Arael's Chocobo Raising Guide

This is my work-in-progress Chocobo Raising Guide.

Please do not edit this page. Make comments on the talk page.

What You Will Need
Feed

At least 29 days (and more if you want a good chocobo!)
 * Not a lot of time is required – you can fully care for a chocobo in as little as 6 minutes (choosing "brief" reports and walks).
 * I do recommend, however, checking your chocobo every day. The positive effects of your affection cannot be replaced by any care plan.

A lot of patience!!!

Research!
 * Use common sense – don’t believe everything you read.
 * But remember that silly phrase you heard in school? Knowledge is power – your teachers were right!

''You do not need a Chocobo License to raise a chocobo, but if you don't have it, you cannot ride your bird even with your personal Chocobo Whistle. A level 1 character can raise a chocobo.''

Color
I've long since wearied of the continuous arguments about how to obtain colored chocobos. Oddly enough, most other FFXI-related websites agree on genetics approach. My experiences have pointed unerringly toward genetics, but I wanted to bypass the theories and go straight to the source.

According to SquareEnix:
 * "The resulting offspring may exhibit the attributes or coloring of its parents."
 * "Each egg is encoded with its own specific genetic information, and some players may come across an extremely rare variety."

SquareEnix definitively links breeds (genetic lines) and colors. 
 * Note that in practice color is merely cosmetic; it does not reflect a certain "breed" of chocobo.

Therefore, looking at color from a purely genetic standpoint...
 * Each animal has two sets of genes, one from each parent. The overwhelming number of yellow chocobos and the relative difficulty of getting a colored chocobo evidences that the yellow gene is the dominant color, and other colors are recessive traits.
 * Colors other than yellow may be dominant over other non-yellow colors, but I don't have enough hard evidence to make a claim regarding that possibility.
 * Genetically, two same-color parents have a 75% chance of birthing the same-color chick.
 * For example, let's say we bred two yellow birds with recessive red traits (denoted RY & RY)...
 * We would have a 25% chance of a red chick (RR), (All right!)
 * A 50% chance of a yellow chick with recessive red again (RY),
 * And a 25% chance of a yellow chick (YY). (Sorry, try again!)

It is possible to get a colored chocobo from a bought or quested egg, but the most reliable way is to breed two birds of the same color.

Gender
Gender seems to be random unless you choose a VCS Honeymoon plan that increases the chance of a male or female chick being born (Gourmet and Hiking plans, respectively). That, however, is not guaranteed.

The claim on the Chocobo Raising Guide that it is difficult to receive a chick of a different gender once you've already had one is unfounded. My chocobos disproved that easily; male and female seem to be a 50/50 chance regardless of the gender of your previous chocobos. See the discussion on the talk page for others' opinions.

Eggs
That being said, the temperature of your egg could have some bearing on the gender or attributes of the resulting chocobo.

I've seen no pattern of gender resulting from different egg temperatures

You might hear people say that certain warmth of egg will give you a certain color, certain attributes, etc.
 * I’d have to do a lot more research on the matter before I’m willing to endorse any such theory

The only things I know:
 * The Chocobo on the Loose quest grants an A bit warm egg.
 * Dabih Jajalioh periodically sells A bit warm, Slightly warm, and Faintly warm eggs.
 * A little warm eggs are a 100% drop from the level 60 ISNMs Making a Mockery, Tough Nut to Crack, and Call to Arms.
 * Somewhat warm eggs are a 100% drop from the level 75 ISNMs Happy Caster, Compliments to the Chef, and Shadows of the Mind

Chococards
These are the items that carry the information about the chocobos you wish to breed. You can present two of these and a VCS Honeymoon Ticket to Finbarr to receive an egg to raise.

Note that a Chococard is not the same thing as a VCS Registration Card. Chococards can be traded or sold by bazaar; registration cards are EX and cannot be replaced. If you lose a registration card, your chocobo's information is gone forever.

Honeymoon plans
A little boy in Jeuno, Finbarr, seems to be as enthusiastic about breeding chocobos as I am! Go to him and pick a plan to have the birds you'd like to breed get to know each other. Don't worry, the entire cutscene is rated G.

With these plans your chick can potentially inherit its parents' attributes!
 * The general consensus among breeders is that only one ability may be inherited per chick.
 * Stat bonuses from plans are largely unreliable.
 * Inheritable abilities and gender are more reliable but still nowhere near guaranteed.

Egg
Days 1-3
 * So you have an egg... now what?

