Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by Archdeacon Monseigneur:

there's no need to build your chicken pen outside of your base. you can put it in meadows.

Well, no, but it might be helpful in case there's a problem with invasion events killing the animals. That was my point, I guess I should have mentioned it. It can also save space if you have limited land area to build on.

If animals are too far away they won't breed or lay eggs afaik if you are not around to see it.

Couple of mine died to bats. Simply moved them into an iron and stone enclosure and haven't had any issues since. About 8 or 9 seem ideal for laying eggs.

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by Archdeacon Monseigneur:

there's no need to build your chicken pen outside of your base. you can put it in meadows.

Well, no, but it might be helpful in case there's a problem with invasion events killing the animals. That was my point, I guess I should have mentioned it. It can also save space if you have limited land area to build on.

why would you ever have "limited land area" ??
do you not expand your base? (remove walls and rebuild)

Originally posted by Ataxio:

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Well, no, but it might be helpful in case there's a problem with invasion events killing the animals. That was my point, I guess I should have mentioned it. It can also save space if you have limited land area to build on.

If animals are too far away they won't breed or lay eggs afaik if you are not around to see it.

That doesn't seem to be the case with lox, mine have bred just fine about half a world away. But if it does happen with chickens... well, then I see even less use to raise them. I guess I'll just have to get on with it and see for myself.

Originally posted by Archdeacon Monseigneur:

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Well, no, but it might be helpful in case there's a problem with invasion events killing the animals. That was my point, I guess I should have mentioned it. It can also save space if you have limited land area to build on.

why would you ever have "limited land area" ??
do you not expand your base? (remove walls and rebuild)

As a matter of fact, no, I don't, mostly because I like my habitat occupying the hilltop instead of sprawling over and around it, and because I've stacked so many structures into the exterior walls that rebuilding and expanding doesn't seem like an appealing process. But that's just me of course.

Another such scenario would be having an island base, or perhaps an elevated castle.

You need a moat man, and dont fill your coop with eggs over 2. Always best to start with 2.

I don't know, show a screenshot how it looks like, never had any problems with my chickens.

sounds like you've got a greyling spawn (or something else) inside your base or something, right on top of your chicken coup.
might wanna make a workbench that covers their whole exhibit to prevent that.

my chickens don't die. i get plenty of eggs, i have no trouble hatching eggs.

if you absolutely cannot fix it, put a wolf sentry near the coup or even inside of it. he will kill whatever enemies spawn in there.

that is assuming you actually went out of your way to tame a wolf.

I put my chickens in a raised up shed so that mobs wouldn’t even aggro on the chickens because they couldn’t reach them (well, the base is on an island so mobs can’t spawn anyway but you get the idea).

When it comes to a fire source, hanging braziers is the way to go. You can place them in the middle of the roof and get complete fire coverage easily and there’s 0 risk of the chickens dying to fire as the fire is floating above them.

Originally posted by Nascarman:

I put my chickens in a raised up shed so that mobs wouldn’t even aggro on the chickens because they couldn’t reach them (well, the base is on an island so mobs can’t spawn anyway but you get the idea).

When it comes to a fire source, hanging braziers is the way to go. You can place them in the middle of the roof and get complete fire coverage easily and there’s 0 risk of the chickens dying to fire as the fire is floating above them.

a simple walled-in campfire works too.
the warmth still applies it aoe despite being walled into a chimney.
took me about 5 minutes to build a chicken coup that worked flawlessly, not sure whats causing OP's issue.

I haven't actually tried raising any yet, but I think I'd try something like this:

Find an isolated, naturally sheltered area away from your home base. A ruined castle or high peak with cave in mountains might serve well.

Use terrain tools to manipulate the area to your liking. Set up campfire, workbench and portal. Dismantle workbench when you no longer need it to bring down base building count from 3 to 2 to prevent invasion events from occurring.

Experiment hatching with one egg and chicken at a time.

Feel free to point out if there's something wrong with the above. As I said, I haven't actually tried it myself yet.

Basically, what I've always done is to keep my farmland away from my home base.

There are never enemies in the new coop, and the fire is behind a fence and under the floor, so the chickens couldn't be killed or burned. The coop is also inside our fenced in base with a moat, so that's already covered, too.
I'll try the raised coop with a brazier, as soon as I get 3k Gold again, as my one hen can't follow me to the new coop..

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

I haven't actually tried raising any yet, but I think I'd try something like this:

Find an isolated, naturally sheltered area away from your home base. A ruined castle or high peak with cave in mountains might serve well.

Use terrain tools to manipulate the area to your liking. Set up campfire, workbench and portal. Dismantle workbench when you no longer need it to bring down base building count from 3 to 2 to prevent invasion events from occurring.

Experiment hatching with one egg and chicken at a time.

Feel free to point out if there's something wrong with the above. As I said, I haven't actually tried it myself yet.

Basically, what I've always done is to keep my farmland away from my home base.

there's no need to build your chicken pen outside of your base. you can put it in meadows.

Originally posted by nerdberry:

There are never enemies in the new coop, and the fire is behind a fence and under the floor, so the chickens couldn't be killed or burned. The coop is also inside our fenced in base with a moat, so that's already covered, too.
I'll try the raised coop with a brazier, as soon as I get 3k Gold again, as my one hen can't follow me to the new coop..

you can make a fenced walkway and push it by running into it if you want to save the money for an egg.

Originally posted by Archdeacon Monseigneur:

there's no need to build your chicken pen outside of your base. you can put it in meadows.

Well, no, but it might be helpful in case there's a problem with invasion events killing the animals. That was my point, I guess I should have mentioned it. It can also save space if you have limited land area to build on.

I would not built the fire under the pen as because of lags the chickens can clip through and burn. Better put the fire above the chickens. Even better outside the pen and above.

also put a brazier.