Temporary workaround for Keepers not feeding

[Neerolyte]

I've only done this in Franchise mode so I cannot say if it'll work in other modes (From my observation different bugs seem to be more prevalent in one mode vs others) . This workaround has been suggested by a lot of people but seems like it just gets buried.

Delete all your food enrichment items in your habitat, yes animals are unhappy but better than death. Keepers prioritize food in the enrichment items than the food trough, and animals MAYBE prioritize food trough instead of food enrichment item, leading to a discrepancy in the prioritization


I've tested this in 2 of my franchise zoos.

The main one I deleted all the items and have no feeding problems and I'm in year 40 something (the only staving I get is if the animal is walking too slowly towards to food).

The second one I left the food enrichment items in and in the beginning everything works well, but soon after all my wild dogs and peafowls start getting starving and I try to find the reason.

From my observation:
1. In the beginning the reason the zoo runs well is because I see animals eating both from food trough and food enrichment items so no starving problems
2. As time passes, I realize that animals stop eating from food enrichment items, so they are filled, where as food trough are empty -> problematic since keeper prioritize food enrichment items, so they won't fill anymore
3. When I delete the food enrichment item, the second zoo went back to normal, and the zoo is now running smoothly without any problems.

Bug:
1. Why is keeper prioritizing food enrichment items? Is this intended?
2. Animal either eat from the food enrichment items but there's a bug that kept the item full
3. Bug that animals just stops eating from the food enrichment items
4. Animals seems to prioritize food trough compare to food enrichment items, is this intended? If this is true, why is the prioritization different than the keeper?

 

[Tante]

Just fyi, this is known and intended, unfortunately. There is a thread somewhere that is asking Frontier to change the Keeper behavior though.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/helpful-information-on-zookeepers.528619/
"Keepers will only prepare enough food for the amount of animals in the habitat, so if you place down an unnecessary amount of feeders, your Zookeepers will not fill them. Exhibits need food too, keepers prepare batches of food for exhibits so that they don’t have to walk back and forth from keeper huts but it might be a good idea to have a single keeper look after a block of exhibits."
"Zookeepers will always fill the enrichment items first, as they benefits your animals greater than if they eat off a tray or the ground. If keepers fill enrichment items and do not place food on other feeding options then the enrichment feeders have enough food capacity for your animals, this is not a problem. Conversely if keepers put food on the ground then the feeders do not have enough capacity and you should consider adding more. "

 

[Dels]

..this is interesting, I will try this out in my zoo and see how low their welfare goes.
I first thought of putting the food enrichment items at places where they're in the enclosure to satisfy the animal's need for it to BE there, but out of reach for the keepers to fill up - like on top of a climbing tree. It seemed to work first, but after a while the keepers didn't fill up anything, just complained they couldn't reach the enrichment item :/

 

[Kai]

I just place the enrichment items I don't want the keepers to fill up on a roof & a bunch of normal feeder trays on the ground.

You will get notifications that the keepers can't reach it in the side menu, but the animals keep their enrichment bonus. Haven't had any issues.

 

[toastedtoast]

Im having a HUGE issue getting my keeper to feed my african wild dogs. No enrichment items either, hes just refusing to feed them and ive tried everything. why is this still a bug?!

 

[Dels]

Another issue with food enrichment items: Only one animal can feed on it at a time (except the forage pits/pools or something else I didn't research yet), so every other animal has to wait and slowly starve while on the queue. Not to mention that those feeders are empty super fast as well and the queued up animals get nothing after all the wait :/ rude.
And it doesn't help to have 15 food enrichment items, they won't get filled because apparently two small feeders are enough for 10+ monkeys.... idk how this is even calculated

 

[Monsarona]

Once I have researched multiple food enrichment toys I just get rid of the food trays. You may want to go around and occasionally reset the enrichment items, especially if it is a rolly one.

 

[NL_Mutso]

Had these issues in the beta but now i'm able to put multiple food enrichment toys in the exhibit and they fill up (almost) everything..

Only had this problem once recently but I forgot to add that exhibit to a workzone.

 

[toastedtoast]

Had these issues in the beta but now i'm able to put multiple food enrichment toys in the exhibit and they fill up (almost) everything..

Only had this problem once recently but I forgot to add that exhibit to a workzone.

Ive set workzones, no help :/

 

[Vayman]

Just to expand on NL_Mutso's input, workzones is just a part of the equation. Be sure there's enough workers assigned, and workspaces/facilities for them to work within. Be cognizant of their energy and happiness as well. If they can't complete an assigned task, they may take to wandering around, going for a rest, and by then... it's too late.

 

[stridecolossus]

There might be another related problem: earlier today I noticed the animals in one habitat were starving, I just assumed it was the food enrichment bug (or feature?), so I summoned the keeper and carried on, stupidly ignoring the alert until my poor baby aardvark croaked from starvation! My very first baby aardvark too. However I then realised that the keeper was not even entering the habitat never mind feeding the animals, he was just wandering back-and-forth from the keeper hut until he got tired and went to the staff room, basically just repeating in a loop. I tried firing him and rehiring, moving the hut, deleting it and getting a new one, adding multiple keepers, moving the entrance, deleting and replacing the gate, basically everything but to no avail - same zombie-like keepers every time.

In the end I moved the surviving aardvarks to a habitat I knew was working before they too died. I completely deleted and rebuilt the faulty habitat and it worked fine when I moved them back again. I think this might be because I had the habitat along the side of a facilities building, making use of null fences and a small alley for the habitat entrance. I have been constantly fiddling with the building and habitat (as you do) and guess something I changed screwed up the pathing AI or some such issue, though I can't be sure.

Not saying that's the problem the OP was experiencing but thought I'd mention it. Don't know if it's a bug or not as I obviously have no idea how I 'solved' the problem, if it happens again I'll raise a ticket and attach the save.

 

[MogulTs]

After watching closely few years 1 habitat (of 35) in which I had feeding problems, I found out that my problem was related to baby boom of zebras, buffalo's and wild hogs. When I keep population under control, everything is fine. When their number reach some point and above that problem occurs from time to time. I tryed adding more feeding items, moving them around, but that didn't help while most remains empty as keepers fill only what is needed. So my conclusion is: keepers have math problem with counting and they don't know to count above 10 I know that is impossible with those high speed processors we have, but that is the only thing I can think off