Chicken Egg
How to get a pet
A Chicken Egg can show up as one of the options in your Weekly Care Package (Prime accounts, first rank-up of the week). Picking it uses both of that week's rewards, so you get the egg and nothing else. You can have one pet per account.
Eggs, feed and chickens can't be traded or sold. The only way to get a pet is to raise one yourself.
Eggs aren't all the same colour. Yours can come out anywhere from reddish brown and cream to green or pale blue, with more or fewer speckles.
From egg to hen
The pet grows through four stages on its own, as long as it has food. If it never runs out, it lives 140 days (20 weeks) after hatching and then leaves of old age. From the chick stage on, you can name it once per stage with a free name tag (up to 20 characters). If you skip a stage, it keeps its earlier name.
- 1
Egg
About 5 daysThe hatch date is set the moment you get it. Valve's tooltip says "a week or so", but the first eggs hatched about 5 days after they were claimed. The egg hatches when you open CS2 after that date. Don't leave it too long: after the hatch date you only have a limited time to come back, or it never hatches.
- 2
Chick
22 daysYou can name it and take it to the photo booth and the HatchBook. It walks around next to your agent in the main menu and rides on its shoulder in the loadout screen. A chick stays in the menus and can't come into matches yet.
- 3
Pullet
28 daysIts breed and colours come in. From this stage it comes into your matches, and other players see its name above it unless they hide customized items in their settings.
- 4
Hen
90 daysFully grown, with every pose and effect in the photo booth. It leaves of old age 140 days after hatching, and its photo book stays on your profile.
A pet's life at a glance
Day 140: old age
From the chick stage on: if the food runs out, the pet is gone
- Old age
Day 140, as a hen, if the food never ran out. Valve calls it "A Life Well Lived", and the photo book stays on your profile.
- Out of food
The food runs out while it's a chick, pullet or hen. Players have been losing pets this way since mid-October. It walks off in a huff with one of three random lines, such as "Your pet has accepted a position elsewhere."
- Never hatched
Nobody opened CS2 in time after the hatch date, so the egg was never hatched. How long you have after that date isn't known yet. One of Valve's lines for it: "Never loved. Never hatched. Those two are related."
Hatching and tricks
Once the hatch date has passed and you open CS2, the egg shakes and cracks open, and there are two different hatching animations. After that your pet has its own moves, from spins as a chick to playing dead once it's grown. In a match, ping your pet during freeze time and it does a trick.
After the hatch, the chick stands by your agent's feet in the main menu, next to a red chick feeder. Buttons above it let you inspect it, open the photo booth (the camera) and open the HatchBook. The inspect view shows "Pet Chick", its name and its Hatch Date, and you can pet it there.
Your pet in 3D
The egg, the chick and every hen colour, with the animations from the game files.
Pets on our CS2 servers
Our free inspect servers have the chick and 34 hen colours. Join a server, press E to open the panel and pick PETS, then shoot a colour: that chicken appears in front of you and follows you around the map. One pet per player, and nobody can hurt it.
Feeding
Chicken Feed also comes from the Weekly Care Package and also takes both rewards. From the chick stage on, every pet has a date when its food runs out, and feed moves that date later. Some players report that one bag adds about three weeks, but Valve hasn't said and other reports don't match yet, so don't count on an exact number. An egg doesn't eat: it only has a deadline to be hatched by. If a chick, pullet or hen runs out, it leaves for good with one of three random lines, such as "Your pet has accepted a position elsewhere. The offer included meals."
Watch for two hints on your pet. "More feed for [pet name] is available in Weekly Care Packages" means the food won't last until the next stage. Players see it right after hatching, with the feeder about half full. "Running low on food" appears 9 days before it runs out, which leaves you at least one Care Package to grab feed from. Don't wait until the feeder is empty.
Breeds and colours
Every egg hatches into a yellow chick. You see its breed and colour when it grows into a pullet: Catalana, Silkie or Polish, with 34 colours between them. The colour is random and some come up more often than others. On top of that, every pet has its own pattern, which changes how its colour looks.
