The four-point checklist
1. Cake: is there Cake in the farm chest right now? One Cake per egg, and Cake in your inventory or another chest does not count. 2. Genders: are the two Pals one male and one female? Two of the same gender will not breed, however long you wait. 3. Assignment: are both Pals assigned to the farm, not just standing near it or doing another base job? 4. Pathing: can both Pals actually walk to the farm? A Pal stuck behind a wall, on another floor, or assigned to a job elsewhere will stall breeding.
Work through that list in order before changing pairs. Changing the pair does not fix a missing Cake, and it will not fix a gender or assignment problem either.
No egg after a long time
If the checklist passes and still no egg appears, reassign both Pals: remove them from the farm, then assign them again. That clears most stuck states. Also check that the farm is in a base with enough space and that the Pals are not being pulled away by another priority job. If you changed the pair recently, remember that breeding progress is for the current pair — swapping pairs restarts that progress.
If the Pals are breeding but the egg is not the species you expected, that is not a farm problem. Check the pair in the calculator: it may be a special combo, a pre-1.0 pair that changed in 1.0, or a breed-true Pal that only comes from same-species pairs.
Pals not breeding at all
Pals that cannot enter a Breeding Farm will never breed, whatever you do. In the dataset used here, Panthalus and Astralym are excluded from all parent data for that reason, even though they appear in the Paldeck. If your target is one of those, you need a different way to obtain it — check its page rather than forcing it into a farm.
Also check that you are not trying to breed a Pal with itself in the wrong way: same-species breeding works for breed-true Pals, but only if both Pals are actually assigned and of opposite genders.
Frequently asked questions
Why are my Pals not breeding even with Cake?
Check genders, assignment, and pathing. Cake alone does not start breeding if the Pals are not assigned as a male-female pair to that farm.
How long should breeding take?
Breeding takes time in-game and needs the Pals to stay assigned. If you keep swapping Pals, progress restarts.
Is breeding broken in 1.0?
No. Most reports of broken breeding are a checklist item above, or a pre-1.0 pair that no longer gives the expected species.