Let’s talk fashion. Mugler didn’t die just so you can ride around on a Desert Yellow Chocobo. Fresh out of the coop, our feathered friend looks classic but a little drab, no? There are over 70 colors your avian ally can take on.
If you read my list of mounts to make your FC jealous, you know how important it is to ride in style.
I consider it a community service of fashion for me to teach you how to change the color of your Chocobo.
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Changing the Color of Your Chocobo in Ffxiv
Changing the color of your Chocobo in FFXIV is honestly simpler than dying your hair.I sincerely wish dying your hair was this easy. Remember the acronym S.E.W! With a minor amount of legwork, you’ll be a bird stylist in no time at all. (Consider befriending or becoming a botanist prior to the first step to save some gil. You’ll see why.)
Stable your bird-brained bro.
Eat the right snacks.
Wait for God to do his work.
S.E.W your ‘Co! (That’s industry-speak for ‘Chocobo’)
Stable That Bird
This is the trickiest part of S.E.W. To stable your Chocobo, you need access to a storble. What? No, sorry, a STABLE. To accomplish this, you’ll need your own private estate (an apartment works, too) or a Free Company estate (ask the people in charge to give you storble privileges.)
Once you’ve located the right stable for you, it takes a couple of clicks to shove that bird in there. Then, it’s time to eat.
There is no way to change your Chocobo color in FFXIV without access to a stable. But, if you have 0,000,000 gil, joining a Free Company is, well, free. Do it. Do it now.
Eat a Rainbow!
We all know that eating a fruit salad changes an animal’s coloring; The same is true in Eorzea. By feeding your Chocobo the right combination of fruits, you gradually pick the color your bird will become.It’s sort of like how your human infant will turn orange if you feed it too many carrots.
The Fruit List includes Xelphatol Apples, Cieldalaes Pineapples, Doman Plums, Mamook Pears, Valfruit, and O’Ghomoro Berries. One more fruit, the Han Lemon, is a special case. More on her later.
This is where biology gets a little dicey. Each fruit will push the RGB values of your Chocobo in different directions. Don’t lose hope! Here is a great tool for calculating the exact shade you’re looking for. You input your current chococolor and your desired color, and it outputs your shopping list.
How did people recolor their animals before such technology? The mind truly boggles.
Hot tip: If you make a mistake while feeding the snacks, remove your Chocobo from the stable immediately, and you can start your fruit salad anew. This will waste what you’ve used already, but you won’t get an ugly ‘Co.
Cold tip: Consider bringing a sweater, it’s supposed to get chilly this afternoon.
Wait for God
The final step. The hardest step if you’re as impatient as I am. This step tests your grit, determination, and constitution.
Wait six hours.
Watch some Netflix, heat up a Digiorno pizza, spend some time following our guide on making gil. Your patience will be rewarded when you remove your Chocobo from the stable.
Voila! Your feathered friend’s hue is brand nue!
The Han Lemon
The special fruit. An anomalous fruit. A fruit with the power to reverse time. A lemon to bring us back to a simpler time before all these flashy colored Chocobos with their pinks and blues.
Feeding your Chocobo a Han Lemon, then waiting six hours, will return them to Desert Yellow.
I’m begging you to only use this if it’s an efficient middle step in getting to a new color. Remember what I said before about fashion.
Bonus: Chocobo Bardings
A snazzy colored bococho without a slick barding to match is like eating caviar out of a Big Gulp. There are so many choices when it comes to bird couture. My personal favorite is the Starlight Barding (pictured above,) but it’s important to remember that I’m insane.
I’d also recommend the Ruby Barding. Most bardings can be crafted or purchased for varying prices from the market board.