I've been asked a few questions about these beasties, and did say I'd try put together a quick guide to getting and rearing them, so let's see if the following makes sense, or helps - feel free to add, correct or query any of it though!
1 : Types of egg.
Very small eggs, laid by chicken lizards and battle chicken lizards, or more rarely found on the corpses of chicken lizards, are labelled 'A Chicken Lizard Egg'. Those, if incubated and tended, will grow into either normal or battle lizard eggs. Chance of a battle egg is 5-10%, depending on if you keep the egg properly watered - as explained later....
The large eggs have two descriptions, 'A Mature Chicken Lizard Egg' and 'Battle Chicken Lizard Egg', the former only comes in beige and will always be beige, and only produce normal chicken lizards. Battle Chicken Lizards only come from eggs of that size and of different colours, and are labelled 'Battle Chicken Lizard Egg'. Please don't get tricked into paying a lot for a normal egg - they are really very easy to get!
2 : How to get eggs.
Apart from those 'laid' by vendors, two options - dead chicken lizards have a very minor possibility of dropping eggs as loot on their corpse. The absolute certainty is farm your own.
Tame a chicken lizard, either type - they take zero taming skill, so you should succeed pretty quickly. Then feed it once (both types only seem to eat the cut hay, buyable from NPC farmers). Then either stable it, or if you already have a coop (explained later) put it in there, and wait roughly one week. As with other pets, feeding it a week after you first tamed and fed it means it will bond - and bonded chicken lizards are your best source for eggs. Each time you feed a bonded one, it has a chance (maximum twice per week) of laying an egg.
3 : So I have this small egg... what next?
The whole cycle to get an egg to mature takes three days, although you only need a few seconds 'work' on each of those days! Place an incubator (craftable by carpenters) in your house, lock it down, put the egg inside, and it will change it's label to 'a dry chicken lizard egg'. Water the egg (use a pitcher of water and target the egg) once, so it changes to be a 'moist' egg. Repeat watering the next day (the egg graphic will be slightly larger), and again the third day - and you should then get a mature egg. Remove that from the incubator, but do NOT hatch it straight away!
Always water dry eggs, unwatered eggs will parch, then burn. You have a small chance of restoring a parched egg by applying water, but burnt is ruined and unrecoverable.
4 : I now have a larger egg - how do I hatch it?
There have been some bugs with hatching eggs in certain locations, so to avoid the risk of losing your new pet take the egg to any small room in a town, or a small island. You hatch the egg by double-clicking it, and confirm you want to hatch it - and the newly hatched bird is likely to run about in the style of a vorpal rabbit, so you need to start taming immediately, and be somewhere it can't run out of your reach! You can get tinker-made collars for battle lizards, that are meant to stop them running around, but they sometimes dodge the collar and it drops to the floor.
5 : You mentioned something about coops?
Craftable by carpenters, get one of these and lock it down in your house. You can then use the context menu on the coop to stable chicken lizards (or just plain chickens!). The coop acts just like having them stabled with an NPC, although you can't use a pet summoning ball on a bird in a coop. Set security on it as you would any other container. Each coop can hold up to three occupants. Once a character puts a chicken in a coop, that coop can only be used by that character to store birds, until it's emptied. Even the house owner can't get access to birds in that coop if they belong to a friend of the house - although of course they can unlock and destroy the coop if they feel unfriendly!
6 : So I have a chicken lizard.... what next?
Like all pets, you can train them - I'd suggest waiting until it's bonded, since they can die in the process, and you'll need some veterinary and animal lore skill to keep healing them while they train. Just like player characters, they learn by doing, so take them to fight things of roughly their current skill levels for the best gains, and of course spectral spellweavers in New Haven are good for training their resist! Then get them in the league, and win fame, glory and wealth (or at least have a bit of fun!).
1 : Types of egg.
Very small eggs, laid by chicken lizards and battle chicken lizards, or more rarely found on the corpses of chicken lizards, are labelled 'A Chicken Lizard Egg'. Those, if incubated and tended, will grow into either normal or battle lizard eggs. Chance of a battle egg is 5-10%, depending on if you keep the egg properly watered - as explained later....
The large eggs have two descriptions, 'A Mature Chicken Lizard Egg' and 'Battle Chicken Lizard Egg', the former only comes in beige and will always be beige, and only produce normal chicken lizards. Battle Chicken Lizards only come from eggs of that size and of different colours, and are labelled 'Battle Chicken Lizard Egg'. Please don't get tricked into paying a lot for a normal egg - they are really very easy to get!
2 : How to get eggs.
Apart from those 'laid' by vendors, two options - dead chicken lizards have a very minor possibility of dropping eggs as loot on their corpse. The absolute certainty is farm your own.
Tame a chicken lizard, either type - they take zero taming skill, so you should succeed pretty quickly. Then feed it once (both types only seem to eat the cut hay, buyable from NPC farmers). Then either stable it, or if you already have a coop (explained later) put it in there, and wait roughly one week. As with other pets, feeding it a week after you first tamed and fed it means it will bond - and bonded chicken lizards are your best source for eggs. Each time you feed a bonded one, it has a chance (maximum twice per week) of laying an egg.
3 : So I have this small egg... what next?
The whole cycle to get an egg to mature takes three days, although you only need a few seconds 'work' on each of those days! Place an incubator (craftable by carpenters) in your house, lock it down, put the egg inside, and it will change it's label to 'a dry chicken lizard egg'. Water the egg (use a pitcher of water and target the egg) once, so it changes to be a 'moist' egg. Repeat watering the next day (the egg graphic will be slightly larger), and again the third day - and you should then get a mature egg. Remove that from the incubator, but do NOT hatch it straight away!
Always water dry eggs, unwatered eggs will parch, then burn. You have a small chance of restoring a parched egg by applying water, but burnt is ruined and unrecoverable.
4 : I now have a larger egg - how do I hatch it?
There have been some bugs with hatching eggs in certain locations, so to avoid the risk of losing your new pet take the egg to any small room in a town, or a small island. You hatch the egg by double-clicking it, and confirm you want to hatch it - and the newly hatched bird is likely to run about in the style of a vorpal rabbit, so you need to start taming immediately, and be somewhere it can't run out of your reach! You can get tinker-made collars for battle lizards, that are meant to stop them running around, but they sometimes dodge the collar and it drops to the floor.
5 : You mentioned something about coops?
Craftable by carpenters, get one of these and lock it down in your house. You can then use the context menu on the coop to stable chicken lizards (or just plain chickens!). The coop acts just like having them stabled with an NPC, although you can't use a pet summoning ball on a bird in a coop. Set security on it as you would any other container. Each coop can hold up to three occupants. Once a character puts a chicken in a coop, that coop can only be used by that character to store birds, until it's emptied. Even the house owner can't get access to birds in that coop if they belong to a friend of the house - although of course they can unlock and destroy the coop if they feel unfriendly!
6 : So I have a chicken lizard.... what next?
Like all pets, you can train them - I'd suggest waiting until it's bonded, since they can die in the process, and you'll need some veterinary and animal lore skill to keep healing them while they train. Just like player characters, they learn by doing, so take them to fight things of roughly their current skill levels for the best gains, and of course spectral spellweavers in New Haven are good for training their resist! Then get them in the league, and win fame, glory and wealth (or at least have a bit of fun!).
