From all the youtubers I follow for FS, your uploads standout like sore thumb. Really love the concrete data that you provide, it not only helps with farm planning but also provides you with all the necessary data to make informed decisions.
I do nothing but raise sheep. I have the mod that allows 250 sheep per barn and slowly worked my way up to 6 barns-- which I am stopping at. I bought 125 newborns to start and raised them to 18 months until they had newborns. I have been selling the adults at that point to save on food. After seeing your numbers I may start raising them till 35 months and then sell the older 125 in each barn to make room for newborns and start all over again. I have gotten so far ahead on grass bale production that I could go a full year without ever having to make another bale. I find sheep easy and stress-free, unlike the miserable time I had growing grapes prior to that. I appreciate all the work and effort you put into the testing.
@@Scroft I have decided that I will wait and hope Courseplay eventually releases for FS22 before I get into crop production. I have gotten so spoiled from the Courseplay mod in FS19 that I can't stomach the Ai in the base game anymore. I can barely deal with stupidity in the real world and so I absolutely can't deal with the stupid Ai in this game. lol
Same,I started my first fs22 file with nothing but sheep and I added chickens later as they are pretty stress free too. The egg production is nice being able to pick up the pallets.
I only have one cheap pasture for sheep and i bought 2 baby sheep at the start. I've been feeding hay to them for a long time and they produce wool and i take it to a factory of mine to do cloth and sell at the best price. I have a small mod animal trailer and i can sell 2 sheep for €2000. They will be replaced by reproduction fast. Cows i think i can feed hay and keep some milk and meat cows. I sell milk and meat cows. TMR i won't even loose my time,it's less job to raise horses with oats than everything i need just to mix that bullshit.
I don't typically enjoy watching farm sim on UA-cam, it's my most played game but I just don't enjoy a lot of content people make for the game. This is an exception. I appreciate all the testing. Good stuff, you've got a sub from me.
Thanks for taking the time once again to do this testing. Now I can plan out my farm with more confidence. Currently, I am getting both Slurry and manure without putting in straw.
Am playing a beef cattle farm right now. I have a 200 and 400 (both modded) cowshed, although a 300 would do as the bigger one as well. In the breeding barn I have 2 sets of 66 breeding cows, with reproduction 5 months apart, leaving room for 66 calves. Those calves get moved to the large barn, where I just ignore them (no food or water) until they've aged. Doing this gets a 5 month cycle, where you sell off the 66 mother cows for a good 200k, move the calves to the aging pasture, take 66 ready to reproduce cows from there to the breeding barn and the cycle is set up. You could do with feeding grass for 4 months in the breeding barn and just TMR in the last month before selling, if you really want to min max it. You can use this setup with any 2 to 3 ratio barn and use one or more breeding groups. The more groups you use, the more efficient you use the space in the barn. Just make sure to always leave room for calves, so with one breeding group it's 1/2 the barn size, with 2 it's 1/3, with 3 it's 1/4 etc.
I have to disagree a bit at the cows, because if you put the average value of TMR/hay, slurry and manure into the calculation, you will see that the most profitable time is before 36months. At FS19 with seasons, it was around 16-18months. And yes, it also depends if you are useing the stable with feeding roboter or mixing the TMR by yourself (cheaper TMR possible). I'm currently testing and plotting the monthly consumption to give a final answer, but I suppose the best point will be direct after the first calf. So if you buy every month 3 calves until your first calves get born, you can sell than every month 3 cows with 27months old and a value of around 3125€ each so in total 112.500€ in one year and you have needed less TMR than on older cows. a other way would be to have cows which reproduce, and you sell the newborn when they have reached the maximum profit at, I don't know exactly, 18months or so
Based on your numbers, the best time to sell a cow would be 12 months, because they're increasing in value at $134/month for the first 12 months, $115/month for the next 12 months and only increasing by $42/month in the next 12 months, while their food consumption increases a lot after the first year. However, because you need to also sell your original cows as soon as they reach 36 months, it would be a better strategy to let some of the calves breed before you sell them. Since the cows take 27 months to produce their first calf and eat more than twice as much food after the first year, it might be better to not breed them at all, but just buy new ones after 12 months for a $1,315 profit per cow each year. That's only $197,250 profit after 3 years of raising 50 cows per year, compared to the $525,000 you made, but your method takes a lot longer than 3 years (the first calf is ready to sell at month 63, and the third calf is ready to sell at month 81). In 84 months, buying 50 cows per year and selling all of them every year, you can make $460,250 with far less food and fewer barns. Each cow that's ready to reproduce needs room in the barn for another cow, requiring a significant investment if you consider the size of your herd after that much time.
Yeah, I think there is a fundamental problem with the 525k calculation. Since you can buy a calf at any time for $300. If you had space for 200 cows (50 original + 150 calves) you would be better off just buying the 200 calves at the beginning and selling them all at 24 months. Because you can buy calves at $300 at any time I think you should only ever calculate the value of each calf at $300.
Yeah it's down to preference. I wouldn't sell the first cows at 36 months I would use these for breeding. I would have a separate barn for the breeders and then rotate the new stock to holding pens and have maybe 4 open pastures to just build them up and then sell at 36 months. I would manage it this way and something similar with the sheep. also I showed the income from selling x number of cows not the profit
@@jponline77 I do see what you are saying but would disagree. Why would you spend $60,000 on lambs when you can breed the sheep to produce them? It doesn't make any financial sense to purchase your livestock, slaughter your entire herd, to just repurchase the entire herd. It would be more financially appropriate to breed as many as possible before sending your herd to slaughter. And purchase the remaining, if needed
@@xBrodeurguyx Sheep are a different story. I didn't do the math, but I expect the best strategy would be to focus on wool production to get clothing. In that case you want to keep as many of the oldest sheep possible because they produce the most wool. I don't know if the sheep are immortal, but if they are, I wouldn't even rotate the breeding stock with new ones.
@@xBrodeurguyx I was referring to cows BTW, not sure about sheep, I haven't looked at it. From an intuitive basis what you say would seem correct. However, if you do the math on a limited size and limited time and you will fine that the math makes buying all your calves and selling them at 24 months and buying a whole new herd again more profitable than leaving space to add calves at 27 months. If you are going to constantly scale up your barn capacity with your herd, I would agree with you but a fixed sized space it actually makes more money to sell them and buy a whole new herd. As the OP says it takes 81 months to get your 525k and 200 cattle space. With the other method you make (3,000-300=$2,700 per cow every 24 months). If you had 200 cows that would be $540k every 2 years! In the 81 months it takes for you to get $525k you could make $1.8 million by turning over your herd. Yeah, your upfront cost is $60k but that isn't a lot of money compared to a barn to hold them in.
Great video, thanks for doing all this research, though there is one thing about when to sell the cows, you say 36 months, cause you get 3600 per cow, but if you sell at 24 months you can get 3000 per cow, and if you do the math, you can then sell 24 months 3 times in the time span where you can sell 36 months cows, which makes these numbers. 24 3*3000=9000 Subtract 900 for buying 3 cows for this 72 month timespan and you will have a profit of 8100 or 2700 per cow Total profit 8100 36 2*3600=7200 Subtract 600 for buying 2 cows for this 72 month timespan and you will have a profit of 6600 or 3300 per cow Total profit 6600 This is not including prices for food. But magic number for selling will be 24 months for best proifit.
Great video! I've been trying to find a good video on this subject for ages but nobody gave me a straight answer till now! Keep it up! These videos are so informative.
Me and my friends just started playing on a server and I started up my sheep and horse farm and this will help a lot you really out here doing gods work man keep up the good work
You are to FS22 as WackyJacky was to PubG! Countless hours of meticulous effort to provide great data for the everyday user. You really have to plan out your farm in this game, so your work is invaluable to us! Thank you for the excellent content! I’d say keep it up, but I don’t want you to get burned out from it lol
Great content! You sure put a lot of effort into your videos. You deserve more than 6k subscribers. There's you tubers that make 5-8 min videos and thats it. Very vague info and not much info and data.
thats alot of sleeping to get money out of animals.. even with 1 month per day i try to do as much as possible per day, means it would take me alot of time to get profit out of this. milk seems to fit better for my farm.
