The Day-Care on Route 34 is one of the biggest new features of Gold and Silver. You leave your Pokémon there to train… and sometimes, an Egg appears. Breeding lets you obtain babies you can’t get any other way, rare moves and even shiny Pokémon.

Training at the Day-Care

The Day-Care keeps up to two Pokémon. Every step you take earns them one experience point. When you pick them up, you pay 100 Poké Dollars, plus 100 per level gained. Be careful: a Pokémon that levels up at the Day-Care automatically learns its new moves, replacing the oldest ones.

Getting an Egg

Leave a male and a female of the same species or of compatible groups at the Day-Care, or any Pokémon with Ditto. The Day-Care Man, in front of the fenced yard, tells you about their chances:

  • If he says they get along very well, Eggs will come quickly (same species, different Trainers).
  • If he says they get along, the chances are average.
  • If he says they don’t really like each other, Eggs will be rare.
  • If he says they prefer to play with other Pokémon, no Egg is possible.

When the Day-Care Man is waiting for you outside, an Egg is ready. The baby belongs to the mother’s species (or that of the Pokémon paired with Ditto), at its first evolution stage, at level 5.

What the baby inherits

  • Egg Moves: moves that the species can only learn this way, if the father knows them.
  • TM and HM moves from the father, if the baby can learn them.
  • Moves shared by both parents that the baby would otherwise learn later by leveling up.
  • Some of the DVs of the parent of the opposite gender (or of Ditto), which opens the door to breeding shiny Pokémon.

Baby Pokémon

Hatching time

Keep the Egg in your party and walk around. The time depends on the species: about 1,300 steps for Magikarp, around 2,600 for Togepi and the baby Pokémon, about 5,000 for most Pokémon, and more than 10,000 for the rarest ones like Dratini, Larvitar, Lapras or Snorlax. Riding back and forth on a long, straight route by bicycle is the fastest way.

Crystal

In Crystal, the first time you talk to the Day-Care Man, he gives you a Mystery Egg. It contains one of the seven baby Pokémon at random, knowing Mega Punch, with a much higher than normal chance of being shiny.

For Premium members only The secrets of breeding Reserved for PF Premium members: how DV inheritance really works, the method for getting a shiny with Ditto and the best Egg Moves in Johto.
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