i have somewhat of an explanation for it:P
when you load the game, or when its dinner time the hearthlings drop their stuff where ever they are standing
(not 100% sure about this part)sometimes it happends on a storage ontop of an other item, the item isnt marked as “stored” and gets to be picked up again
when its picked up the spot gets marked as “emty”(even if the other item is still there)
if it happends with a few items at the same time you can get an infinite loop of picking up and dropping
ive mentioned it in a post before
and for the part that they are not eating, pause the game and let it prosess, they sometimes keep working untill the pathfinder can find its way
try changing the item filter to force some items out and maybe stopping the loop
but that can also give an issue as explained on the first part of my post
p.s. feel free to argue/disagree with any point(im also still learning these flaws)