Wouldn't it make more sense to sell the sheep after 48 months? You get two more lambs, and they also produced the most amount of wool between 36-48 months.
I'm new to animal husbandry in FS games, so forgive me if I'm wrong. I'm also wondering, the lambs produced are essentially just like you buying more sheep, except they were a byproduct of your other sheep right? So you would also need storage for all of those lambs? Meaning if you have 10 sheep and don't want to sell them until 48 months, you need room for 90 total sheep since each one will produce 8 lambs over that period? But also each of those offspring would start producing lambs as well at 12 months, so once you've hit 48mo on the original 10, they've had 80 lambs, and the first 10 of those lambs would have had 50 more lambs since they are 36 months old, the second round of lambs would have had 40 lambs since they are 29 months old, etc. So by the time your original 10 sheep are 48 months old, you would actually have wayyy more sheep? Feels like I am wildly overthinking this.
That's a good point there Kyle! I think it would be best though to have some parent sheep that you can basically have forever, and they produce wool at a steady rate while also reproducing. and then you can sell their young ones wehn they reach 36 months. not sure if it would increase profit if that same technique was used while keeping them for 48 months
The way I would do it is to have one main barm that is for breeding. so the big barn holds 65, In this, I would only have 30 sheep if it's maxed out they won't spawn in any way. I would have 4 or 5 open pastures www.kingmods.net/en/fs22/mods/sheep-in-freedom this mod for example holds 30. when the first 30 lambs have arrived I would move them over to the open pasture and they won't breed because they will have no room in the pen. I would take the wool and wait for 36 months and then sell them. I would always keep my breeding barn at 30 keep adding 30 lamb to a pasture and manage it that way
@@Scroft thanks for the response! That makes sense, at least it's manageable that way. I just overthink things to maximise efficiency usually. Allowing them all to have offspring would produce way more money in the long run, but you'd also have to have an insane amount of pastures, and would have a ton of work to keep up with shuffling them around and feeding them all.
It depends on your situation and what forms of income you have. If you are happy with only getting a major paycheck every 4 years and can live and expand on only what you make from the wool then it would be best. I personally don't raise anything but sheep--- no green houses or anything else and so I prefer to get a payday every 18 months.
Great vid, not entirely sure eheee you intend on Storing 500 sheep though 😂😂 I sell mine at 7 months, means I don’t have to have loads of barns? Plus lambs are sold around that Time irl as far as I know
Yeah irl it's completely different 😂 I would have an open pasture that holds 30 sheep. I would only have around 30 sheep breeding in the main barn. when the lamb arrive they would go into the pasture and won't breed because they won't have space. I'd then sell them at 36 months. I'd repeat this with about 4 open pastures and manage it that way 👍
Please correct me if I’m wrong but from rearing cows, the most cost effective way is just to feed hay. Silage is around 3 times more expensive but does not generate 3 times more slurry or manure. Reproduction rates are also equal which means that it costs more to breed.
Awesome video. The only confusing part (or I missed it) is what is the baseline to start with as you have to account for the lambs as you have to wait 36 months until sellinng.
Not read all the coments or watched your breeding cow video yet, but do you need to still leave room in the pens for the animals to breed? ie, will they still breed if you have maxed out the cowshed? Thanks
Thanks for the information in this video and the previous milk one, seems like if you wanted to hay could be the "easiest" way to go if you do both the sheep and cows. I am just wondering if you have thought about making a video showing the production possibilities available if you decided on milk ? Like what does it take to make a cake (if this is possible)?
Hey buddy! I really love your informational videos about animals, the most thorough numbers I've ever seen! Do you plan to do one for dairy cows too? Would love to see that!
I wonder if you should sell the cows at 36 or 37 months, right after they drop the second calves, then you will have 2 groups of 10 month and 0 month old calves. At least until you run out of room in your pins. Or maybe sell right before the first calves breed. Or would it be best to keep a breeding stock indefinitely, and just sell the calves, as they age, maybe right before first calving if you are not breeding that group, they should be between 3000 and 3500 at 26 months so not a big hit? I have been playing my game with mostly a bailing and Angus cow operation, but mine are a couple months away from their first calving, so I have not worked out a good rotation yet. Ideally, I would want it worked out where I sell enough cows to make room for any about to be born. Though I plan on keeping at least 1 original cow, just to watch prices, and see how long she lives, or stops breeding. I actually debated whether to go Angus Cows and bailing or sheep and cotton, before I started. I thought cows had more fun work, and more challenge with breeding and selling, where the wool and cotton would just be feeding hay or grass to sheep, and then making fabric and clothes. Also if I was using milk cows, or wool, I would be more apt to keep my pens full of adult animals at all times, while breeding, you have to keep space for new borns, so that will hinder some income, and production potential.
That’s what I was wondering as well! Obviously the easiest way to do it is like this : 1. Main breeders 2. Calves for fattening sold just before first reproduction Don’t know if it’s the best option tho
According to the numbers in the video 12 months is the optimal time to sell beef cattle. Thats where you have your highest daily average gains. After that it is all down hill. From a pure making money point of view thats the optimal. They eat less food than older cattle. New calves are cheap. And you get the fastest return on investment. As for more realistic play I would keep a herd and buy extra calves to fill in the gaps.
@@dralord1307 I am thinking selling at 19 months, keeping 1/3 of my stock as breeders, 1/3 first year calves and 1/3 last year's. My numbers are derived from this video and my own testing, but I assumed a stock of 60 cows to make the math work, With 30 breeders and 30 calves I can sell the 30 calves at 9 months old giving me around 38,000, every 10 months, With 20 breeders, 20 young calves and 20 older calves I can sell the 20 at 19 months old for around 48,450 every 10 months With 15 breeders, 15 first year calves, 15 second year, and selling the 15 3rd year at 29 months old would be 48,115, every 10 months. I chose these dates as it should be right before my breeders give birth so it is the max sell price per cow. This would also max manure and slurry. But I will keep in mind your 12 month sell date if food becomes a problem.
@@colmortimer1066 Im playing No Mans Land atm, im just getting to the cattle stage. I am planning to do 3 beef feedlots with 35 head each. Gonna stick to 12 months for the first 1-2 years until I can afford a large barn. After that I will switch to breeding
Only issue is needing to have room for the calves in the barn. If I have a full barn I can't have any calves because there's no room. You almost need 2 barns to shuffle them around for room. I find it takes a long time to make money on the beef cows
Very intresting that there is no reson for giving your cows TMR over hay. Yes your getting abit less slurry and manure but with how little it sells for i´m not so sure its worth making TMR when u can instead just give them hay. Also Silage sells really good and when not used in TMR can make u alot of cash. For the sheep space is gonna be the real issue if u wanna grow the new lambs your getting overtime and sell them at peak value. U kinda need a pen with a bigger capacity to not run into space issues everytime your getting new lambs.
i have questions ... do beef cows produce milk? sry if you said that in the video, there is a lot of information to deal with. I may have missed that. and if i want to have a more steady income, is it best to stagger the purchase of the cows? so maybe 5 cows a month so i can sell some every month later on? last question, multiple stables required or can you work with just one of the big ones? 150 caddle sounds like i need more space to be able to reach a full circle in 36months.
No, the beef cows don't produce milk. I'd probably have holding pens so extra barns for the cows that have just been bred and feed them hay away from my cows that are breeding. I know it's easier to get the hay in big amounts and then sell at 36 months. thanks for watching
@@Scroft thank you for these very informative videos =) calculated with a purchase of 3 cows per day for 27months i need 81+3, but the new spawns dont do much for the first 12months.. so i would go with one big barn (80slots 75 in use) and a medium one for the useless cows +the age 26 and 27 ones (42 in total) selling them directly at 27 after they replaced themself or 28 to be sure.. should be self suficent after 28months. monthly income from 3cows for free from there on =) the 500 more from the age36 ones are not worth the required extra stable and food in my opinion..
