Farming and raising livestock may seem like something more closely associated with a game like Stardew Valley, but it also happens to be a key part of the overall Minecraft experience. Between resource gathering and building a sustainable home base, investing in a farm, ranch, or livestock area can be a worthy investment.
Builders who are looking to start this journey should understand a few things before they begin. A few simple tips and tricks could help these players avoid the possibility of having to tear it down and build it a second time.
10 Flat Land Works Best
This tip may seem like a no-brainer, but it's surprising how often players will start builds and regret where they did it. Using a batch of flat land as the base to a build as large as a farm or ranch alleviates the need to level it out and allows the builder to begin focusing on the project at hand. Some buildings look and feel a lot cooler when they're built on uneven terrain, but a farm with livestock should be focused on efficiency and being able to fit everything in one location without having to terraform most of it.
9 Go For A Style
Now, not everyone is super creative, and just because they decide to play Minecraft doesn't mean they have a drive to build. That being said, it's good to have a cohesive style in a city or area so it feels like there's at least some method to the madness. For the creative types, look for a style to shoot for whether that be a classic farm look, or maybe something a bit more sterile and futuristic. Knowing what style the focus of the build is will make the entire project come together and help in certain design element choices.
8 Start Small And Grow
Minecraft is so full of possibilities that players often take on more than they should. This will often lead to burnout that results in the abandonment of a project or a player ditching Minecraft all together to avoid the shame of not accomplishing a goal they set for themselves.
This is why taking on a small project and growing it slowly is the best course of action. Understand the mechanics of a farm and livestock by building a small area to experiment before committing to such a large undertaking.
7 Understand Spacing
As if this article needed more than one entry to describe the importance of planning ahead, it's time to talk about spacing. Having traversable walkways and building pens and farms that effectively use a space is paramount in creating a place that takes the busy work out of farming and raising animals. Outlining a build helps in understanding spacing and how different parts of the area will distance themselves from one another and understanding this will make the act of building less of a start and stop procedure.
6 Efficiency Is Key
Many of the other entries concerning purpose and planning feed into this one that revolves around efficiency. Knowing that cows and sheep eat wheat to reproduce means that putting the wheat farm at a distance from those pens makes it so the player will have to travel back and forth. Planning to put the wheat farm next to them, however, makes it so a player can farm the wheat and with little effort turn around and use some of the harvest to breed their livestock and create more resources.
5 Protect Your Animals
With the introduction of foxes and other predators, Minecraft has added an additional layer of threats to livestock. This not only means that players have to effectively build their pens with more fences, but also that tamed animals need to be placed accordingly. Both tamed wolves and tamed ocelots deter certain enemies from areas in which the animals are seated. As the owner of the livestock, it's up to the player to decide if large fences or tamed animals are their answer when it comes to protecting the ranch and/or farm.
4 Is It For Aesthetic Or Function?
Later the idea of asking what the purpose of the build is will be explored. This entry isn't necessarily about that, this concerns what the priority is. Say it's being built to be used often, that still means the player needs to know if they're going for a functionally efficient build or one that's a bit more cumbersome but looks really nice.
It could also be decided that the best mixture of form and function will be the goal. Some people like things to just work, while others will take on an added burden if it means the thing looks nice.
3 Animals Are Loud, Understand That
A surprise that sneaks up on players forming ranches and/or livestock pens is that the animals in Minecraft can be quite loud. They have sound effects that alert the player to their existence, but once they're fenced in these sounds become pointless. It's best advised that the livestock area should be out of the way of frequently traveled areas. The last thing that needs to happen is a Minecraft player being driven mad from the sounds of sheep, chickens, and cows all making their iconic sounds on top of one another endlessly.
2 What's The Purpose?
This isn't an existential question asking what the point of life is. It's simply a question the player should ask themselves about the build. Depending on if the point is to make a sustainable source of food and resources or if it's to create the illusion of a functioning farm can make the world of difference. Knowing the purpose will help define how the project should be built and which aspects need to have the most focus placed on them. If the point is to just build it because it should be built, then maybe it's not worth building after all.
1 Plan The Outline
The reason the tip of planning ahead pops up on most Minecraft tip articles is because despite it being so effective, most people forget about doing it. Working out a simple plan that focuses on the rough outline of a project can help make it come to life. Most people learn best from having some sort of visual representation and Minecraft is no different. By planning ahead players can avoid build-related issues where spacing and efficiency issues become problematic. Do the right thing and plan ahead.