Best food for feeding trough?

[Samammo]

What is the best thing to put in the food trough? Sometimes i am unable to play all day, so i was wandering what i should put in the feeding trough to feed everything for the longest amount of time.

Thanks

[pursegcn]

Depends on what it is you're feeding? Herbivores - berries, carnivores - raw meat, snails sweet vegetable cake. 

[EastofDeath]

cooked meat last longer then raw meat.  

 

edit: also it stacks to 30, 10 more then raw

[Kadjunga]

unless you live in a place where people constantly pass by, you don't even have to feed the dinos more than once every 2-5 days. If there is noone around, they will be in stasis and not consume any food. 

Leveling up their food to decent levels gives you an even longer buffer time and all you need to do is feed the lower food ones.

I tend to feed mine once a week at best and i live in a semi-populated area on an official server. 

[Captnmorgan]

Just spend one hour going collecting berries and fish fill it up your good for a while. But they don't need to be fed everyday. 

[eESTlane]

6 hours ago, EastofDeath said:

cooked meat last longer then raw meat.  

 

edit: also it stacks to 30, 10 more then raw

raw meat has food value of 50. cooked meat is half that, at 25. just saying

[ilShadow]

Do fish meat for carnivores, It takes twice as long to spoil, i only need to feed my carnivores once every two days or so, It helps if they are not wandering and just standing there, if they get moved alot it wont work as well since it doesnt provide as much food.

Herbivores, full stacks of 100 berries will last quite awhile for them.

[DeanSlater]

6 minutes ago, ilShadow said:

Do fish meat for carnivores, It takes twice as long to spoil, i only need to feed my carnivores once every two days or so, It helps if they are not wandering and just standing there, if they get moved alot it wont work as well since it doesnt provide as much food.

Herbivores, full stacks of 100 berries will last quite awhile for them.

Yes it takes twice as long to spoil but they eat it twice as fast so it doesn't make a difference.

[ilShadow]

4 minutes ago, DeanSlater said:

Yes it takes twice as long to spoil but they eat it twice as fast so it doesn't make a difference.

If they are not doing anything their food drops very very slowly. I use Fish constantly if i cant be on for a few days on the server i am on. Using fish while moving out and about doing stuff is totally pointless, but using as food for a barn and stuff while your offline works fairl well in my opinion.

[SuperGenki]

Unless you have Gigas, you're in more danger of having tame and demolish timers expiring than dinos starving. Checking in every three days to reset timers and fill troughs until the eating stops is fine.

[PuffyPony]

For herbis, berries are fine. For carnivores, usually raw meat will suffice, but if you're in a heavily-trafficked area and are concerned about it, use Cooked Prime Meat. It's cheaper than the jerky, gives as much food as normal meat, lasts longer, and stacks to 30. Once you get a grill, too, it's really just as easy as normal meat, but until you get to that point, I recommend using it just to supplement your regular meat reserves

[Plannb23]

3 hours ago, eESTlane said:

raw meat has food value of 50. cooked meat is half that, at 25. just saying

Cooked Meat has a spoil timer of 80 minutes in a trough.  It stacks to 30 pieces.  That means that you'll have 2400 minutes (40 Hours) of time for that food to stay in the trough.  If it stays in the trough and every piece gets eaten you'll have restored 750 total food to a dinosaur.

Raw Meat has a 40 minute spoil timer in a trough.  It stacks to 20 pieces.  That means that you'll have 800 minutes (13.33 hours) of time for that food to stay in the trough.  If the meat stays in the trough and every piece of food is eaten then you'll have restored 1000 food to a dinosaur. 

That means that a stack of Cooked Meat will last 3 times longer than a stack of Raw Meat .

10 hours ago, Samammo said:

What is the best thing to put in the food trough? Sometimes i am unable to play all day, so i was wandering what i should put in the feeding trough to feed everything for the longest amount of time.

Thanks

I'd recommend Cooked Meat as it lasts the longest and the negative impact of the -250 food you lose is mitigated as the food stays in the trough that much longer than the other options.  

If you're rich, crazy or just have a ton of Dodo's, you could always just put Dodo Kibble in the trough.  Dodo Kibble stacks to 100, has a spoil timer of 1,728,000 minutes (12 Days) and fills 6000 food.  Basically it will feed nearly every animal you have for 12 days and you'll not have to worry about it expiring.  It will most likely just get eaten.

 

[anubis3691]

6 minutes ago, Plannb23 said:

Cooked Meat has a spoil timer of 20 minutes in a trough.  It stacks to 30 pieces.  That means that you'll have 600 minutes (10 Hours) of time for that food to stay in the trough.  If it stays in the trough and every piece gets eaten you'll have restored 750 total food to a dinosaur.