Just as info you need more then 1 barn for sheep to get those numbers you actually need 8!! you would need 2 barns at 32 sheep and then move lambs over to new barn and keep reproducing. Month 1 would be 32 sheep. month 12 would be 64 M17 =96 M22=128 M23=160 M27=192 M28=256 AND SO ON .... needless to say by month 36 you would have 448 sheep with just 1 purchase of 32 and by month 48 you would have 1216 soooo. a big headache to say the least. The easiest way I have found is multiply the amount of barns you want by 65 then divide that by the weeks you want to keep the sheep for. and thats your flat line number every month to keep you will sell the lambs to maintain that number and sell your old sheep. So for example i want to have 3 barns so 3*65=195. i want to sell the sheep at 36 weeks so 195/36=5.41. So month's 1-11 i will buy 5 Lambs every day. On month 12 they start reproducing at 5 a time. At month 17 there will be 10 Lambs so i will sell 5 and keep 5. Month 22 there will be 15 lambs so i will sell 10 and keep 5. Month 27 there will be 20 Lambs you will sell 15. Month 32 there will be 25 you will sell 20 and then on month 37 you will have 30 and you will sell 25. After that every month you should have 30 Lambs born and you will sell 25 @ 200 = $5,000 plus you will sell 5 36week old at $1000 = $5000 making your total just from selling Lambs $10,000 a month $120,000 a year or $360,000 every 3 years/36 months
If you fill 65 sheep in your stable and they reproduce, where do the lambs go? If I have a second epmty stable will they automatically move there or do I have to split the sheep on both? Also thanks for the detailed explanations
I have dairy cows for obvious reasons, sheep for wool and chickens for eggs, I need what they produce more than to sell them so, I mixed 25% adults and 75% kids and the wool is lagging behind, a lot compaired to eggs/adult chicken……I’m getting 8 per adult chicken/month so, my hogs are just for manure/slurry and I got just kids
This has been pointed out by couple of other people in the comments, which is a depressingly low number. The fact remains that sheep do need space to be put in. Lets call this "sheepspace". And sheepspace costs money, which is a limited resource. If it isn't then none of this analysis makes any sense. If ur gonna raise 520 baby sheep that are offspring of the primary group, the inescapable fact is that you need sheepspace for 520 extra sheep in addition to the 65 sheep primary group. So if we assume that we have sheepspace for our primary breeding group and 520 for the offspring to be grown and rotated every 36 months. That means that in order to have a fair mutton vs wool comparison, we have to compare it to "what if we didn't rotate those 520 sheep, and just let them produce wool forever". If u compare one large barn producing wool to 8 large barns producing mutton, then yeah the 8 large barns are going to bring in more income. But it isn't exactly a fair comparison due to the difference in the initial financial investment required ($97k vs $776k). It is true that if we used 520 sheepspace to grow baby sheep into mutton in 36 month rotations, it would generate $520k every 36 months. But if instead of selling the batch to make room for the new one, we kept them, they would produce $1.8 million worth of wool every 36 months going forward (according to the spreadsheet data in the video). Which is a number that is so much higher than the 520k, that the more profitable action isn't difficult to discern. In fact u need to be a special kind of genius to fail to see it. 😸
The video was released a long time ago. A lot has changed since then, and pastures now on ModHub can cost as little as 5k and hold 500 sheep. The focus is just on the potential return when the game dropped. So many new mods have changed this now, like the Enhanced Animal mod, the Grazing mod, and also the Extendable Pasture mod that allows you to place pastures in grass fields you already own. But the video still gives a good idea of how productive a single sheep is with wool and also its market price through its growth. 👍 Thanks for the comment.
It also depends on playstyle. Some people play the game as a dairy farmer, some play to rear lambs to sell or for mutton, or a mix. It all depends on what you want to do. If you're playing the game to make the most money, then just make grass silage over and over again. It wins every time. But it's a farming simulation game, and people can use the information in the video to figure out what potential return they will see if they sell wool or breed sheep for sale at the market. It's all down to preference at the end of the day, but the data is still helpful even in 2024 just before the next game drops. I guess it takes a special kind of genius to see that. 🤣
@@Scroft Based on other peoples comments there has been some changes to the sheep productivity since the video came out. That's why I used the numbers from the video for my argument. But regardless of whether we use numbers from the video or current numbers, keeping old sheep for wool gives much higher return on investment than selling the sheep at 36 months. And "best time to sell" can't possibly take into account playstyle, ur favorite Taylor Swift song, position of the planets, or if you wish to roleplay as a financial halfwit. For "best time to sell" to mean anything coherent, it must mean financially best time to sell. In context of an analysis of "How Profitable Are Beef Cows & Sheep" (literally the video title) we must assume that the activity one is engaged in is... raising sheep or cows. So in this context it doesn't matter if silage or editing the save file makes more money easier. In the context of this narrow analysis it truly doesn't matter what you want to do, since that choice has been stipulated away from you by the premise of the analysis. (i.e. that the starting premise is sheep and the target is profitability) And it also doesn't matter if the sheepspace is expensive or cheap. What matters is that it is limited. And if you are comparing the profitability of some strategy with X amount of sheepspace, to another strategy with 9 times as much sheepspace, it just isn't a valid comparison. You will get biased results. Your whole analysis becomes garbage. I can't believe I have to be explaining this to a functioning adult. Imagine that I did a comparison of "which one is more profitable wheat or barley". And then I cultivated 1 hectare of wheat and 9 hectares of barley, and then concluded that barley made 8 times more profit so was clearly the more profitable choice. And then when people point this out to me I would be all like "Actually there are maps on the modhub where farmland is free. Also it depends on ur playstyle. Some people just think that barley looks cute." Which is just an insane level of cope, and total dodge of the argument in the critique. 😹
So, how to go about it then, if you max out the sheep pen, then they can't breed can they? So maybe start with 30 lambs o similar and then sell as soon as a the oldest lambs reach 36 months, but I mean it will fill up pretty quick won't it ?
Just bought some sheep. Now if you have 65 sheep in the yard and you get a lamb, wil the number show 66 sheep? Or will you not receive it because you sheep barn was maxed out at 65 sheep?
Can you fill the pen and still reproduce? I was under the impression that the total number of animals you could have was the number it says...so I guess my question is, if you fill the pen/barn when you first buy cattle or sheep will they still reproduce?
@@Scroft might be a stupid question because I just realized. You can't move cattle in the menu at the pen to another pen... but you can take them to a different pen by trailer? Is that correct?
Quick question as I'm trying to plan my sheeps and look for an optimal rotation and stock size... if you say the sheep breed "every 5 month" and they have the first lamb at 12 months..... do they get the 2nd one at month 16 or 17.... It could be 16 because 12,13,14,15,16.... or 17 because 12+5= 17.... Do you maybe know which one it is?
I had 4 sheep barns 4 spinnery's and ended up with so much wool that I cant sell it any where. I also had the same issue with cotton. I ended up selling 2 of the sheep barns and putting in some cows to see how that goes. Love the videos thanks for all of the time that you take to make them. Just to let you know I'm on FS22.
It would make more sense to annotate the number of offspring at the time they're at the highest price rather than just the farthest you held on to them, arbitrarily.
IRl you’ll have cows that produce somewhere around 6 calves pretty common for angus. So in the game unless you have end of life stuff or repro things happening. Wouldn’t it be best to keep them till the 96mo period and just feed them hay after 48mo?
So do you get 2 calves from a cow in the 18-36 month period? If so, ideally you'd sell the cows after the second calf is born to maximize profits while increasing your herd size.
Great video, but I don't think your comparison between selling wool (£107,000) and selling lambs (£520,000) makes much sense. If you place a sheep barn, buy the sheep and feed them for 48 months, you are garanteed to get the income from the wool. If you want to get £520,000 from selling the lambs, you will have to wait a total of 83 month to sell the last batch (born when the original sheep are 47 month old + 36 months). More importantly you need sheep barns to hold all of those 520 sheep at the same time (8 large barns + the original one), which cost a lot and takes up a lot of space. Additionally you have to feed all those 520 sheep for 36 month each.
