FFXIV chocobo colors: which fruits to feed and in what order
Your companion chocobo starts in Desert Yellow. Feeding it fruit at a chocobo stable shifts its plumage, and the chocobo color calculator works out which fruits to feed, how many and in what order to reach the color you want.
Where do I feed my chocobo?
A chocobo stable stands in the garden of a house: your own, your Free Company's or a friend's. Bring your chocobo to the stable and choose to feed it there; the fruit is used up and the color changes over time, not at the moment of feeding.
What does each fruit do?
The game describes each fruit by the hue it changes. The plumage has hidden red, green and blue values, and each fruit moves all three by the same step:
| Fruit | Game description | Red | Green | Blue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xelphatol Apple | deepens red | up | down | down |
| Doman Plum | lightens red | down | up | up |
| Mamook Pear | deepens green | down | up | down |
| Valfruit | lightens green | up | down | up |
| O'Ghomoro Berries | deepens blue | down | down | up |
| Cieldalaes Pineapple | lightens blue | up | up | down |
A Han Lemon restores the original Desert Yellow. All seven fruits grow from gardening seeds, and other players sell them on the market board.
Why does the color jump instead of fading?
The feathers always show the dye color closest to the hidden values. Several fruits can pass without a visible change, then one more makes another dye the closest and the plumage changes at once. That is also why the calculator asks for the color you see now: it starts from that color's exact values. If you do not know where your chocobo's hidden values sit, feed a Han Lemon first and plan from Desert Yellow.
Worked example: Desert Yellow to Snow White
Choose Desert Yellow as the current plumage and Snow White as the wanted one. The plan takes 22 fruits: 12 Doman Plums, 9 Valfruit and 1 Cieldalaes Pineapple. Snow White is pale in every channel, so the plan mostly raises green and blue while keeping red high. Feed them in the order shown; the fruit list links each one to its item page with its seeds and market listings.
Going the other way is a long trip: Desert Yellow to Soot Black takes 59 fruits, because every channel has to come far down.