Raw Meat has a 2 minute spoil timer in a trough.  It stacks to 20 pieces.  That means that you'll have 40 minutes (2/3 of an hour) of time for that food to stay in the trough.  If the meat stays in the trough and every piece of food is eaten then you'll have restored 1000 food to a dinosaur. 

That means that a stack of Cooked Meat will last 15 times longer than a stack of Raw Meat .

I'd recommend Cooked Meat as it last the longest and the negative impact of the -250 food you lose is mitigated as the food stays in the trough that much longer than the other options.  

If you're rich, crazy or just have a ton of Dodo's, you could always just put Dodo Kibble in the trough.  Dodo Kibble stacks to 100, has a spoil timer of 432000 minutes (3 Days) and fills 6000 food.  Basically it will feed nearly every animal you have for 3 days and you'll not have to worry about it expiring.  It will most likely just get eaten.

 

I think your math is very wrong here. When we raised babies, we calculated a stack of raw meat spoiling at like 13 hours or something.. it last way longer than 2 mins per peice in feeding trough.

[Plannb23]

Oh my bad I used a players inventory timer instead of the 3x more on the trough.  Its every 8 minutes on Raw meat.  Every 80 minutes on Cooked Meat.  My bad and good catch.  I'll rework the math.

Just now, anubis3691 said:

I think your math is very wrong here. When we raised babies, we calculated a stack of raw meat spoiling at like 13 hours or something.. it last way longer than 2 mins per peice in feeding trough.

 

[Plannb23]

5 minutes ago, anubis3691 said:

I think your math is very wrong here. When we raised babies, we calculated a stack of raw meat spoiling at like 13 hours or something.. it last way longer than 2 mins per peice in feeding trough.

Okay.  I believe I've gotten the calculations correct now.  Thanks for catching the error.

[anubis3691]

2 minutes ago, Plannb23 said:

Oh my bad I used a players inventory timer instead of the 3x more on the trough.  Its every 8 minutes on Raw meat.  Every 80 minutes on Cooked Meat.  My bad and good catch.  I'll rework the math.

 

I still think that's inaccurate. To my understanding, feeding trough is the same timer as Dino inventory, which would be 40 mins per meat. Which would be 20x40/60. Come out at like 13 hours. I have no idea about cooked meat. I'm not sure now lol.

[Plannb23]

2 minutes ago, anubis3691 said:

I still think that's inaccurate. To my understanding, feeding trough is the same timer as Dino inventory, which would be 40 mins per meat. Which would be 20x40/60. Come out at like 13 hours. I have no idea about cooked meat. I'm not sure now lol.

I used all number from the same source for consistency and this is what the wiki says 

http://ark.gamepedia.com/Feeding_Trough'

. Food placed in the trough has its spoil time multiplied by 4, just as it would when carried by a dino.

[anubis3691]

20 minutes ago, Plannb23 said:

I used all number from the same source for consistency and this is what the wiki says 

http://ark.gamepedia.com/Feeding_Trough'

. Food placed in the trough has its spoil time multiplied by 4, just as it would when carried by a dino.

So then I am correct yes? If it's the same as Dino inventory, then raw last 40 mins per meat? Making it 13 hours for a full stack of 20 to spoil? If that's incorrect please tell me lol I don't need babies dying because my calculations are incorrect! 

[Plannb23]

Just now, anubis3691 said:

So then I am correct yes? If it's the same as Dino inventory, then raw last 40 mins per meat? Making it 13 hours for a full stack of 20 to spoil? If that's incorrect please tell me lol I don't need babies dying because my calculations are incorrect! 

That's what it says up there now .... 

[usrevenge]

For dinos not doing anything cooked meat is probably the best. Dinos barely use food when no one is using them so most your stuff is lost to spoils.

 

If you have a lot of scorpions though it might be worth it to put a stack of raw and stack of spoiled though when a raw spoils scorpions get food too, though they also eat raw meat.

 

But, even if you log in once every 3 days dinos won't starve.

 

For herbivores I use purple berries, 1 stack lasts me almost 3 days.

[anubis3691]

1 hour ago, Plannb23 said:

That's what it says up there now .... 

Lol okay thank you for your help understand the times correctly! 

[Jostabeere]

User the most simple food. Cooked meat here or there, you don't need to spend ressources and time on cooking it. They will eat raw just fine.

[Awtobot]

Any berries and raw works fine