I always thought these calculations of lamb profits flawed. You need free space to be able to breed than raise it to 36, so you are messing a lot to move about all those lambs. What i was thinking is just buy as many lambs as possible fully stacking your farms, and sell when fully matured and replace with fresh lambs. No messing about, don't see losing money using half empty pen and breeding versus fully stocked bought lambs.
Am I understanding your numbers right in thinking there is no advantage to TMR with Beef Cattle unless you want manure or slurry? Purely on selling the animals there is no difference in sale price between TMR fed and Hay fed.
You don't mention the outlay to buy another 8 large barns to house & raise the 520 lambs. Better off just to selling sheep when fully mature, and keep the flock staggered in age
If the value drops every month after 36 why would you not sell at 45 months when you get the third calf? Wouldn't you save 3 months of feed and depreciation?
If one barn is maxed out, how do you know they replicate? If we build an empty barn, will the sheep or cows that are born be automatically put in the empty one?
Just a tought, but so if you would want to have the lambs keep getting bred, you would need to make 65*8 for the first five month, then buy another 8 barns after these are bred, and so on and so on, how the... Are you supposed to make this doable, if you would keep all of them for 36 months
Yeah, 18 months is a good time to sell the cows but I guess it's down to preference. I'd probably have holding pens for the cows that have just been bred and feed them hay away from my cows that are breeding. I know it's easier to get hay in big amounts and then sell at 36 months. thanks for watching
I haven't done the numbers yet, but to me it seems like it would be optimal to buy breeders you want first, then wait 18 months, buy an equal amount more. After that you sell the first bunch, after 36 months, when they've had 2 calves. The second bunch of cows will then be 18 months old and have thus started breeding. Later, when that bunch of cows turn 36 months old, you sell them, and the first calves from the first bunch of cows will be 27 months and will breed their first calf. If you do it this way, after that, you'll always have new cows calving when you get rid of your oldest at 36 months. However, after that you will have double the amount of calves, compared to how many breeders you'll sell, use them to either increase your herd or sell the excess calves at 18 months old.
I copied this from a reply I did above 👍 The way I would do it is to have one main barn that is for breeding. so the big barn holds 65, In this, I would only have 30 sheep if it's maxed out they won't spawn in any way. I would have 4 or 5 open pastures www.kingmods.net/en/fs22/mods/sheep-in-freedom this mod for example holds 30. when the first 30 lambs have arrived I would move them over to the open pasture and they won't breed because they will have no room in the pen. I would take the wool and wait for 36 months and then sell them. I would always keep my breeding barn at 30 keep adding 30 lambs to a pasture and manage it that way
I just gave 65 as a random example because I was using that barn size but with the information provided in this video it can be custom to what amount of animals you have
MrSealyP did a test with the different breeds of sheep and the Black Welsh Mountain sheep produced more wool and consumed less grass/hay than the other breeds. Also, there's something wrong with your pricing on the sheep, because you can clearly see that the price for the black Welsh is much higher to purchase mature ones than the other three breeds. Why then would they not be worth any more than any of the other sheep when you go to sell them yourself? That just doesn't make any sense.
If you want hassle-free animals, sheep and chickens are the way to go. All you have to do is raised enough of the single crops that they need to thrive and collect what they produce. Personally I like sheep and chickens in real life so playing the game with headphones on is more enjoyable for me because I get to hear my little sheepies and chickens doing their thing while I am working the farm.
Im guessing nobody know how that would work if you started with grass (then you watched this video and realized hay makes the steers worth more) and switch to hay, how that would effect the steer price?
In March 17, 2023 in the game things have changed. Bigtime. I am not sure if the game or the mods. I can not find the Brown Swiss or the Dairy Sheep. for some reason. Also the egg production was hit. I think it was due to the ducks same with the sheep with the goats. I am not even sure animals are worth it any more truthfully. We now have Bulls. Rams and goats and ducks. I do not see the point if you are selling milk and eggs and using them in your productions. Questioning is the Ducks Goats worth the pin space?
Factor in the £518,500 for the large pen + all the capital cost of equipment, feed and straw for 4 years and I consider them to be a total waste of time.
I f you have 65 sheep in your barn , there will be no room for them to breed. so not sure your numbers would pan out as you say.you would need loads of extra sheep barns to keep lambs for 36 months. so all your income would probably dissappear. just ignore , as I've read some other reply. Great videos though , you are producing
Hey David it was an example number. I would rotate into open pastures that hold 30 sheep. I would have one breeding pen that has 30 in. Everytime they had a lambs I would move them to the pasture that holds 30 so they wouldn't have space to breed. I'd probably have 4 or 5 open pastures and repeat this process. With breeding cows or sheep it's all about rotation to maximise income. Like most things there's some initial investment but if like in this example your a sheep farmer then it's worth it 👍
Yeah but how are you going to raise 8 lambs from a sheep when you already have the barn filled to the brim? The match checks out on paper, just not in practice.
You need to rotate. That 65 total was just an example that's why I gave the figures per 1 sheep. I would have one barn that breed, say the large one. It holds 65. In that have 30, when they breed move the 30 new born to the open pasture that hold 30. They then can't breed as they have now space. Repeat this with maybe 4 pens and wait untill you want to sell I keep going. Hope this makes sense or maybe my mind works differently 😅👍
From all the youtubers I follow for FS, your uploads standout like sore thumb. Really love the concrete data that you provide, it not only helps with farm planning but also provides you with all the necessary data to make informed decisions.
Hey, thanks for the kind words. Happy to see you're finding the videos useful 👍
I do nothing but raise sheep. I have the mod that allows 250 sheep per barn and slowly worked my way up to 6 barns-- which I am stopping at. I bought 125 newborns to start and raised them to 18 months until they had newborns. I have been selling the adults at that point to save on food. After seeing your numbers I may start raising them till 35 months and then sell the older 125 in each barn to make room for newborns and start all over again. I have gotten so far ahead on grass bale production that I could go a full year without ever having to make another bale. I find sheep easy and stress-free, unlike the miserable time I had growing grapes prior to that. I appreciate all the work and effort you put into the testing.
Looks like you will make some serious money 💰 🤑
@@Scroft I have decided that I will wait and hope Courseplay eventually releases for FS22 before I get into crop production. I have gotten so spoiled from the Courseplay mod in FS19 that I can't stomach the Ai in the base game anymore. I can barely deal with stupidity in the real world and so I absolutely can't deal with the stupid Ai in this game. lol
Haha, hopefully it won't be long before CP is out
Same,I started my first fs22 file with nothing but sheep and I added chickens later as they are pretty stress free too. The egg production is nice being able to pick up the pallets.
I only have one cheap pasture for sheep and i bought 2 baby sheep at the start.
I've been feeding hay to them for a long time and they produce wool and i take it to a factory of mine to do cloth and sell at the best price.
I have a small mod animal trailer and i can sell 2 sheep for €2000.
They will be replaced by reproduction fast.
Cows i think i can feed hay and keep some milk and meat cows.
I sell milk and meat cows.
TMR i won't even loose my time,it's less job to raise horses with oats than everything i need just to mix that bullshit.
Just the video I was hoping for!
But what an insane amount of work you must have put into this again, thank you sir 🙏.
I don't typically enjoy watching farm sim on UA-cam, it's my most played game but I just don't enjoy a lot of content people make for the game. This is an exception. I appreciate all the testing. Good stuff, you've got a sub from me.
Glad you find it useful and i appreciate your sub
Nice video, finally somone who actually knows what he is talking about, good job,
Thanks for taking the time once again to do this testing. Now I can plan out my farm with more confidence. Currently, I am getting both Slurry and manure without putting in straw.
Yeah, I've seen this. I'm not sure if it's a bug but at least it means you can get free manure 😆Thanks for watching
Just getting into farming simulator. Your videos have helped a ton! Great info provided quickly without BS. You deserve way more subs
Thanks 👍
For the algorithm. Likes, comments, shares, and subscriptions help your content creators more than you realize. Keep it up Scroft!