"Plant" the egg at a convenient time.
 * The chocobo's day does not turn over at JP midnight, but every 24 hours from the time it was started (not last checked on).
 * I like "planting" mine in the middle of the night, so I can check on it at any time during the day.
 * It's annoying to have to wait til, say, 12:45 and 1:15 in the afternoon to check your chocobos, especially if you're on a tight schedule.

Location
 * Location is not critical, but raising your choco in a certain city can be advantageous in order to learn an ability sooner in life.
 * Racer
 * Raising in Sandy grants the probability of an earlier acquisition of the Gallop story.
 * Digger
 * Raising in Bastok with Zopago grants the probability of an earlier acquisition of the Burrow story.


 * Raising in Windy with Pulonono grants the probability of an earlier acquisition of the Bore story. Note that Bore is very difficult to learn, requiring a high Discernment level, so it is unlikely that you will learn the story until well after you receive it anyways.
 * Any ability can be learned from any city; the only difference is how long it takes to get the story.
 * Remember that you'll want to be there often (hopefully every day), so make it a starter city that's easy for you to visit or convenient to HP.

"Watch the egg" trick - choose the Watch over care option at least 100 times (yes, 100 times!) over 3 days.
 * This is the only care option while the chocobo is in the egg stage, and unlike other life stages, the egg will have no limit on the amount of active care you can do.
 * Alternatively, you can give the chick Cupid Worms on Day 5 to max affection
 * The ONLY reason I'm suggesting using this worm is because the newborn chick will have no stats to lower.
 * One worm will raise affection at least 3 levels.

Watching the egg will give you three different messages on the three days of the egg stage:
 * Day 1: "Your egg feels the tender warmth of your gaze."
 * Day 2: "The chick inside the egg seems to want out."
 * Day 3: "The chick inside the egg seems anxious to meet you!"

Chick
Days 4-18

"Your chocobo is… (fe)male!"
 * You can find the gender of the chocobo as soon as it hatches on day 4.

You may also now name your chocobo.
 * Choose carefully, as you cannot change a chocobo's name after it is chosen.
 * You do not have to name it immediately.
 * I generally wait for adolescence to verify my chick's color before giving it a name (though I hate seeing it being referred to as "Chocobo" the entire 15 days of …er… chickhood).
 * I like to name the chick something related to its color and parentage to aid me in keeping track of who is who, and to make it easier to later sell their Chococards to other breeders.
 * Name it before day 65 or your VCS Chocobo Trainer will name your choco themselves.
 * The VCS-appointed name will be one word (ex. Baron, Friend).

On Day 4 your baby chocobo will be completely full. If you chose to not use the "Watch the egg" trick, you'll have to wait til Day 5 to feed the Cupid Worms.

Notes about Feed
Slight Effects of Feed
 * Be aware that chocobo feed is not some sort of magical power-leveling tool. You won't give your bird a few carrots and have a stat increase a full level.  Care plans are the most important part of raising a chocobo's stats.
 * Food is a nice method of chipping away at the point scale of your chocobo's attributes. A carrot or two may push your chocobo's stat from one level to the next, but know that it didn't really make a huge difference; the stat was at most a couple points from the next level to begin with.
 * That being said, I do, however, feel that feed increases stats a greater number of points than listed on the food pages (usually 0.5 to 1 point each).
 * My chocobos have a tendency to “level up” faster than the care plan or points from feed indicate they should.
 * If I can ever bring myself to experiment with a couple chocobos, I’ll update this, but I haven’t yet. Maybe the next batch…

Overfeeding

Medicines

Special Use Foods

Glow Colors

Cheap Feed and Gardening
Chocobo feed can be expensive, but if you know a few tricks you can minimize the gil you pour into your bird(s).

Basic chocobo feed is found at the following vendors:
 * San d'Orian Carrots can be purchased at Ronfaure regional merchants, cooking guild merchants in Windy Waters, and Aveline in South Sandy.
 * Gysahl Greens are available from Derfland regional merchants and most, if not all, chocobo stables' merchants.

Another option... Garden!
 * You can grow almost all of the feed your chocobo requires!
 * To garden for your chocobo feed you're going to need lots and lots of Wildgrass Seeds.
 * Don't ask me why carrots come from wildgrass seeds, either.
 * Keep in mind that you should be planting, feeding, and harvesting on the day of the crystal you're using.


 * Gysahl, sharug, and azouph greens are possible results using several different types of crystals.
 * I recommend feeding the plants Water Crystal - there's the possibility of Tokopekko Wildgrass, and nothing undesirable.
 * Zegham Carrots can be harvested when a plant is fed using Ice Crystal.
 * Vomp Carrots can be harvested using Earth Crystal.
 * Note: Know that these are not reliable results; you may end up having to buy feed at some point.
 * Carrots are the worst for this, especially vomp carrots. I've had harvests of stacks upon stacks of little worms or gysahl greens when aiming for vomp carrots or zegham carrots.  Trust me, it hurts to sell the results of your time, effort, and gil (if you bought seeds) for 1 gil each to an NPC.

