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Stina1701A's avatar
Stina1701A
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago

animal aging in Cottage Life and rotation

I just now put a barn and a chicken hutch into one of my rotational households and I am wondering how Cottage Living animal aging works. I have aging set in household only. As my Sims only age when I am actively play them (which of course makes the unhoused townies and other housed households not age). The same goes with Cats and Dogs packs cats and dogs. But I just noticed that Cottage Living animals have a seperate aging on and off button located in the Pack Settings instead of Gameplay section where the controls for Sim aging is placed.

Now. I love playing rotational and hopping into various households and move in new Sims so I was wondering if the cow and the chickens I have placed in one household and leave the settings for Cottage Living animals aging on when I leave, will the animals age up and maybe even die while I am away from this household? I usually play with a big rotation with a lot of households so it will be a while (maybe 2-3 Sim years; 4 28 day seasons) before I will play this particular household again.

5 Replies

  • The domestic animals (chickens, cows and Llamas) do not appear to age when switched away from a played household if it is set to only age active played households.
    I may not have rotated away from my cottage living household long enough to notice though, but I was away from them for 4 full weeks while their daughter was at university and another 2 weeks when she was settling into her new apartment, and none of the domestic animals went up a life stage.

    The wild ones, however, foxes and rabbits, definitely age if Unplayed Sims aging is on, even if their homes are on a played household lot.

    Edit to add: I have no idea if the options settings I mention are related to the aging behaviour I noted as I haven't been away from the animals with any other settings.
  • Like Stormkeep said above, I don't believe chickens, cows or llamas age up when you're gone. Just the wild ones that run around the neighborhood.
  • Wonderful. Thanks guys. I don't mind the wild animals aging just the ones my households own :smile:
  • "Stina1701A;c-18042677" wrote:
    Wonderful. Thanks guys. I don't mind the wild animals aging just the ones my households own :smile:


    It is a little annoying having the wild animals age if you have made friends with them....my gardener sim in the household was friends with 8 rabbits and all 8 of them died one after the other when I returned to that household after being away for 6 weeks. She was depressed by the loss of her furry friends for days.

    I considered using a mod to make the rabbits immortal, but I decided to just suck it up. It's not too hard to offset the sadness with some clean clothes and a nice cup of tea.
  • They don't age if you don't have an active household.

    I know because I moved Sims out of a house with a cow on the lot 4 generations ago. The cow is still there. The house is otherwise empty.

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