Great video! I love these kind of details and numbers.
Am playing a beef cattle farm right now. I have a 200 and 400 (both modded) cowshed, although a 300 would do as the bigger one as well. In the breeding barn I have 2 sets of 66 breeding cows, with reproduction 5 months apart, leaving room for 66 calves. Those calves get moved to the large barn, where I just ignore them (no food or water) until they've aged. Doing this gets a 5 month cycle, where you sell off the 66 mother cows for a good 200k, move the calves to the aging pasture, take 66 ready to reproduce cows from there to the breeding barn and the cycle is set up. You could do with feeding grass for 4 months in the breeding barn and just TMR in the last month before selling, if you really want to min max it. You can use this setup with any 2 to 3 ratio barn and use one or more breeding groups. The more groups you use, the more efficient you use the space in the barn. Just make sure to always leave room for calves, so with one breeding group it's 1/2 the barn size, with 2 it's 1/3, with 3 it's 1/4 etc.
I have to disagree a bit at the cows, because if you put the average value of TMR/hay, slurry and manure into the calculation, you will see that the most profitable time is before 36months.
At FS19 with seasons, it was around 16-18months. And yes, it also depends if you are useing the stable with feeding roboter or mixing the TMR by yourself (cheaper TMR possible).
I'm currently testing and plotting the monthly consumption to give a final answer, but I suppose the best point will be direct after the first calf. So if you buy every month 3 calves until your first calves get born, you can sell than every month 3 cows with 27months old and a value of around 3125€ each so in total 112.500€ in one year and you have needed less TMR than on older cows.
a other way would be to have cows which reproduce, and you sell the newborn when they have reached the maximum profit at, I don't know exactly, 18months or so
Based on your numbers, the best time to sell a cow would be 12 months, because they're increasing in value at $134/month for the first 12 months, $115/month for the next 12 months and only increasing by $42/month in the next 12 months, while their food consumption increases a lot after the first year.
However, because you need to also sell your original cows as soon as they reach 36 months, it would be a better strategy to let some of the calves breed before you sell them.
Since the cows take 27 months to produce their first calf and eat more than twice as much food after the first year, it might be better to not breed them at all, but just buy new ones after 12 months for a $1,315 profit per cow each year. That's only $197,250 profit after 3 years of raising 50 cows per year, compared to the $525,000 you made, but your method takes a lot longer than 3 years (the first calf is ready to sell at month 63, and the third calf is ready to sell at month 81). In 84 months, buying 50 cows per year and selling all of them every year, you can make $460,250 with far less food and fewer barns. Each cow that's ready to reproduce needs room in the barn for another cow, requiring a significant investment if you consider the size of your herd after that much time.
Yeah, I think there is a fundamental problem with the 525k calculation. Since you can buy a calf at any time for $300. If you had space for 200 cows (50 original + 150 calves) you would be better off just buying the 200 calves at the beginning and selling them all at 24 months. Because you can buy calves at $300 at any time I think you should only ever calculate the value of each calf at $300.
Yeah it's down to preference. I wouldn't sell the first cows at 36 months I would use these for breeding. I would have a separate barn for the breeders and then rotate the new stock to holding pens and have maybe 4 open pastures to just build them up and then sell at 36 months. I would manage it this way and something similar with the sheep. also I showed the income from selling x number of cows not the profit
@@jponline77 I do see what you are saying but would disagree. Why would you spend $60,000 on lambs when you can breed the sheep to produce them? It doesn't make any financial sense to purchase your livestock, slaughter your entire herd, to just repurchase the entire herd. It would be more financially appropriate to breed as many as possible before sending your herd to slaughter. And purchase the remaining, if needed
@@xBrodeurguyx Sheep are a different story. I didn't do the math, but I expect the best strategy would be to focus on wool production to get clothing. In that case you want to keep as many of the oldest sheep possible because they produce the most wool. I don't know if the sheep are immortal, but if they are, I wouldn't even rotate the breeding stock with new ones.
@@xBrodeurguyx I was referring to cows BTW, not sure about sheep, I haven't looked at it. From an intuitive basis what you say would seem correct. However, if you do the math on a limited size and limited time and you will fine that the math makes buying all your calves and selling them at 24 months and buying a whole new herd again more profitable than leaving space to add calves at 27 months. If you are going to constantly scale up your barn capacity with your herd, I would agree with you but a fixed sized space it actually makes more money to sell them and buy a whole new herd. As the OP says it takes 81 months to get your 525k and 200 cattle space. With the other method you make (3,000-300=$2,700 per cow every 24 months). If you had 200 cows that would be $540k every 2 years! In the 81 months it takes for you to get $525k you could make $1.8 million by turning over your herd. Yeah, your upfront cost is $60k but that isn't a lot of money compared to a barn to hold them in.
Great video, thanks for doing all this research, though there is one thing about when to sell the cows, you say 36 months, cause you get 3600 per cow, but if you sell at 24 months you can get 3000 per cow, and if you do the math, you can then sell 24 months 3 times in the time span where you can sell 36 months cows, which makes these numbers.
24 3*3000=9000 Subtract 900 for buying 3 cows for this 72 month timespan and you will have a profit of 8100 or 2700 per cow Total profit 8100
36 2*3600=7200 Subtract 600 for buying 2 cows for this 72 month timespan and you will have a profit of 6600 or 3300 per cow Total profit 6600
This is not including prices for food.
But magic number for selling will be 24 months for best proifit.
that's very true. i like your thinking 👍
Thanks, Scroft!! Good information!!
Great video! I've been trying to find a good video on this subject for ages but nobody gave me a straight answer till now! Keep it up! These videos are so informative.
Me and my friends just started playing on a server and I started up my sheep and horse farm and this will help a lot you really out here doing gods work man keep up the good work
You are to FS22 as WackyJacky was to PubG! Countless hours of meticulous effort to provide great data for the everyday user. You really have to plan out your farm in this game, so your work is invaluable to us! Thank you for the excellent content! I’d say keep it up, but I don’t want you to get burned out from it lol
Thanks for the kind words 👍
Great content! You sure put a lot of effort into your videos. You deserve more than 6k subscribers. There's you tubers that make 5-8 min videos and thats it. Very vague info and not much info and data.
Thanks Elliott, much appreciated 👍
Really good vid on this. good detail on all aspects. I am going back to watch the dairy cattle one now. thanks
Glad it was helpful!
Great informative video! Thanks a lot for the effort!
Great!
Fantastic video. Just what I was looking for. Subbed.
thats alot of sleeping to get money out of animals.. even with 1 month per day i try to do as much as possible per day, means it would take me alot of time to get profit out of this. milk seems to fit better for my farm.
Takes 4 years in the real world to make a decent profit on a beef cow.
So, take into consideration it's grass, and almost no effort beyond that. That's a fair exchange of effort for $$.
Wouldn't it make more sense to sell the sheep after 48 months? You get two more lambs, and they also produced the most amount of wool between 36-48 months.
I'm new to animal husbandry in FS games, so forgive me if I'm wrong.
I'm also wondering, the lambs produced are essentially just like you buying more sheep, except they were a byproduct of your other sheep right? So you would also need storage for all of those lambs? Meaning if you have 10 sheep and don't want to sell them until 48 months, you need room for 90 total sheep since each one will produce 8 lambs over that period? But also each of those offspring would start producing lambs as well at 12 months, so once you've hit 48mo on the original 10, they've had 80 lambs, and the first 10 of those lambs would have had 50 more lambs since they are 36 months old, the second round of lambs would have had 40 lambs since they are 29 months old, etc. So by the time your original 10 sheep are 48 months old, you would actually have wayyy more sheep?
Feels like I am wildly overthinking this.
