About Zens Chicken Coops
From Steam WorkshopWhat Is This? This mod adds the ability to harvest chicken feathers from chicken coops (used for crafting crossbow bolts as of DayZ update 1.21). It's based on my…
What Is This?
This mod adds the ability to harvest chicken feathers from chicken coops (used for crafting crossbow bolts as of DayZ update 1.21).
It's based on my Firewood mod that allows players to harvest firewood from firewood piles, pretty much just copy & pasted that mod and adapted the classnames to work with chicken coops.
There is a JSON config that allows you to specify what objects count as chicken coops and how many feathers can be harvested from each (feather quantity resets on server restarts).
How It Works (For Server Owners):
The mod spawns invisible objects on every chicken coop on the map based on the objects you define in the json config.
By default the mod will automatically detect the static object types that contain these words in their classname: _chickencoop, _hutch
It works with the vanilla static objects and any bldr_ objects placed with the DayZ Editor or spawned in with the json/init.c/etc methods.
This means you can place chicken coops on Namalsk for example, and players can harvest feathers from them.
The server may take a while to scan the map for chicken coops when you first run the mod (usually within 1-2 minutes). After the mod scans the map for chicken coops it will save the locations of them all so the next reboot will be much faster.
If you need to re-scan the map for chicken coops (eg. after adding custom coops with the DayZ Editor) then set DumpObjectLocations to 1 in the config. And if you need to temporarily disable the chicken coops for any reason without deleting the locations, just set SpawnChickenCoops to 0 and the next restart will not allow harvesting feathers from the coops.
The message displayed when a chicken coop runs out of feathers is also in the config for other language compatibility ("NoFeathersLeftMessage").
And finally, each chicken coop object has its own config. MinFeathers and MaxFeathers allows you to specify the min and max quantity of feathers per coop per server restart (using the default settings, small coops will spawn between 0 and 10 feathers and large hutches will spawn between 0 and 30 feathers).
MaxFeathersPerCollect allows you to specify how many feathers can be found per action performed (default is between 1-3 for small coops and 1-6 for large hutches).
Some maps might have more coops than others, so you should tweak these values depending on how easy you want players to be able to make crossbow bolts on your server.
WIth the default settings, if the player is not wearing gloves there is a small chance of cutting themselves (10% or 0.1) - this can be adjusted or disabled by tweaking ChanceOfBleed (set to 0 to disable).
DamageGloves is how much damage to deal to gloves if they are worn (there is no chance of bleeding if gloves are worn).
Don't touch Offset or Orient, those are just there to allow you to add new chicken coop objects in the future if required. Offset is the location offset to place the invisible chicken coop action object on top of the static coop object, and orientation is the orientation offset. Turn DebugOn to 1 to see the actual coop action objects as a red hologram if required.
Installation Instructions:
Note: ZenModCore is a dependency - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3702420204
Install this mod like any other mod - copy it into your server folder and add it to your mods list. Make sure to copy the .bikey into your server keys if you're not using a server management tool like OmegaManager which does that automatically.
When you run the mod for the first time a default JSON config will be created in your server profile: %server_root%/profiles/Zenarchist/ZenChickenCoopsConfig.json
This mod must be installed on both the server & client.
Repack & Source Code:
Unfortunately due to lack of time I can't maintain all of my mods all of the time. I do my best, but these mods are offered as-is. If there's a problem, you have the source code and my permission to fix it yourself and upload a fixed version to the workshop without any credit necessary. It's all free.
You can repack this mod if you like, and do anything else you want with it for that matter. The source code is on my GitHub at www.zenarchist.com
Learn Modding
Want to learn how to make your own mods? Check out my guides on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zenarchist
Buy Me A Coffee / Contact Me:
All my mods are free and open source, but it takes an enormous amount of time to put some of these mods together. If I've helped you out, please consider helping me buy my next coffee! I don't expect it, but I very much appreciate it.
To contact me you can send me a message there too - I get an insane amount of messages so it's the best way for me to filter out the noise and focus on people who are willing to support my work with a coffee first:
https://buymeacoffee.com/zenarchist
Enjoy!
Highlights
From source dataFootprint
Rated a light load on a server.
Last update
Its author last shipped an update 6 mo ago.
Zens Chicken Coops on Nxeon
From our catalogue- One-click install
- Not available. One-click install isn't available for this game's mods yet. Download it and upload it to your server in Files.
- Server load
- light
- Smallest plan we suggest
- DayZ — 6 GB (6 GB RAM). This follows our own load rating above, not a benchmark.
- Latest build
- 2026-04-18, released 2026-04-18
Game versions by loader
| Loader | Game versions | Newest |
|---|---|---|
| Workshop |
From 1 recorded build of Zens Chicken Coops.
Dependencies
- Required: Zens Core Mod
Declared by the newest build that lists any. Required ones are installed with it on one-click installs.
Run Zens Chicken Coops on a DayZ server
Deploy a server above, then upload the file in Files.
What kind of mod it is
From the catalogWeapons, items & crafting
New weapons, gear, items and the recipes to make them.
Compatibility
- Game
- DayZ
Verified at the source
- ✓Steam WorkshopOfficial listing, checked 2026-10-10Open ↗
- ✓AuthorZenarchist, as published on Steam Workshop
- ✓LicenseNot published by the sourceFree
