Enrichment: Grade 3 (3 in habitat,
one in use, currently at 6/15 kg,None in use) Food Tray Large (currently empty)- Frozen Blood pumpin Grade 3
(currently empty)(3 In habitat, 1 finished, others at 3/10 kg and 5/10 kg)
Frozen Blood pumpkin: Grade 3 (8/10 kg)Pinata Enrichment (currently empty)- Food Tray Large x2 (currently empty, lions just fed)
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The stats in my second zoo atm:
Red Flamingos: 27 (21 Adults, 6 Juveniles)
Food level: 1
Costs each feeding: 9.60$
Costs last year: 480$
Bongos: 6 (3 Adults, 3 Juveniles)
Food Level 3
Costs each feeding: 29.20$
Costs last year: 730$
Nyalas: 9 (5 Adults, 4 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 14.50$
Costs last year: 840$
Crocodiles: 5 (2 Adults, 3 Juveniles)
Food level: 2
Costs each feeding: 145.00$
Costs last year: 5700$
Galapagos Tortoises: 24 (4 Adults, 20 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 23.10$
Costs last year: 4500$
Gorillas exh. 1: 9 (5 Adults, 4 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 380.00$
Costs last year: 33550$
Gorillas exh. 2: 11 (6 Adults, 5 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 380.00$
Costs last year: 69.500$
Ive taken my gorillas out of the exhibits for a year to try out what happened. The food costs of gorilla exhibit 1 decreased from 39k lvl 1 food to 33.550 lvl 3 food. The food costs of gorilla exhibit 2 increased from 49k lvl 1 food to 69.500 lvl 3 food.
Red Flamingos: 27 (21 Adults, 6 Juveniles)
Food level: 1
Costs each feeding: 9.60$
Costs last year: 480$
Bongos: 6 (3 Adults, 3 Juveniles)
Food Level 3
Costs each feeding: 29.20$
Costs last year: 730$
Nyalas: 9 (5 Adults, 4 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 14.50$
Costs last year: 840$
Crocodiles: 5 (2 Adults, 3 Juveniles)
Food level: 2
Costs each feeding: 145.00$
Costs last year: 5700$
Galapagos Tortoises: 24 (4 Adults, 20 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 23.10$
Costs last year: 4500$
Gorillas exh. 1: 9 (5 Adults, 4 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 380.00$
Costs last year: 33550$
Gorillas exh. 2: 11 (6 Adults, 5 Juveniles)
Food level: 3
Costs each feeding: 380.00$
Costs last year: 69.500$
Ive taken my gorillas out of the exhibits for a year to try out what happened. The food costs of gorilla exhibit 1 decreased from 39k lvl 1 food to 33.550 lvl 3 food. The food costs of gorilla exhibit 2 increased from 49k lvl 1 food to 69.500 lvl 3 food.
In the Issue tracker someone mentioned that the cost of food would rise with 10K for every store placed. Anyone able to reproduce this? I don't have the time right now but will do a test later.
EDIT
I did a quick fast test while dinner was cooking, but I wasn't able to reproduce the prices of the food going up with the amount of stores.
EDIT
I did a quick fast test while dinner was cooking, but I wasn't able to reproduce the prices of the food going up with the amount of stores.
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every store?