That's a good point there Kyle! I think it would be best though to have some parent sheep that you can basically have forever, and they produce wool at a steady rate while also reproducing. and then you can sell their young ones wehn they reach 36 months. not sure if it would increase profit if that same technique was used while keeping them for 48 months
The way I would do it is to have one main barm that is for breeding. so the big barn holds 65, In this, I would only have 30 sheep if it's maxed out they won't spawn in any way. I would have 4 or 5 open pastures www.kingmods.net/en/fs22/mods/sheep-in-freedom this mod for example holds 30. when the first 30 lambs have arrived I would move them over to the open pasture and they won't breed because they will have no room in the pen. I would take the wool and wait for 36 months and then sell them. I would always keep my breeding barn at 30 keep adding 30 lamb to a pasture and manage it that way
@@Scroft thanks for the response! That makes sense, at least it's manageable that way. I just overthink things to maximise efficiency usually. Allowing them all to have offspring would produce way more money in the long run, but you'd also have to have an insane amount of pastures, and would have a ton of work to keep up with shuffling them around and feeding them all.
It depends on your situation and what forms of income you have. If you are happy with only getting a major paycheck every 4 years and can live and expand on only what you make from the wool then it would be best. I personally don't raise anything but sheep--- no green houses or anything else and so I prefer to get a payday every 18 months.
WOW, this video is extremely helpful and must have taken a long time. Thank you so much
My pleasure, thanks for watching 👍
Great! ...thanks for all the hard work! 👍😀
Awesome stuff ..
Glad you enjoyed it!
Very helpful, thanks a lot!🙏
You're welcome!
Great vid, not entirely sure eheee you intend on Storing 500 sheep though 😂😂 I sell mine at 7 months, means I don’t have to have loads of barns? Plus lambs are sold around that Time irl as far as I know
Yeah irl it's completely different 😂 I would have an open pasture that holds 30 sheep. I would only have around 30 sheep breeding in the main barn. when the lamb arrive they would go into the pasture and won't breed because they won't have space. I'd then sell them at 36 months. I'd repeat this with about 4 open pastures and manage it that way 👍
nice!
Thank you for doing these series, they have really been helpful.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but from rearing cows, the most cost effective way is just to feed hay. Silage is around 3 times more expensive but does not generate 3 times more slurry or manure. Reproduction rates are also equal which means that it costs more to breed.
Great work Scroft :)
Thank you! Cheers!
@@Scroft your welcome
Big man really impressive video. Would you consider making similar guide on horses?
Yeah, I've just done one on pigs and I'm editing that now. Horses are next. Thanks for watching 👍
Amazing video! Thank you very much
Awesome video.
The only confusing part (or I missed it) is what is the baseline to start with as you have to account for the lambs as you have to wait 36 months until sellinng.
Not read all the coments or watched your breeding cow video yet, but do you need to still leave room in the pens for the animals to breed? ie, will they still breed if you have maxed out the cowshed? Thanks
Thanks for another great video
Thanks for the information in this video and the previous milk one, seems like if you wanted to hay could be the "easiest" way to go if you do both the sheep and cows. I am just wondering if you have thought about making a video showing the production possibilities available if you decided on milk ? Like what does it take to make a cake (if this is possible)?
Hey buddy! I really love your informational videos about animals, the most thorough numbers I've ever seen! Do you plan to do one for dairy cows too? Would love to see that!
Already done it 👍
It's called the real value of milk
@@Scroft thank you very much! Keep up the good work brother
Eggs is seriously underrated
When you add production chains.....it gets crazy........sheep are one of the first animals I get...... That and chickens
I wonder if you should sell the cows at 36 or 37 months, right after they drop the second calves, then you will have 2 groups of 10 month and 0 month old calves. At least until you run out of room in your pins. Or maybe sell right before the first calves breed. Or would it be best to keep a breeding stock indefinitely, and just sell the calves, as they age, maybe right before first calving if you are not breeding that group, they should be between 3000 and 3500 at 26 months so not a big hit?
I have been playing my game with mostly a bailing and Angus cow operation, but mine are a couple months away from their first calving, so I have not worked out a good rotation yet. Ideally, I would want it worked out where I sell enough cows to make room for any about to be born. Though I plan on keeping at least 1 original cow, just to watch prices, and see how long she lives, or stops breeding.
I actually debated whether to go Angus Cows and bailing or sheep and cotton, before I started. I thought cows had more fun work, and more challenge with breeding and selling, where the wool and cotton would just be feeding hay or grass to sheep, and then making fabric and clothes. Also if I was using milk cows, or wool, I would be more apt to keep my pens full of adult animals at all times, while breeding, you have to keep space for new borns, so that will hinder some income, and production potential.
That’s what I was wondering as well! Obviously the easiest way to do it is like this :
1. Main breeders
2. Calves for fattening sold just before first reproduction
Don’t know if it’s the best option tho
Might work in game. Real world not so much. Takes 4 years for a cow to be full grown
According to the numbers in the video 12 months is the optimal time to sell beef cattle. Thats where you have your highest daily average gains. After that it is all down hill. From a pure making money point of view thats the optimal. They eat less food than older cattle. New calves are cheap. And you get the fastest return on investment.
As for more realistic play I would keep a herd and buy extra calves to fill in the gaps.
@@dralord1307 I am thinking selling at 19 months, keeping 1/3 of my stock as breeders, 1/3 first year calves and 1/3 last year's. My numbers are derived from this video and my own testing, but I assumed a stock of 60 cows to make the math work,
With 30 breeders and 30 calves I can sell the 30 calves at 9 months old giving me around 38,000, every 10 months,
With 20 breeders, 20 young calves and 20 older calves I can sell the 20 at 19 months old for around 48,450 every 10 months
With 15 breeders, 15 first year calves, 15 second year, and selling the 15 3rd year at 29 months old would be 48,115, every 10 months.
I chose these dates as it should be right before my breeders give birth so it is the max sell price per cow. This would also max manure and slurry. But I will keep in mind your 12 month sell date if food becomes a problem.
@@colmortimer1066 Im playing No Mans Land atm, im just getting to the cattle stage. I am planning to do 3 beef feedlots with 35 head each. Gonna stick to 12 months for the first 1-2 years until I can afford a large barn. After that I will switch to breeding
Only issue is needing to have room for the calves in the barn. If I have a full barn I can't have any calves because there's no room. You almost need 2 barns to shuffle them around for room. I find it takes a long time to make money on the beef cows
You need to have a rotation plan in place. have one main barn for breeding and open pasture for fattening your cows before you sell them
@@Scroft So barn #1 would be for example 45 breeding cows and barn #2 would be calves
Great video, great test!
Can you make next test about pigs?
Thanks for your very hard work with this and the other animals which has helped me plan the amount of crops I need to grow for all of them
Great info. Very detailed. Thank you.
My pleasure 👍
Very intresting that there is no reson for giving your cows TMR over hay. Yes your getting abit less slurry and manure but with how little it sells for i´m not so sure its worth making TMR when u can instead just give them hay. Also Silage sells really good and when not used in TMR can make u alot of cash.
For the sheep space is gonna be the real issue if u wanna grow the new lambs your getting overtime and sell them at peak value. U kinda need a pen with a bigger capacity to not run into space issues everytime your getting new lambs.
i have questions ... do beef cows produce milk? sry if you said that in the video, there is a lot of information to deal with. I may have missed that.
and if i want to have a more steady income, is it best to stagger the purchase of the cows? so maybe 5 cows a month so i can sell some every month later on?
last question, multiple stables required or can you work with just one of the big ones? 150 caddle sounds like i need more space to be able to reach a full circle in 36months.
No, the beef cows don't produce milk. I'd probably have holding pens so extra barns for the cows that have just been bred and feed them hay away from my cows that are breeding. I know it's easier to get the hay in big amounts and then sell at 36 months. thanks for watching
@@Scroft thank you for these very informative videos =)
calculated with a purchase of 3 cows per day for 27months i need 81+3, but the new spawns dont do much for the first 12months.. so i would go with one big barn (80slots 75 in use) and a medium one for the useless cows +the age 26 and 27 ones (42 in total) selling them directly at 27 after they replaced themself or 28 to be sure.. should be self suficent after 28months. monthly income from 3cows for free from there on =)
the 500 more from the age36 ones are not worth the required extra stable and food in my opinion..
