[A few questions]

hmm.... that may work, but I'd have to find room for it thanks! Would be nice if they replaced that redpower block that sucked items in an area though, or maybe made item collectors take upgrades.

[A few questions]

tried both one block above and below the current breeder, no results.

EDIT: Sorry for double post, used to forums concatenating posts that are close together... I'm spoiled

So, pigs also don't seem to spawn with wheat anymore (via breeder, which claims to use wheat for ALL mobs, despite their unique breeding methods), and instead is successfully breeding pigs with carrots. But, I had no luck any seeds and the breeder with chickens...

[A few questions]

tried both one block above and below the current breeder, no results.

[A few questions]

yeah, it is the right way. Even turned it around a few time I'm not sure either. Seems that both the chickens and the breed are one block above the floor, maybe that isn't correct? unfortunately , it's kinda hard to move the breeder, as a hole in wall results in a room full of chickens, and you can't plug the hole until they all escape...

[A few questions]

1. Is there a good alternative to a powered obsidian pipe? I know that the ME transition plane and Item Collector can pick items up, but my understanding is, only items touching the block they're on. In this case, I have animals in a 5x5 block pen dropping items (eggs, other drops when they die) and it would be nice to automate collecting them (by this, when they die by other mean, being pushed into the wall, etc. I already have a grinder setup). Also, the floor of the area is all sewers, so I can't really use water or conveyor belts to move items to a collector or transition plane.

2. I am having issues with the breeder and chickens. All the wikis I searched said that the breader should breed chickens with wheat, ever though they breed with seeds manually now. I removed the export bus on the breeder, filled it with seeds (multiple types) and wheat, and it wouldn't use any of them, however I could feed all the chickens manually (meaning their "timer" wasn't running). There is no redstone signal turning the breeder off either, as the idle bar runs down. Is it just broken or am I missing something? I may have to switch to pigs if chickens don't work, but I put a lot of effort into automated processing of chickens, and want the feathers :p

[Perpetual Energy?]

Hrm. Just make like a 5x5x5 cube and throw the squiddies in it? Or 5x5x1 (1 deep) with the rancher at one end? I've seen squiddies drowning before if they get clumped up.

I have a 5x5 pool that is 2 blocks deep, with only 2 squids. with 2 ranches in the middle of the 5x5, one on top of each other. Obviously you can change to suit your tastes etc. but that is what it working for me .

[Perpetual Energy?]

I have been powering my biofuel with nothing but ink sacs. 2 squids (use a jailer safari net to keep them from de-spawning) and 2 ranchers, and I am producing ink to power 10 bifuel reactors, with ink to spare. I have enough biofuel that I have lost track of the generators I'm running with it. If you desire more effienciency, you can combine other stuff with the ink, but I have yet to need to (24x7 powering my power grid, I have something like 500,000 ink surplus atm.)

[Best way to get mob essence?]

Thanks for all the help guys! I ended up learning to use the chronotyper correctly. Useful once I actually learned how to use it

Anyway, seems that using passive mobs, breeding and sorting, then grinding them, seems to be automated enough. Though, if you pen enough animals up in a small area, they seem to kill each other once in a while :/

[Best way to get mob essence?]

I am wondering if anyone has good tips, usage, etc. on getting mob essence? I am using it to run block smashers, but it seems it kinda hard to get enough to keep using. The grinder kills mobs too quickly to keep it on all the time (automated) with breeding (maybe using rednet to pulse it slowly? ), and I even had my game sit for 5 hours with a zombie spawner feeding my grinder, and my 3 block smasher were just about using it as fast as I was making mob essence (I have diamonds, certus quartz, and emerald ore from my two laser drills being exported by my ME network into enchant-3 block smashers).

Also, it seems that an auto-spawner - grinder loop (grinder producing essence to power an auto-spawner, to spawn mobs to grind... ) produces a net loss of essence (takes more to spawn a mob then you get to grind it.)

it WOULD be nice to find number on that by the way. I've scoured every wiki I could find, including the minefactory reloaded forum post, and only the Feed the Beast wiki mentioned how much essence per kill the grind gives you, and not a single one, anyone I could find, on the entire internet seemed to list how much essence was used by the auto-spawner.