Topic

Hungry piggies?

The other day I made more piggy eggs than I had budgeted for (what with the twins upgrades, I can't predict how many I'll end up with anymore), so I gave a couple of piggies to a friend who doesn't have very high Animal Kinship skills, I guess.

About a (real time) day or so later I go to his street and find that the piggies are hungry (that is, when I hovered the mouse over them they had fork-and-knife icons rather than pet-me or nibble-me icons). So I fed them some random produce I was carrying around. I've never seen this before, and I thought that piggies only get hungry if you use meat collectors (which my friend doesn't). I can't really tell, as I do feed the piggies on my street even though I don't use a meat collector (I like to think that my piggies have plenty to eat, whether they need it or not). But I've certainly never seen hungry piggies on public streets, and they presumably are not regularly fed.

Anyone know what's causing this?

Posted 4 months ago by Pupusas Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • They need trees, hand feeding or a feeder.
    Posted 4 months ago by Little Miss Giggles Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Piggies have to be fed somehow. If there are trees (other than wood) on their street, they can "absorb" from the trees but only as the trees are harvested (the piggy may even say "YUM"). Otherwise, they need to be fed directly - by clicking "feed" or dropping small items of food (3 beans or a carrot, etc.) beside them. If they don't get fed they die.
    Posted 4 months ago by Patricia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No, they eat from the trees on their own. No harvesting necessary, though the trees have to have produce on them.
    Posted 4 months ago by Little Miss Giggles Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If Only trees available the trees Must be watered and Petted very regularly or pigs won't eat from them. If you hand feed...don't drop on ground...directly feed them a couple pieces of produce and potato and corn seems to work best. Dumping a bunch of grain on ground and nothing more will sadly result in starving/dead piggies.
    Posted 4 months ago by Anya Karenya Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Leaving food on the ground seems to have mixed results. Back in the old housing system our home street had no trees on it, but we kept several piggies. I would regularly leave a pile of 50 grain at the end of the street. The grain would gradually disappear and the piggies stayed healthy and nibbleable. Occasionally all the grain would be gone when I came by to add more. Then, when I dropped more grain, the piggies would come running, eat and let out a big "Yum!" I know many people have written that they left food on the ground and the piggies starved. No idea why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
    Posted 4 months ago by Hawkwell Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I suspect it has to do with the pig sticks, and it's on my list of things to look into.
    Posted 4 months ago by Etna Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I noticed this also and posted several threads about the piggies in my yard starving when they never had before.

    I now have a feeder for them, but didn't used to need one for the small number of pigs. (3)
    Posted 4 months ago by Corduroy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ah, this all makes sense. My friend doesn't have any stuff on his street. Thanks for the responses, all.
    Posted 4 months ago by Pupusas Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In my experience, if you drop a small amount of grain on the ground, and the piggy wanders over and eats of it, it can immediately be nibbled.  If you feed it anything less than about 75 currants worth of food, it will still complain it's hungry.  (This goes for home streets and regional streets.  I haven't tested it in my own yard since the housing switch, as I've had herdkeeping all that time.)

    However, once the grain stays on the ground, it seems to go untouched, which is not how it was for a while.  Same with trees.  As soon as you leave, they also seem to go untouched, which is a fairly new development, to my knowledge.
    Posted 4 months ago by Ren_tara, BatQueen Subscriber! | Permalink