Just as info you need more then 1 barn for sheep to get those numbers you actually need 8!! you would need 2 barns at 32 sheep and then move lambs over to new barn and keep reproducing. Month 1 would be 32 sheep.
month 12 would be 64
M17 =96 M22=128 M23=160 M27=192 M28=256 AND SO ON .... needless to say by month 36 you would have 448 sheep with just 1 purchase of 32 and by month 48 you would have 1216 soooo. a big headache to say the least. The easiest way I have found is multiply the amount of barns you want by 65 then divide that by the weeks you want to keep the sheep for. and thats your flat line number every month to keep you will sell the lambs to maintain that number and sell your old sheep. So for example i want to have 3 barns so 3*65=195. i want to sell the sheep at 36 weeks so 195/36=5.41. So month's 1-11 i will buy 5 Lambs every day. On month 12 they start reproducing at 5 a time. At month 17 there will be 10 Lambs so i will sell 5 and keep 5. Month 22 there will be 15 lambs so i will sell 10 and keep 5. Month 27 there will be 20 Lambs you will sell 15. Month 32 there will be 25 you will sell 20 and then on month 37 you will have 30 and you will sell 25. After that every month you should have 30 Lambs born and you will sell 25 @ 200 = $5,000 plus you will sell 5 36week old at $1000 = $5000 making your total just from selling Lambs $10,000 a month $120,000 a year or $360,000 every 3 years/36 months
I always just use slurry an manure on my fields, its like free fertilizer. An store bought fertilizer isn't cheap.
That’s great thank you !
If you fill 65 sheep in your stable and they reproduce, where do the lambs go? If I have a second epmty stable will they automatically move there or do I have to split the sheep on both?
Also thanks for the detailed explanations
They won't reproduce in that case. You would need to move some sheep over to have them reproduce again.
I have dairy cows for obvious reasons, sheep for wool and chickens for eggs, I need what they produce more than to sell them so, I mixed 25% adults and 75% kids and the wool is lagging behind, a lot compaired to eggs/adult chicken……I’m getting 8 per adult chicken/month so, my hogs are just for manure/slurry and I got just kids
Thank You!
Your very welcome
This has been pointed out by couple of other people in the comments, which is a depressingly low number. The fact remains that sheep do need space to be put in. Lets call this "sheepspace". And sheepspace costs money, which is a limited resource. If it isn't then none of this analysis makes any sense.
If ur gonna raise 520 baby sheep that are offspring of the primary group, the inescapable fact is that you need sheepspace for 520 extra sheep in addition to the 65 sheep primary group. So if we assume that we have sheepspace for our primary breeding group and 520 for the offspring to be grown and rotated every 36 months. That means that in order to have a fair mutton vs wool comparison, we have to compare it to "what if we didn't rotate those 520 sheep, and just let them produce wool forever". If u compare one large barn producing wool to 8 large barns producing mutton, then yeah the 8 large barns are going to bring in more income. But it isn't exactly a fair comparison due to the difference in the initial financial investment required ($97k vs $776k).
It is true that if we used 520 sheepspace to grow baby sheep into mutton in 36 month rotations, it would generate $520k every 36 months. But if instead of selling the batch to make room for the new one, we kept them, they would produce $1.8 million worth of wool every 36 months going forward (according to the spreadsheet data in the video). Which is a number that is so much higher than the 520k, that the more profitable action isn't difficult to discern. In fact u need to be a special kind of genius to fail to see it. 😸
The video was released a long time ago. A lot has changed since then, and pastures now on ModHub can cost as little as 5k and hold 500 sheep. The focus is just on the potential return when the game dropped. So many new mods have changed this now, like the Enhanced Animal mod, the Grazing mod, and also the Extendable Pasture mod that allows you to place pastures in grass fields you already own.
But the video still gives a good idea of how productive a single sheep is with wool and also its market price through its growth. 👍
Thanks for the comment.
It also depends on playstyle. Some people play the game as a dairy farmer, some play to rear lambs to sell or for mutton, or a mix.
It all depends on what you want to do. If you're playing the game to make the most money, then just make grass silage over and over again. It wins every time. But it's a farming simulation game, and people can use the information in the video to figure out what potential return they will see if they sell wool or breed sheep for sale at the market. It's all down to preference at the end of the day, but the data is still helpful even in 2024 just before the next game drops.
I guess it takes a special kind of genius to see that. 🤣
@@Scroft Based on other peoples comments there has been some changes to the sheep productivity since the video came out. That's why I used the numbers from the video for my argument. But regardless of whether we use numbers from the video or current numbers, keeping old sheep for wool gives much higher return on investment than selling the sheep at 36 months.
And "best time to sell" can't possibly take into account playstyle, ur favorite Taylor Swift song, position of the planets, or if you wish to roleplay as a financial halfwit. For "best time to sell" to mean anything coherent, it must mean financially best time to sell. In context of an analysis of "How Profitable Are Beef Cows & Sheep" (literally the video title) we must assume that the activity one is engaged in is... raising sheep or cows. So in this context it doesn't matter if silage or editing the save file makes more money easier. In the context of this narrow analysis it truly doesn't matter what you want to do, since that choice has been stipulated away from you by the premise of the analysis. (i.e. that the starting premise is sheep and the target is profitability)
And it also doesn't matter if the sheepspace is expensive or cheap. What matters is that it is limited. And if you are comparing the profitability of some strategy with X amount of sheepspace, to another strategy with 9 times as much sheepspace, it just isn't a valid comparison. You will get biased results. Your whole analysis becomes garbage. I can't believe I have to be explaining this to a functioning adult.
Imagine that I did a comparison of "which one is more profitable wheat or barley". And then I cultivated 1 hectare of wheat and 9 hectares of barley, and then concluded that barley made 8 times more profit so was clearly the more profitable choice. And then when people point this out to me I would be all like "Actually there are maps on the modhub where farmland is free. Also it depends on ur playstyle. Some people just think that barley looks cute." Which is just an insane level of cope, and total dodge of the argument in the critique. 😹
Yeah I was wondering if it was worth having cows. Thanks scroft
So, how to go about it then, if you max out the sheep pen, then they can't breed can they? So maybe start with 30 lambs o similar and then sell as soon as a the oldest lambs reach 36 months, but I mean it will fill up pretty quick won't it ?
If you buy 65 sheep though qnd max out pen they where will the lambs go ?
If i own FS19 should I upgrade to FS 22
Just bought some sheep. Now if you have 65 sheep in the yard and you get a lamb, wil the number show 66 sheep? Or will you not receive it because you sheep barn was maxed out at 65 sheep?
Can you fill the pen and still reproduce? I was under the impression that the total number of animals you could have was the number it says...so I guess my question is, if you fill the pen/barn when you first buy cattle or sheep will they still reproduce?
No, you would need to rotate your stock. Have one main barn for breeding and some pastures for holding pens.
@@Scroft might be a stupid question because I just realized. You can't move cattle in the menu at the pen to another pen... but you can take them to a different pen by trailer? Is that correct?
@@Scroft if it is correct then idk what about your comment made me think about that but thankyou!
@@tristanheisler1004 Yeah this is correct
@@Scroft thanks for opening my eyes haha
Quick question as I'm trying to plan my sheeps and look for an optimal rotation and stock size... if you say the sheep breed "every 5 month" and they have the first lamb at 12 months..... do they get the 2nd one at month 16 or 17.... It could be 16 because 12,13,14,15,16.... or 17 because 12+5= 17.... Do you maybe know which one it is?
It's 17 👍
I had 4 sheep barns 4 spinnery's and ended up with so much wool that I cant sell it any where. I also had the same issue with cotton. I ended up selling 2 of the sheep barns and putting in some cows to see how that goes. Love the videos thanks for all of the time that you take to make them. Just to let you know I'm on FS22.
It would make more sense to annotate the number of offspring at the time they're at the highest price rather than just the farthest you held on to them, arbitrarily.
You're also my favorite fs22 youtuber, thanks for the data in all your videos.
Did this change with the new patch?
Sell the animals at the same price regardless of the game's difficulty?
