Sheep husbandry | Animal husbandry Farming Simulator 2013 Guide

Basics

The sheep pasture is located in the north-west corner of the map, near fields 37 and 38. Same as with chickens, sheep are also bought from the shop (P) and automatically transported to their pasture.

Before the sheep can start supplying wool, they need to be fed with grass. You can learn how to get grass from reading the Cultivation - Straw and Grass section; in this instance, you don't have to form it into bales - it's enough to transport it in a loader or use the AMAZONE Profihopper mower that's been mentioned before. It's not expensive, so you can easily buy one, put it near the pasture and from time to time use to fill the manger with freshly-cut grass. A full manger lasts for six days of game time.

The small AMAZONE Profihopper mower is perfect for feeding sheep.

When the sheep are fed, they will automatically "produce" wool. The wool is accumulated in pallets right next to the pasture. In order to get it to a selling station, use a front loader with a compatible pallet fork attached to it. The cheapest model - Weidemann 4270 CX100 T costs 26000$, whereas the compatible pallet fork is an additional 800$. Once you have them, you can pick up the pallet - though maneuvering the front loader may be quite difficult at the beginning. To do it, use the left and right mouse buttons, then move the mouse up and down and left to right to set the right angle and slowly slip the fork underneath the pallet. When you do it, raise the arm and take the wool to a selling station in the town near field 30 - it's indicated with a ball of thread on the map.

To move the pallets, use the front loader.

Moving the pallets one by one may prove both tiring and time consuming, therefore we have an option to transport them in larger quantities. To that end, purchase a bale loader (baling technologies tab, cost 3600$), and park it near the pasture. When a pallet has been filled up (PDA, statistics, fourth page - wool will be indicated in red), load it on the loader. Once you determine the perfect time to sell the wool, take the loader to a selling station and driver over an indicated field. All pallets within that field will be automatically sold and we will receive our due payment.

Wool selling station. All pallets within the indicated field will be sold.

Buying sheep and a loader

Animals, just like vehicles and implements, can be bought at the shop.

In order to buy your first sheep, you need to enter the shop. They will be automatically moved to your farm into the lower-left corner of the map. In order to gain profit from selling wool, you will have to provide them with food - in this case grass.

In order to move wool pallets, you will need a loader with a pallet fork.

Additionally you will need a front loader and a fork pallet. The cheapest such vehicle is the Weidemann 4270 CX100 T with the Waidemann pallet fork - the whole set costs 26 800 $.

Minimum breeding option

In the minimum option, you can use the cheapest mower.

In order to begin, you will need a few sheep. In order for the whole investment to have any sense, you should start with 25 sheep - they will cost you 5 000 $ (25x 200 $). The easiest and cheapest way of delivering them grass is buying a small AMAZONE Profihopper mower for 3 500 $. After buying it, drive it towards the sheep pasture. You should have plenty of grass around you. Turn on the mower and fill up the tank with grass - it has a capacity of 2500 l.

Unload the mower grass into the manger.

Drive backwards to the manger and unload the grass. The manger can hold enough grass for 6 days, so the more sheep you have, the more grass you will have to unload.

It's a minimum option in which you will have to wait for a long time for your investment to start bringing profit. It's not very remunerative.

Investment: 35 300 $ (5 000 $ for the sheep, 26 800 $ for the loader, 3 500 $ for the mower); of course the cost will be lower should you already have some of those machines;

Return on investment: > 20 days (producing a single pallet will take a couple days and selling it will bring you 4 500 $);

Conclusion: breeding sheep in such a small scale isn't profitable because of the high initial costs and long return on investment; a larger number of sheep gives a better distribution of the investment costs.

Optimum breeding option

Buy a field beside the sheep pasture and plant grass on it.

In the optimum version you will most of all have to buy more sheep - 100 for 20 000 $ is a minimum (100x 200 $). The second investment is buying a field beside the pasture - field 38 for 66 500 $. You will grow grass for them here.

You have to plant grass only once. After mowing, it will grow back.

Third step: bring a tractor with a sower there - any will do, you must have one. Plant grass on the whole of field 38. Remember that grass has to be planted only once - it grows back after being mowed, so you can take the sower back.

Before grass grows on the field, use that growing around.

The fourth thing is bringing a mower. Perhaps you already have one (bought to complete mission). You need a tractor with the basic Pottinger Eurocat 315H for 8 300 $ - it will do just fine for starters. It will take some time before grass grows on the field, so you can start by mowing the area around the farm and eventually move to the field.

Buy and bring here a multi-purpose trailer.

The fifth thins is buying a multi-purpose trailer. The cheapest option is the Bergmann Shuttle 900 K and it will do just fine. It costs a lot - 90 000 $. Drive it to the mowed grass around the sheep pasture and start collecting it (speed 2). The trailer has vast capacity (44 000 l), but for starters you need a lot less - around 2 000 l.

Unload the mower grass into the manger.

Drive to the manger and unload whatever you have so that the sheep have something to eat. 100 sheep will need around 12 000 l of grass for 6 days.

On the other side a pallet with wool will be created. When it's finished, further production will be stopped until you collect the prepared pallet from the field. That's why you should keep an eye on the PDA.

You will need some practice with handling pallets. You have to be very delicate and careful. Aim the fork into the holes in the pallet and slowly move towards it. Afterwards pick up the pallet and drive away from the field. Do everything at minimum speed so that you have time to correct any possible mistakes.

Connecting two trailers requires a lot of time.

The best way of transporting pallets is buying two cheapest trailers and connecting them both to a single tractor. It's VERY difficult and requires slow and steady maneuvers while driving backwards.

Load the pallets onto the trailers.

Drive the tractor with two trailers onto the farm. Put the pallets onto the trailers once after another. Two trailers can hold 8 pallets.

Be very careful so you don't knock everything down from the trailers.

Be equally careful when loading pallets onto the trailer. Don't make any sudden moves or you will knock down the loaded pallets or even the whole trailer. After lowering the pallet onto the trailer, slowly pull back the forklift. One wool pallet can be sold for around 4 500 $.

Investment: 128 800 $ (66 500 $ for the field, 20 000 $ for the sheep, 26 800 $ for the forklift, 8 300 $ for the mower, 2x 3 600 $ for two trailers); the sower wasn't included, as you're sure to have one on your farm and it's only needed once here;

Return on investment: around 25 days (producing one pallet takes around 21 hours and it can be sold for around 4 500 $);

Conclusion: breeding at such a scale in profitable; it's a bit absorbing at first (when you have to plant, mow and deliver grass to the manger) and requires some initial investment (though incomparable with sugar beets or corn); later on it's a lot less time consuming - you only need to mow the grass every now and then, the pallet has to be taken onto the trailer every 21 hours and once a week the two loaded trailers have to be taken to the purchase point.

The best possible way of mowing large fields of grass.

Later on in the game, you can make the whole process much more effective by buying the Kuhn PZ 960 mower for 28 300 $ and attaching it at the back and Kuhn PZ 280 F for 8 840 $ for the front. In total you will spend 37 140 $, but mowing grass will become much easier.

Transporting the wool

Drive such a set VERY carefully so that nothing falls off.

You can take each pallet to the purchase point, but that doesn't have much economic sense. A single trailer costs only 3 600 $, but you should buy two and attach them both. After loading 8 pallets, head to the purchase point by the spinnery - it's in the east, north of the cow pasture. There is only one problems - you have to drive VERY carefully, so that none of the pallets falls down. It's rather problematic.

In order to sell the pallets, you just have to drive into the marked point - the pallets will disappear and your money for it will be transferred onto your account. The price of one pallet is around 4 500 $.