Feeding Animals Automatically With the Trough

Stocking the Trough

Right-click the placed Feeding Trough to open its storage. Drop in the food your animals eat — wheat for cows, sheep and mooshrooms, seeds for chickens, carrots, potatoes or beetroot for pigs, and so on. The trough holds a stack or more depending on the mod version, so you can fill it and walk away instead of hand-feeding every animal.

How the Feeding Works

Once food is inside, the trough periodically checks for animals standing nearby. When it finds a hungry adult animal that accepts the stored food, it consumes one item from its inventory and feeds that animal, triggering the normal breeding cooldown or growth for babies. You do not need to click anything — the process repeats on its own as long as food remains and animals are in range.

Keeping It Running

Check the trough every so often; an empty trough silently stops working and your animals will not breed. If you have many pens, place one trough per pen rather than one central trough, because the feeding radius is limited. Baby animals also benefit, so a stocked trough speeds up growth in a breeding operation. Combine the trough with a hopper feeding into it to top it up automatically from a chest of wheat or seeds.