"That doesn't sound like a very good reason to do something so sad... Do you want help fixing it?" 

"...if... amaliens wanted to get some money together to pay to... install windows in the chicken coop... I guess we could do that?"

Amaliens start suggesting other ideas. Like better food and more space and how amaliens can come and play with them and a few of them want to adopt chickens of their own so they have better places. They didn't realize Amentans needed help with this sort of thing but they can help.

"How much do you think all these things might cost?"

"...space is always very costly, we're working with the footprint you guys - or maybe it was other amaliens? The footprint some amaliens suggested to us and we're trying to be efficient with it, we can't just trivially give the chickens twice as much space unless they're paying for it with twice as many eggs. Uh, we're not... adopting out the chickens... we're keeping them for the eggs, this is the number of chickens we are trying to have. I guess we could set something up for amaliens to play with them, conceivably?? Windows, uh, ballpark five hundred tap for a window yea big, scales linearly, plus repair costs also in that range if they break."

"We didn't realize that the amount of land wasn't enough to feed you all without extreme measures. We can figure out how to allocate some more if that will help, rather than paying for new windows. I can't afford many."

"This isn't an especially extreme measure? We can build... chicken coops with plastic roofs, or something... in the future... might make the climate control work worse though, I'd have to run it by some people... look, chickens don't need sun, they aren't plants and they don't season."

"I... hm. I think you are using the word need not in the way we would? We don't need to eat but we just did and it was good and would be sad not to ever eat."

"Amentans need to eat. And the chickens' eggs are one of the things we eat. And if food gets more expensive, it's harder for us to eat enough. So the things we eat that need sun get sun and the things we eat that don't only get it if it's cheaper or easier that way, so food can be cheap and we can all eat every day and not be hungry and sick."

"We could help you get enough food then, if that would solve it?"

It would be difficult, amaliens don't have that much experience in making very large amounts of food, but he bets he could figure it out with them.

"If you come up with a more efficient way to get eggs we would love to switch to it. Do you know what efficient means?"

"Yes, I know what efficient means."

Lucien does not roll his eyes because unlike some people he knows how to talk in difficult situations without doing silly things.

"I suspect you aren't counting 'the chickens really don't like it' as a cost when deciding if something is efficient?"

"- right, that's not a resource we're spending unless it affects the chickens' health or production."

"It seems like a resource that's being spent even if you're not the ones spending it?"

"- it's not an input we need to conserve or a cost we need to cover, it's just a thing that may or may not be happening depending on whether Amentan chickens are like birds you have had as pets or whatever before."

"It's a cost to the birds."

Several of the amaliens nod in agreement. 

"It isn't... expensive? I'm not very used to Cryptophasia so I'm not actually sure if I'm saying the right words for what I mean. We don't have to pay the birds."

"You should!"

"...that wouldn't make any sense."

Sigh.

"This probably isn't actually a good way to discuss this problem. I'll schedule a meeting with the mayor later to talk about it, for now I think we should go back to the camp."

"Okay, uh, I hope you... enjoyed... the... tour?" says the farm purple.

"We didn't."

The amaliens are relieved to have returned to their camp afterwards. There is a lot of hugging and some crying.

They aren't particularly interested in visiting the city again.

He doesn't blame them. When can he have a meeting with the mayor?