Anyone else having trouble getting the CowPlant to eat a Sim?

Cowplant is really nerfed and ineffective in TS4. Dies quickly, kills only second time (almost impossible). And sims pay little attention to it. Planted SEVEN of them in the park, all died before killing any sim, one was able to eat a sim once, without killing. Just a decoration, sadly.

Moreover, the "Eat" option of SimRay has absolutely no effect.

I used Vampire power to make sims hungry. It works first time. But sims won't eat a cake the second time even being hungry.

All on community lot (park).

The cow plant performs well in my bakery. For a meringue cake, it needs the essences of the cow plant. The Essenz deliver me compliant customers who like to be attracted by the cow. My baker only needs to be careful to milk the cow and feed her for her cooperation.
The customers should not go away. Would be bad for business, if there were no more customers. I built a shower for the maltreated customer in the shop. They get fresh and can go shopping again.
At home I prefer to include the cow. For a western saloon in the desert, a withered cow plant makes an excellent decoration, so authentic.

@PugLove888 My experience with the CowPlant was that it was very high maintenance. I am obsessed with taking care of things, though, so I never had it die, but I even had issues with the CowPlant putting out the cake while the feeding sim had fed it, went right to bed (mind you, nice bed so not overly long sleep time) and woke up to the cake is already out. I always plant mine in the big square planter inside a gated fence - sometimes indoor, sometimes outdoors. I did notice a few things that I found annoying:

• No one but household members ever tried to take the cake.
• The only time I did not catch them in time I had a fenced area and locked gate and a household member got home from work and ran straight to the CowPlant and ate the cake before I could notice or stop him. I hate my CowPlant. You can use mine if you want. I banned it to the gallery and it is called "Unwanted Cow Plant". It definitely works. Grrrr...
• I tried leaving the gate unlocked to the gardener. The gardener never tended or ate cake from the CowPlant. He ignored it.
• I thought their Garden Gnomes club would be impressed or feed or eat cake from it... Nope. They ignored it also.
• I never noticed the butler or Patchy feeding the CowPlant either.

Weird, though, as I remember people saying they used theirs to eat townies. After reading of your experience and that @jpkarlsen said (that they would not eat other s outside the household) I wonder if they were referring to previous game versions (Sims 2 or something?). Good to know, though!

@SheriGR, thanks for your reply! (Wow, that was a long time ago since I posted this question!)  I had no problem with the CowPlant in TS2 and I used it a lot.  Of course it was different since it would usually kill the Sim who took the cake lure, but with TS2 there was a  Points reward called a Ressurectanomatorn, or something close to that.  You could call up the Grim Reaper and depending on how much you paid, you could bring back the Sim to life, or bring them back but with hardly any skills, or bring them back as a Zombie! I didn't have much trouble at all using the CowPlant, but it could be that I mostly used it on Univertiy campuses , which we don't have in TS4 (yet). It could be that the CowPlant was seeing dorm mates as the same as either family members or invited guests -- but I also don't remember having a problem with the CowPlant eating Sims that would just pass by my houses!   I think there was a Cow Plant in TS3, but I don't remember since I had such a difficult time getting that  game to run. 😞  

It just seems that the Cow Plant in TS4 is way harder to keep alive, and yet still have it eat victims.  I have no problem keeping it alive (at least in less busy households), but then it won't eat other Sims, so what is the point, except for looks? 😕 I do enjoy the strange atmosphere a dead CowPlant skeleton gives, but I want a functioning Cowplant and it seems you risk the Cowplants death if you try to get it to actually eat any Sims that aren't' in your family.  I'm glad they brought it back on the Sims Anniversary a couple of years ago, for nostalgic purposes, but I wish they made it work better! 😞

I love your humor... "Unwanted CowPlant"! 😃:eahigh_file:

@PugLove888 Well.... the household inventory is your friend with that CowPlant if you want to do anything but maintain its very high maintenance self. I mean, come on... there is no redeeming value to it unless you want to do something malicious with it. The 'essence' or other purposes for cooking is sort-of cool, but it is just not worth the effort since it's so needy and a little creepy.

My sims don't get social interaction credit, it sort-of seems they and the plant like the play part, but it turns on them so fast it's stupid. If they could get a positive friendship and immunity from being eaten by caring for and playing with it or something, that would help make it better... It's like it is a guard dog that likes no one and even bites the hand that feeds it... every time. Yuck. And it does not guard, either.

Plus there is the fact that there is no pleasing since it is not hungry again soon sometimes but sometimes it has the cake back out in a few hours... I don't know. I have a rant post called 'I hate my CowPlant' and there is more on that, but I just don't get it. 😉 If you could at least have a gardener and they would take care of it that would help. It's nearly as needy as a toddler, and a toddler is worth it, but a creepy plant is not imho. :eahigh_file:

I recently got the cowplant and it first seemed like everyone was ignoring it, but at least I could put my own household to work feeding it etc.

Everyone else still seemed to ignore it...until today they started playing with it - but it happens pretty rarely and I haven't seen anyone trying to eat the cake, yet. It seems quite unlikely anyone will ever get eaten. In TS3 this worked better, imo.

@Lemonie_July 

Only hungry Sims in your household or visiting Sims that are hungry will eat the cake by themselves.