Summary and profitability | Animal husbandry Farming Simulator 17 Guide

If the effectiveness of animals drops to zero, this means that they do not reproduce, nor produce any goods. However, for keeping them, you have to pay daily some small amounts (see below) - this can be observed in the finance tab. However, if you want to give up animal husbandry, it is a much better idea to sell them, instead of leaving them untended, although this is less profitable, so wait for the investment to at least pay off.

Remember that, by default, providing food to the maximum level gets you 6 days off work, not mentioning cleaning. You do not have to maintain high level of providing food to maintain high productivity. Cleanliness affects productivity to the level of 10% and it changes dynamically.

You can store more bales in the storage area than the maximum level allows

Just to remind you what has been mentioned in the section about feeding - you can make things considerably easier for yourself by using press for production of bales. You can store more of them I the barn than allowed by the troughs, which means that you can focus on doing something else for longer. You simply do not receive the message that you have reached the maximum level.

Remember that selling manure is not profitable (average price amounts to 50$/1000l). It is better to used that as manure, or invest in greenhouses.

Your profits may differ slightly, depending on the difficulty level (hints provided in this guide have been based on medium difficulty). Increase in profits from production of animals is linear - for twice as many animals, you receive double the profit (and twice as short reproduction time).

• Cows
• Sheep
• Pigs

Cows

Cows produce milk that is sold at the end of the day automatically. With limited cash, try to maintain productivity at the level of 75% - hay/ensilage, grass, water, straw and cleaning - everything apart from well-balanced food.

Comparison of production: at the level of 75%, and 100% (provided in parentheses), your productivity per 10 animals is going to be:

• Milk sale profits: $3200 ($4200);
• Daily manure and liquid manure: ~1800 litres (2300 litres) and ~1900 litres (2500 litres). These amounts are not sufficient even to fertilize a 1ha field - for that, you require, at least, 30 cows, nor do they provide you with reasonable profit at the price of 50$/1000 litres.
• Reproduction speed - one cow per 160h (120h);
• Selling price of cows- $2000/animal;
• Daily upkeep - 40$/animal.

Therefore, keeping cows makes a good venture, but it is recommended that you buy a baler as quickly as possible, or a wrapper for quick production of ensilage. The baler will also allow you to store conveniently large amounts of straw, whose production from a field 1 ha large is enormous, which is why you do not really have to grow wheat/barley (low profitability). It is best not to invest in hay at all - the mixing machine for animal food can be fed with grass. Remember that well-balanced food has the highest efficiency (as shown by the above statistics - the increase in profit is higher than 25%) and if you want to get a quick cash, focus on obtaining this type of food as soon as possible.

Sheep

In the case of sheep, you make profit on wool that appears in palettes by the pasture.

Sheep are the easiest to keep, which makes them perfect for a beginner farmer. They neither require that much work, nor are they that expensive in the upkeep (including the required equipment). They only produce wool, but they also reproduce quickly and you can sell them at a good price per animal. Below, you can view efficiency of production at the productivity rate of 100% per 10 animals:

• Daily wool production - ~230 (10% of storage capacity for wool);
• Estimated daily income from wool: $1000-1500;
• Reproduction speed - one sheep per 96h;
• Selling price of sheep - 1600$/animal;
• Daily upkeep - 20$/animal.

For greater efficiency, you can invest in better mowers and forage wagons, baling technology is not required. Also, do nit incest in hay, because this does not increase sheep's productivity. At first, thinks about buying more sheep then, after you already start receiving more wool consider better trailers/loaders that will improve working with palettes.

Pigs

Pigs are simple. However, it is difficult to maintain their productivity at the level of 100%, because this would require transportation and production of many plants. You can use bags with pig food for $1 200/1000l, available on palettes in shop. Their productivity level is around 1 palette per 10 pigs per day.

Below, you can view efficiency of production at the 100% productivity rate per 10 animals, when mixed food- it is easy to calculate that if you feed them with corn, these values drop by a half and the reproduction time doubles:

• Reproduction speed - one pig per 14h;
• Selling price of pigs - 1200$/animal;
• Daily production of manure and liquid manure: 650 litres and 500 litres;
• Daily upkeep - 30$/animal.

As you can see, after the number animals is increased to 30, reproduction times drops to 4:40h, which yields 6 pigs a day (assuming that additional pigs also decrease production time) - which yields a profit of $7200/day. What is even more, after corn is fed to them (50% productivity drop), you can receive 3 $600/day. If you use mixed food, you require 3 bags a day, for 30 pigs, and this yields a difference at the same level of profit (3 600$). Of course, while performing calculations, you should take newborn pigs into consideration and get additional supplies.

Therefore, the best option is to grow corn. Productivity is lower but a 1ha field yields around 20 000l of corn, which will last you for very long and you will simply have to add it from the trailer, to the nearby heap. In spite of all of that, pigs are not the most profitable of businesses and to benefit from it as much as possible, you will have to put lots of work into them. When it comes to manure produced, its amount is not as high as in the case of cows either. For optimal profits, transport pigs to the selling point by yourself - you will save up $200 per animal.