Chocobucks (if you had a previous bird that you raced or used in The Chocobo Hot and Cold Game) are helpful, but expensive to acquire.
 * With these you can buy hard-to-obtain food and ingredients for chocobo feed.

Chocobo Whistle
Know that your chocobo will not be faster than a rental. Ever. It would've been nice, but SquareEnix said "No."
 * I've seen people claim that their chocobos are faster than rentals because they have SS STR, SS END, Gallop, Canter, high DISC, or what have you. While the only thing that matters in the matter of running speed is strength, even SS STR and Gallop won't have you beating rental chocobos.

You cannot call chocobo under any of the following conditions:
 * You do not meet the requirements for riding a chocobo:
 * Chocobo License.
 * Level 20 (though you can ride a chocobo from a starter city at 15, you can't equip the Chocobo Whistle until level 20).
 * You have hate from a mob
 * You are in an area where chocobos cannot normally be ridden, or are in a Shadowreign area.

Each whistle recharge (now) costs 400 gil, totaling 10k for a full recharge of your Chocobo Whistle.
 * Before the June 2008 update, it cost 1000 gil, and if you do any research on Chocobo Whistles, you will see many complaints on that price.

If you drop you whistle, you will have to trade your VCS Registration Card and pay 20,000 gil to get a new one.

Quest
On Day 7 (during the chick stage), you will receive the message from your VCS trainer,
 * "Your chocobo has been making a real fuss at night lately. Such behavior is common for chicks, but you should deal with it as soon as possible."


 * You will be given the key item White Handkerchief, which you automatically return in a cutscene when talking to your trainer on Day 8.


 * If you miss Day 7 and don’t receive the white handkerchief until Day 8 or later, you just have to wait for the next game day to turn it back in.


 * You don't have to run around town, ride a chocobo, or any such thing as others have suggested. On a couple of my mules all I did was log out and log back in 24 hours later in the same spot.  I'm guessing you have to log out or zone to trigger the next cutscene.

On Day 9 (or the day after you return the handkerchief) you will be told
 * "Thanks to the white handkerchief, Chocobo has been sleeping soundly at night."

The next step doesn't come until Day 29.


 * If you're in a nation other than Sandy, you will be told that your chocobo is now old enough to ride, and to see Hantileon in the Southern San d'Oria Chocobo Stables. You'll have to journey to Sandy twice for this quest, which is annoying.


 * If you want your Whistle ASAP, wait to care for your chocobo until after speaking with Hantileon.


 * Upon your arrival in Sandy, Hantileon will say,
 * "Your chocobo has finally grown large enough to ride? Magnificent news!  As you say, a chocobo whistle is required to call the animal in the field, and as president of the Vana'diel Chocobo Society, it is my duty to distribute them.  However...
 * "First, we must test the level of trust between you and Chocobo. Chocobos have a habit of hiding things that they consider valuable.  I'm sure even Chocobo hides things while you are not around...  Find an item it has hidden and bring it to me.  If you and Chocobo really have a trusting relationship, I'm sure you will be able to find something."


 * Now you must go back to the stables that your chocobo is in and take it for a walk to search for the handkerchief you gave it when it was a baby.
 * If you search unsuccessfully (but without being caught) in one "zone," go to another. Don't go on the same walk again - it's not there.


 * I recommend starting with a short walk and, if you do not find the handkerchief, move to a regular walk, then a long walk (which may require a Chocolixir) if necessary.


 * While you're on the walk, you will be given prompts.
 * When you receive the message "Chocobo appears to be very happy," choose to watch over the chocobo. If you search at this time your chocobo will detect your search and be angry.


 * When you receive the message "Chocobo seems to completely absorbed in its current activities," choose to search for the item. If it's hidden in that zone, you receive the message
 * "You find something in the ground.
 * "You obtain a Dirty Handkerchief!"


 * If your search turns up nothing, go on a different length walk.


 * Upon finding the dirty handkerchief, return to Hantileon, who will say,
 * "You gave this to Chocobo when it was a chick, didn't you? It looks like Chocobo held the item very dear. Your bond with your chocobo seems very strong. I have no qualms about entrusting you with this now."

Obtained: Chocobo Whistle.


 * Now, go visit your chocobo again.
 * Under main menu there will be a new option: "Register to call your chocobo."
 * As of the June 2008 update, it costs 250 gil.

