An important part of a successful and thriving farm in Stardew Valley are animals, which can produce valuable items on a more regular basis than crops. Chickens are one of the animals you will have access to the earliest, since they are the first coop animals you can get. Chickens will produce eggs every single day, so long as you are taking care of them, which requires you to feed them. Here’s how to do it.
How to feed chickens
Hay can be pulled directly from your silo by interacting with the hopper, the brown container next to the player.
Each chicken requires one piece of hay per day, which can be given to them in two different ways. The most common method is to place the hay in the feeding trough inside the coop, which the chickens will automatically eat on their own. The other method is to create a fenced area around the coop and plant grass in the fenced area. You can open the coop from the outside, and the chickens will go outside to graze, so long as it isn’t stormy.
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To place hay into the trough, you can either have it in your inventory by purchasing it from Marnie’s Farm or you can use the hopper inside the coop. The hopper will pull hay from a silo if you have one–which is necessary for harvesting hay from grass on your farm. Interacting with the hopper will give you the exact amount of hay as you have coop animals, so if you have two chickens, it will pull out two pieces of hay. If you have more trough space than animals, you can fill it preemptively; the hay won’t go bad sitting there. If you pull out too much hay, you can put it back in the silo by interacting with it while holding the hay.
If you want to have your chickens automatically fed, you will need to fully upgrade your coop to the Deluxe Coop, which is the third tier of coop. These upgrades will expand the coop, increase the max number of animals, and unlock new coop animals as well.
