Resources > Chickens > Slats

Chicken Coop Temperature Control

This page describes the optimum temperatures, obtained by adjusting the Chicken Coop Slats, for obtaining Eggs and hatching Hens and Roosters. Stated briefly, each coop changes it's behavior once every 24 hours, at exactly midnight, and the user needs to adjust the ambient air slats to counteract the 24 hour driver.

This page discusses techniques for achieving a Chicken Coop temperature, at 6:00 AM each morning, that is the most conducive to:

• Hens laying Eggs (Warm at 6:10 AM)
• Eggs hatching to Roosters (Speculation - Warm at 6:10 AM, but only %5 probability)
• Eggs hatching to Hens (Speculation - Warm at 6:10 AM)

The Hens will lay eggs and (speculation the eggs will hatch) at any temperature, but your odds are better when the temperature is between 60 and 100 degrees. The temperature during the remainder of the 24 hour period is unimportant, except that you can't let the temperature get so far from nominal that you can't pull it back into the target range by 6:00 AM.

Hens will continue to lay eggs if Barley is available and the temperature is comfortable. Roosters don't seems to be required for anything. <== Comment from MarvL So you might as well give your Roosters to Balthazarr for reasearch ;) <== Response from Balthazarr

Hens will only lay, and eggs will only hatch, if some hens or some eggs have been in the coop for more than 24 hours. If you're short on Barley, you can add Hens at 5:30 AM and remove them again at 6:30 AM, to conserve Barley. Other than temperature, the program only checks the coops once per game day.

If the reported temperatures are not in the 60-100 degree range at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM, you'll need to reset the slats. The thermometer is capped/bottomed at 120/20 degrees, but the Chicken Coop still knows how hot/cold it really is, and the probabilities are based on the real temperatures.

If your Chicken Coops have stalled, it's because the temperatures have gotten so high or so low that you're repeatedly falling outside of the optimum temperature band at 6:00 AM.

Chicken Coops have the following characteristics

• The temperature of the outside ambient air varies sinusoidally. It is useful to think of the sun as heating up the outside ambient air. The greater the difference between the current coop temperature and the hypothetical ambient air temperature for that time of day, the greater the influence of the slat settings.
  • The ambient air temperature is 20 degrees at 6:00 AM
  • The ambient air temperature is 120 degrees at 6:00 PM.
  • The dotted line on the graph indicates the ambient temperature.

• The user can influence the Chicken Coop temperature by setting the slats to control the amount of ambient air that's admitted.
  • Fully Open Slats allow the ambient air to have full influence.
  • Mostly Open Slats allow the ambient air to have 50% influence.
  • Half Open Slats remove ambient air from consideration.
  • Slightly Open Slats have the opposite effect of mostly open slats, who knows how.
  • Closed Slats have the opposite effect of fully open slats, who knows how.
  • Note that you will have to reverse the slats at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM to maintain a consistent effect.

• Each Chicken Coop has it's own game controlled air conditioning unit that changes at exactly gameday midnight.
  • Hot for this time of day will drive the temperature up for the next 24 hours, but more slowly than fully open/closed slats.
  • Warm for this time of day will drive the temperature up for the next 24 hours, but more slowly than mostly open/slightly closed slats.
  • There is no neutral mode. You should be so lucky.
  • Cool for this time of day is the inverse of Warm.
  • Quite Cool for for this time of day is the inverse of Hot.

Conditions change every six hours

• Temperatures are calculated once every 15 game minutes, and individual Coops are not synchronized.
  • The sun rises at exactly 6:00 AM, and the effect of ambient air switches to warming mode.
    • The temperature is capped at 120 degrees.
    • The temperature doesn't reset to 120 degrees, if you're running hot, you'll stay at 120 degrees for longer.
  • The sun sets at exactly 6:00 PM, and the effect of ambient air switches to cooling mode.
    • The temperature is bottomed at 20 degrees.
    • The temperature doesn't reset to 20 degrees, if you're cold, you're running cold, you'll stay at 20 degrees for longer.
  • The profile is vaguely sinusoidal.

