If we want to invest in animal breeding, we will have to make the necessary purchases of machinery and equipment.
The choice of machines and tools depends on the branch of cultivation that we would like to deal with. A good solution is to find out what devices are needed to run any farm. The choice is huge, but let’s look at the cheapest solutions, thanks to which we will save some money at the beginning and which we can spend on buying additional workers.
It is profitable to buy one part of the machines (tractor, loader or trailer), and the rest, especially those that are used for periods and are expensive to buy, are better to take at the beginning. The liquid manure spreader can be rented when the cows or pigs produce enough fertilizer to keep the tank 100% full.
We can also buy special trailers for transporting animals, but this is not necessary – when buying and selling animals, we can use paid transport for transporting animals.
1. Basic kit – transport
- tractor – Fendt 500 Favorit with loader console (modification), price: 77.500 €
- front loader – Stoll FZ 30, price: 5.400 €
- Bollard Lance – Stoll Spatter Boom, price: 600 €
- trailer – Strautmann SEK 802, price: 8.000 €
- Purchase price of the kit: 93.700 €.
The above set of machines and tools will ensure: transportation of fodder (1), hay, straw and products produced by chickens and sheep, as well as keeping barns clean.
2. Water delivery kit
- Tanker – option 1 – Joskin Aquatrans 7300 S, price: 9 500 €
- Tanker – option 2 (for cow breeding) – MKS 8, price: 25.000 €
- Purchase price of the kit: 14,500 euros (tanker of the first option) or 30,000 euros (tanker of the second option).
All animals except chickens need access to fresh water. We can deliver it using two different tanks. We will use the first option if we do not plan to raise cows because the Joskin tanker (2) can only carry water. If we are solving the milk issue, choose the second tanker option, which allows you to transport water and milk.
With the two sets of machines mentioned above (for transportation and water supply), we can start breeding sheep with store feed with maximum productivity. We can also start breeding pigs and cows and take care of the fertilizer they produce later.
- Manure spreader – Garant VE 8000, price: 23.000 €
- Purchase price of the kit: 23.000 €.
Cows and pigs produce fertilizer. At the initial stage of breeding, it is worth using products available in the store – feed for cattle and pigs. In this case, both types of animals will only produce liquid manure, which can be used for their own needs or sold. To do this, it is necessary to fill the liquid manure tank with the contents of a special tank (3) next to the farm.
By purchasing up to two previous slurry spreader kits, we can benefit from a fairly high performance of cows and pigs (about 80%) even when feeding the animals with store bought feed.
4. Straw recycling kit
- Straw chopper – Kuhn Primor 15070, price: 25.000 €
- Manure spreader (only for cows and/or pigs) – Farmtech Superfex 800, price: 27,500 €
- Purchase price of the kit: 25,000 euros (for horses) or 52,500 euros (for cows and/or pigs).
The price of horses depends on whether we supply straw. We can also perform this operation on cows and pigs so that they produce manure. The universal machine Kuhn Primor 15070, which we attach to each tractor, allows you to process straw blocks or bales in a specially designated place (4).
By selecting the first and second set of devices, we can start breeding horses efficiently. In the case of cows and pigs, the purchase of this last device forces us to invest in a manure machine.
5. Production of feed, straw, silage
Buying an all-in-one DIY food production kit is a complex task. Each type of animal has its own type of food. In each case we have the opportunity to buy the appropriate feed in the store, but this may not be enough if we want to achieve 100% production efficiency, for example cows and pigs.
In addition to machines, we sometimes have to grow plants of the type we will process. Cows and pigs eat a variety of foods. Achieving maximum efficiency in their case can be a long-term and costly process.
Cultivated plants that are beneficial to animal species:
- Grass: sheep, cows, pigs, horses
- Wheat: chickens, cows, pigs
- Barley: chickens, cows, pigs
- Corn: cows, pigs
- Sunflowers: Pigs
- Soy: Pigs
- Potatoes: pigs
- Sugar beet: pigs
- Oats: horses
The choice of any plant implies the acquisition of the necessary agricultural equipment for growing, sowing, fertilizing, weeding, harvesting and processing or storing the crop.
To make it easier to start, if we are not playing on the lowest difficulty level, we can buy a plot where the plants we are interested in will already be ready for harvesting. Thanks to this, we can use part of the crop immediately, and store or sell the rest.
Wheat, barley, oats, sunflowers, corn, soybeans and rapeseed require similar types of tools. If we decide to grow potatoes and sugar beets, we have to buy additional specialized harvesting machines.
If we want to supply grass to the animals, we need to equip a mower and a self-loading trailer (5).
We can use expensive bunkers to make flooring. To prepare compound feed for cows, we must buy a feeder into which we supply hay, straw and silage. We will collect the straw at the harvest of wheat or barley and collect it with a self-collecting trailer.
The easiest way to get silage is with hay bales. To do this, we use a special press with a wrapping machine, which immediately prepares bales when harvesting hay.
As you can see, complex preparation of forage and straw can be very costly and time consuming. However, at the beginning of the game, it will be easier and faster to invest in feed, hay and straw from the store. By growing land in parallel with breeding, we can try to produce, for example, silage, but it does not have to be profitable.
Source: https://www.eurogamer.pl