How big your chicken is depends on its stage: on a map, a pullet is about 60% the size of a normal map chicken and a hen is full size. Within a stage, every pet has its own build, set by its pattern: slimmer or fatter, longer or shorter legs, a bigger tail, wings, neck, head and comb. It keeps that build for life. Pullets always have long legs and a big head.
The odds badges are estimates. The game files give each colour a weight, and we show its share within the breed, but nobody has confirmed yet that the game rolls colours this way. Colours marked Unknown odds have no weight in the files, and which breed you get isn't in the files at all. Pullets have been around since 20 October, but nobody has counted enough of them yet to check these numbers.
A few colours below are in the game but no chicken can grow into them yet. They may show up in a later update.
Catalana 15 colours
Very common~21%
Uncommon~11%
Uncommon~11%
Not in the game yet
Not in the game yet
Silkie 13 colours
Very common~29%
Not in the game yet
Not in the game yet
Not in the game yet
Not in the game yet
Polish 12 colours
Uncommon~20%
Rare~10%
Rare~10%
Unknown odds
Photo booth and HatchBook
Pose your pet on its own or with your CT or T agent, pick an action, and add hats, filters, stickers and effects, then save the photo to the HatchBook, an album with chapters for the chick, pullet and hen. Older pets unlock more poses, actions and effects. A photo takes up to 10 stickers, each sticker once, and they aren't used up. There is a 3 second countdown, and photos are saved as JPEG files, 1200 px on the long side.
Players have used it since the first chicks hatched: the Party Hat, confetti and bubbles, the Picnic and Photo Studio backdrops, filters, CT and T agent poses, and the HatchBook pages Just Hatched, Early Days and Park Life. Since 2 October agents in the photos wear the gloves you have equipped, and since 5 October the page titles are translated. Pullets have been around since 20 October, but players haven't shown Warehouse or map photos, pullet poses or Field Incident Report pages yet. No pet is a hen yet.
Effects
- Confetti
- Bubbles
- Feathers
- Sparks
- Laser
- Beam
- Fire
- Lightning
- Explosion
Filters
- Black and White
- Sepia
- Warm
- Cool
- Crisp
- Moonlight
- Silvertone
- Psychedelic
Map backgrounds
- Photo Studio
- Picnic
- Warehouse
- Baggage
- Dust II
- Mirage
- Inferno
- Nuke
- Cache
- Train
- Ancient
Photo Studio and Picnic are always open, and Warehouse opens at the pullet stage. Each real map opens after you finish a match on it on official servers with your pullet or hen.
Each HatchBook chapter only takes photos from its own stage. When your pet grows up, the empty pages of the chapter it left behind disappear, unless a photo that fits them is already in your library. So take chick photos while it's still a chick.
Effects open by age: Confetti, Bubbles and Feathers for a chick, Sparks, Laser and Beam for a pullet, and Fire, Lightning and Explosion for a hen. Those last three unlock early if your pet was burned, zapped by a Zeus or caught by a planted C4. Chickens can take Zeus damage since this update.
Hats
Ten hats your chicken can wear in the photo booth at any age, from a Wizard Hat and a Top Hat to a Banana and a little sprout.
Wizard Hat
Top Hat
Party Hat
Banana
Sprout
Alien
Glasses
Nose Glasses
Helmet
Armor Helmet
HatchBook pages
The album has 20 pages: six for the chick, six for the pullet, five for the hen and three Field Incident Report pages. Most pages ask for a certain photo, like a pullet on Dust II or Mirage, a pullet mid-jump in a Party Hat, a hen on a Wanted poster or a kicking hen on a movie poster. Pages come with short captions, such as "Day one. You weighed less than a flashbang and were roughly twice as loud." The Field Incident Report pages fill in if your pet gets burned, tased or caught by a planted C4. Books of past pets stay on your profile card, listed by hatch month, like "September 2026".
Photo Studio backdrops
In the Photo Studio you can pick a plain backdrop in seven colours, a sky or an abstract pattern, and change the light colour.