• Midnight is the critical adjustment time, as that's when the time of day driver changes.
• Sunrise at 6:00 AM causes the effect of ambient air, and therefore the appropriate slat position, to reverse.
• Eggs are laid and hatched at 6:10 AM.
• Sunset at 6:00 PM causes the effect of ambient air, and therefore the appropriate slat position, to reverse.

The game controlled driver and the user controlled slats are additive

• We've been monitoring 5 chicken coops, in adjacent locations, and have never seen mixed hot/cool drivers. They seem to be a mix of Quite Cool/Cool or else Warm/Hot. We haven't explored whether coops throughout Egypt behave this way.
• The 24 hour driver seems to be a constant.
• The effect of the slats depends on the temperature of the ambient air or, more specifically, the temperature differential.
  • If you are close to the ambient temperature, the 24 hour driver will act as an offset.
    • This condition usually exists around noon and midnight, when the ambient air temperature is alway 70 degrees.
  • If you are way off of the ambient temperature, the slat settings will dominate.
    • This condition usually exists at 6:00 AM when the ambient air temperature is always 20 degrees.
    • This condition usually exists at 6:00 PM when the ambient air temperature is always 120 degrees.
  • There will be a definite knee at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM if you don't reverse the slat settings.
• The 24 hour driver and the Slat settings are additive but bounded at a Fully Open or Closed rate of change.
  • You can't go up any faster than Hot or Fully Open/Closed during the Day/Night.
  • Warm plus Mostly Open/Slightly Open during the Day/Night is the same as Hot.
  • Warm/Slightly cool plus Slightly Open/Mostly Open during the Day/Night cancel each other.
  • Cool plus Slightly Open/Mostly Open during the Day/Night is the same at Quite Cool.
  • You can't go down any faster Quite Cool or Closed/Fully Open during the Day/Night.

Half Open Slats

The following temperature profile was provided by a set of five adjacent Chicken Coops

The movement of these temperature is due entirely to the 24 hour driver. The user controlled flaps were set at neutral, or half open for this test.

The balloons indicate the state of the 24 hour driver on the first row, and the state of the user controlled slats on the second row.

code	24 hour	slats
f	hot	fully open
m	warm	mostly open
h	(doesn't exist)	half open
s	cool	slightly closed
c	quite cool	closed

All of the coops started out 24 hours earlier with 200 Barley, 4 Hens, and 0 Eggs. One of the intermediate coops didn't produce eggs, so there's a random factor. Likewise, the amount of barley that was eaten varies a bit.

It's a limited strategy

This is a continuation of the previous day, still using the half-open slats. After all, 80% of the Coops got eggs, right?

The problem, of course, is that a cold day can be followed by another cold day.

Pay particular attention to the fourth Chicken Coop. Eggs were laid even though the temperature was only 20 degrees.

The balanced approach

The optimum strategy is to check your Chicken Coops three times per day.

• Shortly after midnight, to respond to the new 24 hour drivers.
• Just before 6:10 AM to reverse the slat setting. If you switch production modes between all hens or all eggs, you'll lose the next 24 hours of production. There's a 24 hour waiting period when you reconfigure a coop.
• Just after 6:10 AM to collect the Eggs and/or Hens and to add Barley.
  • You can actually collect them anytime during the next 24 hours, but you'll be too curious to wait.
  • If you have both hens and eggs in a coop, production will stall unless you also have a rooster.
  • If there's no Barley, the Chickens will leave.
  • When eggs hatch you'll also get eggshells. You can leave them in the coop or gather them. It doesn't effect production.
• Noon doesn't matter, unless your coops have been running cold, and you want to yank the temperatures up a ways.
• Around 6:00 PM to reverse the slat settings.

At 6:00 PM we reversed the slats so that they would continue to balance (oppose) the current 24 hour driver.

We weren't around at midnight when the 24 hour drivers randomly switched from Cold to Hot. Consequently, the temperature zoomed, but we knew we had plenty of wiggle room.

The new hens in coop #T1 were still on a 24 hour production hold, but all of the eligible coops produced eggs.

You can download the Excel spreadsheet with the data for this test, if you wish to examine the run in greater detail.