How to stop your animals from disappearing in LEGO Fortnite

The Farm Friends update to LEGO Fortnite lets would-be farmers keep friendly animals in their village. Some players report their livestock mysteriously vanishing, but fortunately, there’s a solution. Here’s how to stop your animals from disappearing in LEGO Fortnite.

Why are my animals disappearing in LEGO Fortnite?

There are several reasons your animals may vanish in LEGO Fortnite. At the time of writing, the developers have not blamed any internal bugs. With this in mind, here’s a few things that may be the problem:

Your animals may have found a fire

As cute as they are, animals in LEGO Fortnite are notoriously stupid. If your animals walk into a bonfire, they will happily stand there and cook to death instead of running away. If you’ve been away from your base for a prolonged period, it’s possible that this has happened, and there’s no visual or audio cue to tell you.

Keep in mind that this seems to be an issue with every fire source. Bonfires are the obvious one, but Fireplaces will do the same thing. If you’re worried, you can build fences around your fires as an easy fix to the problem.

Beware hostile mobs

Some players have reported that Skeleton spawns are a little wonky since the Farm Friends update. Much like fire, Skeletons can harm your animals and will kill them given the opportunity. Your best bet to avoid this is to keep the area around your barn fortified with fences.

No villager assigned as an Animal Caretaker

We don’t know how long an animal can be left unattended, but assign a villager to look after your livestock if you will be away for a prolonged period. Fortunately, you don’t need multiple Villagers for this task. As long as one villager is assigned as an Animal Caretaker, you shouldn’t encounter any problems.

Your animals are unhappy

I’ve not seen this one in action, but Animals in LEGO Fortnite will allegedly leave if you don’t keep them happy. This can happen if you feed them something they don’t like or damage them. This mechanic tickles me a bit, as I can imagine my cows leaving for greener pastures, but until I see it, I can’t confirm this one.

Out of all these issues, unattended fires seem to be the primary cause of animal disappearance. As a precaution, I recommend building fences around every fire in your Village. Animals may run from fire in the future, but right now, it’s very dangerous for your livestock.

Keeping animals is easily the best part of the Farm Friends update, but keep an eye out for the biome-specific animal variants.