OK, there seems to be a few confusions over coops, the expansions and the use of them, so I'm going to try and skip the jargon and the waffle with a hopefully quick and easy guide. The subject itself is pretty confusing so work with me here, lol1) Basic Storage.
Every coop you have gives you space for 10 chickens, if you have less than four coops and build another, it will give you space for 10 more chickens. The maximum you can build now is four, but ones built previously to the limit stay.
So, if you have 4 coops without upgrades, you can store 40 chickens. 10 coops, 100 chickens.
The limit you see on your screen is culmulative. The chickens just go wherever there's room and all coops are counted as one.
If you look at the picture to the right this person must own two chicken coops. Therefore they've got space for 20 chickens. Despite being two separate coops, their total is still all added together.
2) Upgrading.
There are four levels of upgrade, you can tell how many more chickens you can store and what expansion level you are at by how much it costs..
Upgrade 1 protects 25 chickens - costs 15 of each building supply
Upgrade 2 protects 50 chickens - costs 20 of each building supply
Upgrade 3 protects 75 chickens - costs 25 of each building supply
Upgrade 4 protects 100 chickens - costs 30 of each building supplyEach of your four or less coops can be upgraded individually. Simply click on a coop and click upgrade.
So, for example, say Jack has four coops.He can choose to upgrade one coop all the way up to level 4, or even have multiple upgrades on the go, whichever he wants. Because the later expansions cost more but give the same reward (25 extra chickens) it's worth sharing the upgrades across coops.
So, Jack might have his blue coop at level 4, his red coop at level 3, his purple coop at level 2 and his pink coop (Jack is very in touch with his feminine side) at the basic level 1.
Once the upgrades are finished you'll have room for 100 chickens per coop, so Jack will be able to store 400 chickens.
PLEASE NOTE: The most economical way of upgrading coops is to upgrade each one twice first. The first 50 chickens-worth of space needs 35 of each materials (15 for the first upgrade, 20 for the second) but the second 50 chickens worth costs you 55 of each material (25 for the third upgrade, 30 for the last).
In fact, if you have less than four it's even cheaper to start from scratch, making the first 50 spaces cost 45 of each material.
3) Feeding.
This seems to be an area with a lot of complaints and confusion, both over daily bonuses and general feeding.
For starters the Daily Bonus.
Pre Coop Expansions the Daily Bonus fed all your chickens.
Post Coop expansions the Daily Bonus feeds all your chickens inside the coops AND outside. So, that's all your chickens.
There is no change to the mechanic.
As for feeding a chicken by hand, it costs a point of energy. It always has and it always will. The game doesn't differentiate between chickens in and out of coops. Feed a yellow chick on the ground and it's an energy point, feed an adult in the coop and it's an energy point.
Where the difference lies is when using the feed option in the coop, the one that brings up this popup:
At the moment this method of feeding can only be done once every half an hour, EVEN if you don't feed all your chickens... so if you have 40 chickens but only have 25 energy... you only get to feed 25 chickens and will be unable to feed any more for 30 minutes, even though logic says 15 are still hungry.
Whether this will change in time, we don't know. The mass feeding works by being considered a "bonus", and as such it has a time limit. Unless they make a change to the code this may well be the only way it'll ever be able to work.
That's still not as clear as it feels like it should be, but the coops may just be the most confusing aspect right now in the game... Hopefully this parts the mist for everyone slightly!