Also in the update
- New Rush mode: queued 3v3 on the new map Complex. Every round you win moves the fight one arena closer to the enemy castle, and winning a round in their castle (or reaching 8 round wins) takes the match.
- New Premier map pick: one map, two maps, one map, then a random pick from those four.
- Stickers can now be applied to the C4.
- Hold reload to reload silently. It takes quite a bit longer. Since 28 October you can switch it from hold to toggle in the settings.
- Clan tags are back for Steam group members.
New music kit
StatTrak™ Music Kit | Starjunk 95, Industrial Sunset Memories
Market $6.15
CS2 store $7.99
View 554 offers in 9 markets
Not found in containers
Music Kit | Starjunk 95, Industrial Sunset Memories
Normal $3.45
StatTrak $6.15
CS2 store $4.99
View 1974 offers in 9 markets
Not found in containers
Questions
- Can you trade or sell CS2 pets?
- No. The Chicken Egg, Chicken Feed and the chicken itself are untradable, so they can't be listed on the Steam Market or third-party sites.
- How long does a Chicken Egg take to hatch?
- About 5 days. The game's tooltip says "a week or so", but the first eggs hatched on 28 and 29 September 2026, about 5 days after they were claimed. The hatch date is fixed as soon as you claim the egg, and it hatches when you open CS2 after that date. Don't wait too long: an egg nobody comes back for in time never hatches.
- Can a CS2 pet die?
- Yes. From the chick stage on, it leaves if its food runs out. An egg is lost if nobody opens CS2 in time after its hatch date. If it stays fed, it leaves of old age as a hen, 140 days after hatching. Either way the pet is gone for good and you can get a new egg.
- How long does a CS2 pet live?
- About 145 days from the day you claim the egg, if it never runs out of food: about 5 days as an egg, 22 days as a chick, 28 days as a pullet and 90 days as a hen.
- How many pets can I have, and can I swap mine?
- One per account. The game has room for a single pet, and there's no button to release it or swap it for another. You get a new egg only after your current pet has left.
- Can I take my chicken into a match?
- Yes, from the pullet stage it comes into the match with you. Some guides say that only works solo or as the lobby host, but in the game files that rule only covers the main menu scene. Claiming a pet item from the Care Package does close your party lobby if you aren't its host. In a party, your friends' pets show up in the main menu lobby too, eggs in nests, and the end-of-match screen shows every player's pet. An egg or a chick stays in the menus. Ping your pet during freeze time and it does a trick, and players who hide customized items don't see its name. On our inspect servers the chick works on maps too, and follows you around like a hen.
- Can my chicken die in a match?
- Not for good. In a round it can be burned, hit by a Zeus or caught by a planted C4 like any map chicken, but that only unlocks photo booth effects and Field Incident Report pages early. The pet itself only leaves when its food runs out or when it reaches old age.
- Do you need Prime to get a CS2 pet?
- Yes. The Chicken Egg comes from the Weekly Care Package, which Prime accounts get with their first rank-up of the week. Chicken Feed comes from the same place.
- How do you get Chicken Feed?
- It's one of the options in the Weekly Care Package, and picking it takes both of that week's rewards, like the egg. In the second week of pets, players whose egg had hatched were offered Chicken Feed there. Nobody has reported being offered an egg while they already had a pet.
- Can you choose your chicken's breed or colour?
- No. Both are random, and you first see them when the chick grows into a pullet. The game files make some colours come up more often than others, but the odds on this page are still estimates: nobody has counted enough real pullets yet to check them. Your pet's pattern also changes how its colour looks, see the next question.
- Why doesn't my chicken look like any of the colours on SkinSniper?
- Because of its pattern. Every pet has a pattern, picked at random from thousands, that changes the shade, brightness, sheen and markings of its colour and sets its body shape. Our pictures show each colour with one pattern, so your chicken can look different and still be that colour. Open the pet inspector, pick the breed and colour that look closest and step through the patterns to find yours.