All the discussion recently of capturing and moving piggies has me wondering: if you have a captured pig and you go offline, will the pig still be there when you come back online?
I'm testing this out by going offline with a capture pig. Not long enough for it to starve, but long enough that we'll see if it escapes. And long enough to do the dishes and put away the laundry. :D
Unless they are released or die, your animals will be there when you return even though you might not have them in a pen. I have never had one die. I have kept animals off and on since March and to my regret, they were always around when I came back online.
I once had too many pigs. I stopped petting and feeding and felt like the worst abuser but they were making me much crazier than I usually am. They did NOT die or escape. In fact once when I went into the garden I discovered them eating the fruit off my tree! Just a couple days ago my well-fed and loved pig ate spice off my spice tree despite the fact that I had laid cherries and beans on the ground for him to eat while I was gone. Bad Piggie! That last was a test. Since I have seen pigs eat from trees I wanted to see if they would eat food off the ground. My pig did eat 10 of the 20 beans I left for him.
Well, I was out of the game longer than expected and then there was the server reset. When I came back, my pig (I did the experiment in my garden) was roaming free again. I had no released him.