Emergency Chocobo
If you're just looking for a ride in and out of problem locations, don't care how fast it is, and don't want to invest time in Chocobo Raising, then you want an Emergency Chocobo.

You can feasibly spend little more time and effort than just dropping off the egg and paying for a whistle.
 * Ok, well maybe that's slightly simplistic...
 * The total time for care and the quest may total roughly 30 minutes throughout 29 (real-life) days with minimum effort.
 * To raise the chocobo it could cost as little as 1000 gil.
 * Then you register the whistle (250 gil) and pay for your chocobo rides.
 * 400 gil for each recharge, totaling 10k for all 25 charges
 * Or buy a Whistle Coupon
 * (Never pay over 10k for these, as that is (now) over the price of fully recharging your whistle.)
 * That's a little over 11k for your own chocobo and whistle with 25 charges ready!

To raise an Emergency Chocobo follow these steps:


 * Set the Care Plan to Basic Care (or Take a Walk, if you'd like your choco to be able to get you to your destination in any sort of timely fashion. This will lower affection slightly, but that's pretty much a moot point until you quest your whistle.)


 * Visit the stables every so often and choose to Watch Over your chocobo.
 * Make sure you do this twice on or soon after Day 7 and 8, so you can get an important cutscene involving a crying chick and a white handkerchief.


 * On Day 29 your chocobo will turn into an adult. You must complete a quest before you can get your whistle.  (This is Final Fantasy... you shouldn't be surprised.)
 * To do this your chocobo must have some (i.e. over level 1) affection for you.
 * If your trainer says "Regarding affection, it does not seem to care about you," then you have a little work to do.


 * Raise affection by feeding either greens or Cupid Worms.
 * Apparently you can successfully complete the quest with affection as low as level 2 ("it seems to be able to endure your company"). I've never tested that claim, however.
 * Gysahl Greens
 * Can be gardened or bought for cheap from the stable vendors:
 * Ferdoulemiont in Sandy
 * Quesse in Windy
 * Neigepance in Bastok
 * You may need several Gysahl Greens to raise affection to level 2 or higher. Feed them one at a time to your chocobo until it is completely full.  You can feed up to three a day; it may take a couple of days to raise affection.
 * Cupid Worms
 * Can be gardened or bought from the Auction House.
 * These will increase your chocobo's affection much more dramatically than greens, but may negatively impact your bird's stats.
 * The only reason I'm recommending these here is that your chocobo will have very low stats to begin with, and stats are not particularly a concern for an emergency chocobo. If you find yourself thinking "but I don't want a ride that moves at a snail's pace!" then consider quality chocobo raising.
 * One Cupid Worm will do the trick for affection, if you choose to go that path.
 * Other greens, such as Azouph Greens and Sharug Greens,
 * are also available, but are - in my opinion - less convenient than Gysahl Greens.
 * Both must be gardened or bought on the Auction House.
 * Azouph Greens increase affection more than Gysahl Greens, but fill the chocobo up more - only two can be fed each day.
 * Sharug Greens increase affection less than Gysahl Greens and fill the chocobo up less as well - up to six must be fed to completely fill a chocobo.
 * If you harvested them while gardening, that's great! - but don't bother buying these on the Auction House.


 * Now you can quest your whistle! See the section above, Chocobo Whistle Quest, for a walkthrough.


 * After questing the whistle and registering to call your chocobo (which will be a new option under the chocobo main menu), you may safely retire your Emergency Chocobo.

Make sure you have finished the quest and registered to call your chocobo before retiring it.
 * If you miss a step, you will have to start over with another egg, and won't get your whistle for another real-life month.


 * Remember that...
 * You must be level 20 to equip the Chocobo Whistle and must have your Chocobo License.
 * You cannot call your chocobo if
 * You have hate from a mob,
 * Are in an area where Chocobos cannot normally be ridden,
 * Or are in a Shadowreign area.

Helpful Tips
Never, ever, ever "give up" your chocobo!
 * A chocobo before day 64 can always be improved with dedication and basic know-how.
 * A chocobo that is given up cannot be registered on a VCS registration card, and cannot be called.
 * After day 29 you may retire the chocobo (and keep the whistle) and start another bird.

You can only have one bird on any one character at a single point in time....
 * But you have mules, don't you?

Remember that Chocobo Raising is part of a game. Don't get too stressed out, and don't take it too seriously. It's something that's meant to be enjoyed!

Links
I hunted down SquareEnix's official chocobo-related articles in my research for this guide. They can be found here:
 * Chocobo Raising Details
 * Chocobo Racing Details
 * Chocobo Circuit Details
 * VCS Report