IRl you’ll have cows that produce somewhere around 6 calves pretty common for angus. So in the game unless you have end of life stuff or repro things happening. Wouldn’t it be best to keep them till the 96mo period and just feed them hay after 48mo?
So do you get 2 calves from a cow in the 18-36 month period? If so, ideally you'd sell the cows after the second calf is born to maximize profits while increasing your herd size.
Great video, but I don't think your comparison between selling wool (£107,000) and selling lambs (£520,000) makes much sense.
If you place a sheep barn, buy the sheep and feed them for 48 months, you are garanteed to get the income from the wool.
If you want to get £520,000 from selling the lambs, you will have to wait a total of 83 month to sell the last batch (born when the original sheep are 47 month old + 36 months). More importantly you need sheep barns to hold all of those 520 sheep at the same time (8 large barns + the original one), which cost a lot and takes up a lot of space. Additionally you have to feed all those 520 sheep for 36 month each.
I always thought these calculations of lamb profits flawed. You need free space to be able to breed than raise it to 36, so you are messing a lot to move about all those lambs. What i was thinking is just buy as many lambs as possible fully stacking your farms, and sell when fully matured and replace with fresh lambs. No messing about, don't see losing money using half empty pen and breeding versus fully stocked bought lambs.
Am I understanding your numbers right in thinking there is no advantage to TMR with Beef Cattle unless you want manure or slurry? Purely on selling the animals there is no difference in sale price between TMR fed and Hay fed.
You don't mention the outlay to buy another 8 large barns to house & raise the 520 lambs. Better off just to selling sheep when fully mature, and keep the flock staggered in age
I don’t understand really how I have to start with sheeps? Like buying half of the barn and wait until they reproduce and sell adults at 35?
If the value drops every month after 36 why would you not sell at 45 months when you get the third calf? Wouldn't you save 3 months of feed and depreciation?
If one barn is maxed out, how do you know they replicate? If we build an empty barn, will the sheep or cows that are born be automatically put in the empty one?
i think they just don't breed
What happens if you have a maxed out pen and the sheep have calves?
You have to rotate your stock before hand 👍
How are sheep now after the update compared to this video?
Cows don’t need straw. You can feed them grass and hay and get 100%
Just a tought, but so if you would want to have the lambs keep getting bred, you would need to make 65*8 for the first five month, then buy another 8 barns after these are bred, and so on and so on, how the... Are you supposed to make this doable, if you would keep all of them for 36 months
50% loss of wool when making cloth. I guess we all have really dirty sheep.
TMR has the same selling value as Hay? Isn't silage more valuable than hay in fs22?
Yes silage is still more valuable than hay.
Is the best time to sell not 18 months after that they stop doubling their money see your only paying 300 for them and the feed cost aswell
Yeah, 18 months is a good time to sell the cows but I guess it's down to preference. I'd probably have holding pens for the cows that have just been bred and feed them hay away from my cows that are breeding. I know it's easier to get hay in big amounts and then sell at 36 months. thanks for watching
I haven't done the numbers yet, but to me it seems like it would be optimal to buy breeders you want first, then wait 18 months, buy an equal amount more. After that you sell the first bunch, after 36 months, when they've had 2 calves. The second bunch of cows will then be 18 months old and have thus started breeding. Later, when that bunch of cows turn 36 months old, you sell them, and the first calves from the first bunch of cows will be 27 months and will breed their first calf. If you do it this way, after that, you'll always have new cows calving when you get rid of your oldest at 36 months. However, after that you will have double the amount of calves, compared to how many breeders you'll sell, use them to either increase your herd or sell the excess calves at 18 months old.
@@2000vejmon I agree, sounds like perfect rotation and planning to me 👍
If the shed is full with 65 sheep how do you get the lambs? they have nowhere to go.
I copied this from a reply I did above 👍 The way I would do it is to have one main barn that is for breeding. so the big barn holds 65, In this, I would only have 30 sheep if it's maxed out they won't spawn in any way. I would have 4 or 5 open pastures www.kingmods.net/en/fs22/mods/sheep-in-freedom this mod for example holds 30. when the first 30 lambs have arrived I would move them over to the open pasture and they won't breed because they will have no room in the pen. I would take the wool and wait for 36 months and then sell them. I would always keep my breeding barn at 30 keep adding 30 lambs to a pasture and manage it that way
I just gave 65 as a random example because I was using that barn size but with the information provided in this video it can be custom to what amount of animals you have
I'm expecting when we see mod maps we will be back to decent sized animal pens. These base game ones are very restrictive.
@@Scroft How are you rotating the sheep? Is there some way of moving them that I'm not aware of?
@@smb3d Animal trailer 👍
sheep got a BUFF in 1.2
Why does the one sheep type cost so much?
because you can buy it at a mature age, I think it was 30 months
@@Scroft interesting they'd do that and for only one of the breeds
Being from Texas I'm kinda upset they took out the Brahman breed.
MrSealyP did a test with the different breeds of sheep and the Black Welsh Mountain sheep produced more wool and consumed less grass/hay than the other breeds. Also, there's something wrong with your pricing on the sheep, because you can clearly see that the price for the black Welsh is much higher to purchase mature ones than the other three breeds. Why then would they not be worth any more than any of the other sheep when you go to sell them yourself? That just doesn't make any sense.
If you want hassle-free animals, sheep and chickens are the way to go. All you have to do is raised enough of the single crops that they need to thrive and collect what they produce.
Personally I like sheep and chickens in real life so playing the game with headphones on is more enjoyable for me because I get to hear my little sheepies and chickens doing their thing while I am working the farm.
Im guessing nobody know how that would work if you started with grass (then you watched this video and realized hay makes the steers worth more) and switch to hay, how that would effect the steer price?
Why did you not test the older sheep and you would have seen that the black welsh sheep out do the rest in wool production
Yeah, they also consume way less grass.
In March 17, 2023 in the game things have changed. Bigtime. I am not sure if the game or the mods. I can not find the Brown Swiss or the Dairy Sheep. for some reason. Also the egg production was hit. I think it was due to the ducks same with the sheep with the goats. I am not even sure animals are worth it any more truthfully. We now have Bulls. Rams and goats and ducks. I do not see the point if you are selling milk and eggs and using them in your productions. Questioning is the Ducks Goats worth the pin space?
Factor in the £518,500 for the large pen + all the capital cost of equipment, feed and straw for 4 years and I consider them to be a total waste of time.
What about after you've payed that off? You have to start somewhere and then you will see the gains 👍
I f you have 65 sheep in your barn , there will be no room for them to breed. so not sure your numbers would pan out as you say.you would need loads of extra sheep barns to keep lambs for 36 months. so all your income would probably dissappear.
just ignore , as I've read some other reply. Great videos though , you are producing
Hey David it was an example number. I would rotate into open pastures that hold 30 sheep. I would have one breeding pen that has 30 in. Everytime they had a lambs I would move them to the pasture that holds 30 so they wouldn't have space to breed. I'd probably have 4 or 5 open pastures and repeat this process. With breeding cows or sheep it's all about rotation to maximise income. Like most things there's some initial investment but if like in this example your a sheep farmer then it's worth it 👍
Yeah but how are you going to raise 8 lambs from a sheep when you already have the barn filled to the brim?
The match checks out on paper, just not in practice.
You need to rotate. That 65 total was just an example that's why I gave the figures per 1 sheep. I would have one barn that breed, say the large one. It holds 65. In that have 30, when they breed move the 30 new born to the open pasture that hold 30. They then can't breed as they have now space. Repeat this with maybe 4 pens and wait untill you want to sell I keep going. Hope this makes sense or maybe my mind works differently 😅👍
hi there mr scoft loved your videos on the sheep and the cows can you please do one for the pigs thank you
I'll be doing one on pigs, chickens and then horses 👍
I have gotten a price for clothes for over 30000
Animals aint good unless you can use their products in a factory. Too bad i cant find a good map with a meat factory
Cows suck your pockets dry, Sheep are the best one bail of hay every 3 month's
Wool production is a joke
Another great video. Thanks