When a slime eats food it will produce a plort, and its agitation and hunger will both decrease. Each slime has a particular diet, and most of them will eat food from one of the three standard food categories and will not eat foods outside of its diet. In most cases, a slime's favorite food will be in the same food category as its general diet. A slime's diet can be expanded by converting it to a Largo, and can potentially have two favorite foods instead of one. A slime or largo that eats a favored food will produce double plorts. 

Fruit and veggies will rot if left on the floor uneaten; rotten food will eventually disappear on its own, but will disappear immediately when making contact with the vac stream. 

There are several different species of slimes, each found in certain locations on the Far, Far Range. Though their most common features are the permanent happy expressions they have on their faces when fed and their high pitched voices, each type of slime has a unique trait that is used to identify it. Nearly all small slimes are capable of stacking. 

Each Slime - except the Pink, Puddle, Fire, Saber, Lucky, Quicksilver, Glitch, and Twinkle Slimes - has a unique favourite food, which when fed to the appropriate Slime doubles the plorts they produce. Most of them can be converted to Largo Slimes to increase profitability even further. 

All standard farmable slimes are subject to hunger and agitation, and can experience fear under certain circumstances. 

Rancher Risks:
Gold slimes produce no direct risks to a rancher but their appearance often induces panic and leads to (sometimes fatal) mistakes. Further, the only way to obtain gold plorts is to strike a gold slime with any spare resources in your vac. Doing so can produce a gold plort, though it also leaves a trail of additional resources in the area, leading to unintended largos, or worse.

Plortonomics:
Gold plorts have little practical use and are the most valuable of all plorts simply because they are shiny and rare. Back on Earth, the elite love to adorn themselves in jewelry made of gold plorts, far exceeding the value of any terrestrial precious metal. For this reason a rancher should never pass up the chance to get a gold plort or two from a rare chance encounter with a gold slime.

Largo Slimes are generally favored due to producing one of each plort of its combined type which is doubled when fed a favorite food, which makes the food-to-plort ratio more efficient. In addition, harder to feed slimes like Tabby Slimes can be converted into largos with an easy to grow favored crop, which is a great way to get an otherwise tricky to get plort type. 

Q: How do I use an auto feeder?
A: Once you buy the upgrade, an autofeeder will be located on one of a Corral's corners. Simply shoot food into the receptacle and it will store the item to distribute to the slimes inside the corral over time. You can choose the frequency at which food gets distributed via the button on the feeder. 

The feeder is helpful to prevent wasting excess food. 

Q: My Slimes keep trying to escape!
A: Pure slimes have the ability to stack when near one another. Multiple may even spawn from a single location in a stack all at once and are capable of breaking the stack if they so choose. While this is not inherently a bad thing on its own, be warned that if a lot of small slimes are coralled together, they will stack much more often. If left unfed, they may also try to seek out food sources while stacked, which increases their probability of escaping.