Stardew Valley creator blames missing chicken bug on a pesky wild coyote running amuck

The latest Stardew Valley update, released last night, accidentally introduces a few new issues - including chickens that mysteriously disappear.

The 1.6.9 update - which was released alongside 1.6 for consoles - adds a new friend to retrieve lost items and more. However, there have been some cases of players losing their chickens when they start a new farm on the Meadowlands farm and open the door to the coop on the first day.

Stardew Valley creator Eric 'ConcernedApe' Barone has said that a fix for this, for the time being at least, is to make sure players leave the door to the coop "closed for one day". Then - not that he needed to but I love that he has - Barone blamed the chickens' disappearance on a "wild coyote" nosing about the farm on day one. What a cheeky blighter (the coyote, not Barone).

Barone has already released a patch - known as Update 1.6.10 - on Steam and GOG that addresses the rogue chickens, as well as some crashes. This update will arrive on other platforms "as soon as possible", Barone said.

So, after all this is sorted, what is next for Barone? Earlier this year, the creator admitted he hadn't actually touched his next game - Haunted Chocolatier - "in a long time", because his focus had been on Stardew Valley.

Haunted Chocolatier was first announced back in 2021, with a cute trailer showing off its spooky chocolate-making, monster-stabbing, small town-living role-playing gameplay. Barone previously said he's "not too concerned with the pressure" of releasing Haunted Chocolatier, saying, "it's better to have a delayed game that's actually good than a bad game that's on time".

For more, you can check out our Stardew Valley Gifts guide here.