Tips for Managing Barn and Silo

Hello Farmers

I was recently thinking on more efficient ways to manage my silo and barn! As when they are full my farm tends to go into gridlock and I can't seem to do anything.

I also seem to have so much of one thing and not others! I also at times struggle to keep up with animal feed as their produced quickly and require a large amount of storage if not being used immediately!

It just seems to me that my farm is growing and unfortunately the size of barn and silo is not growing as quickly.. and so I was wondering if anyone has any tips or systems they use to try and keep things balanced and farm functional.

Any tips are appreciated and will be added to the first post in this thread. Also as are any form of expansion materials, so if you are selling any please message me!

​1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

off the top of my head:

for managing feed - only produce as much of cow and chicken feed as you need AS YOU USE IT. They are produced the fastest, so it doesn't take long. I generally have at least 24 chicken feeds ahead though (I have 12 chickens).
What I do is an hour before I go to bed, when I'm playing, I produce 24 chicken feed and 12-24 cow feed, then 24 pig feeds. Then I set up the feed mills to each produce goat and sheep feed respectively. In the morning I empty the mills and put up 24 pig feeds, then after that, all I do during the day is produce chicken and cow feed as needed.

that's just the way I do it. I usually produce chicken and cow feed as constantly as I can and sell it. Because people need it so badly.

I stopped saving expansion items. I wanted to expand all my land so I did finish that--the highest plot required only 18 items each so it wasn't too hard on my barn space. I've expanded my barn to around 700ish, my silo is 525. The barn space is adequate as long as I don't save expansion items, lol. The silo space is adequate as long as I'm not hoarding crops for a boat order. The next expansion of my barn requires 27 of each item, and that means I'd have to give up 81 spaces for saving of those. So I'm selling them as I get them from harvesting/collecting.

I'm keeping a larger stock of those things I use most often, but only around 8-10 of the premium items. I sell off any extras I get of those unless I need them for a boat order.

I sort of do the same thing RRAMMIE said with the feed. I don't keep many chicken or cow feeds as they are made so quickly using crops that are ready quickly. I do keep about two feedings (or at least 1.5) worth of the other animal feeds.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeeInnes

​1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

---

I saw this and didn't realize it was a second post from the OP. I thought someone replied with a frustration release tip to count to 10 and relax. LOL


I produce as much feed as I can, use what I need, and sell the rest, keeping as little in the barn as possible since chicken and cow feed, the ones I use most, produce quick so I don't need to keep them on hand. I only make other feed when I need see that I will be needing it soon or often buy bacon, wool, and goats milk so I don't have to make and store the feed.

I also decided on a workable minimum number for each product that I need to stock to cover boats and I think this is what's helped the most. I've got a format to follow so I'm not always running about scrambling for what I need or trying to figure out what next...it's already designed and I follow that design, tweaking now and then when necessary.

I keep items that boats ask for often but are hard to find and take a long time to produce at a higher minimum, and keep none or just a couple of those that are quick and/or easy to find. i.e. I never have more than 2-4 pizzas as they are not easily found and cheese takes time, but the pizzas themselves are very quick to make and I rarely get boat orders for them, but I keep 12 feta pie because the feta cheese take a while and I get a lot of boats asking for it.

It's not always an easy balance and I need to be flexible to change it when necessary but have finally reached a barn size that allows me more leeway so I'm pretty well set in my current formula. To date, I think this outline of what to keep and how much has been the best thing I've done for the efficiency of my farm as a whole.

Learning to stack finished items outside of your machines is critical to managing your space early on. It's free storage, and all it costs is a little time thinking ahead.

Try targeting only one kind of expansion at a time. It's slower, but easier on the barn. Sell off all the materials you get for the other expansions (or better yet, trade them for the ones you need).

And when you find that you are getting tons of Item A, and almost NONE of Item B, sell down to about 2/3 of what you need for Item A, even if you have enough for the next upgrade already. Sell down to less and make room. Chances are high that while you wait for enough of Item B, sure enough, you'll get those Item A's back too.

If you are really strapped for space, I would just not produce and sheep feed, and not stock and wool, hats, or sweaters. The paper is full of all of them. Just buy what you need for boat orders, and ignore the rest.

When my barn or silo explodes unexpectedly, the cause is always the same - lots of production (especially animal products) without using the item in machines or dumping in the shop.

Another common cause is an awesome sale in someone's roadside shop. THEN (happens EVERY TIME) - the next page of the paper advertises 10 bolts. In fact, this happened to us last night with a plank --

Fortunately,we were able to dump 10 eggs in the shop and still get the plank :)

If you are disciplined about what you buy, and about moving your silo and animal products into machines and out of the storage, this won't happen to you! :)

One thing I do is that I rarely have more than one or two pieces of ore in the barn. I use my shovels and TNT only when my barn is full and when my smelters need ore. If you do this when the barn is full, you can use a shovel to release 3-4 ores that stay in the mine. Then when you use the next shovel only one goes into the barn but three more stay in the mine. Do this a couple more times and you have made space by using the shovels, tnt etc, only allowed one ore for each tool to go to the barn and then load up the smelter. Sometimes I harvest and egg in-between each shovel, That way all the ore stays in the mine only to be released when the smelters are ready for them. An extra perk is that any diamonds released stay in the mine also and aren't available to be lost by accident.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiggerr129

One thing I do is that I rarely have more than one or two pieces of ore in the barn. I use my shovels and TNT only when my barn is full and when my smelters need ore. If you do this when the barn is full, you can use a shovel to release 3-4 ores that stay in the mine. Then when you use the next shovel only one goes into the barn but three more stay in the mine. Do this a couple more times and you have made space by using the shovels, tnt etc, only allowed one ore for each tool to go to the barn and then load up the smelter. Sometimes I harvest and egg in-between each shovel, That way all the ore stays in the mine only to be released when the smelters are ready for them. An extra perk is that any diamonds released stay in the mine also and aren't available to be lost by accident.

---

Great tip.

I take this two steps further and stack my completed metal bars outside the smelters (one type of metal per smelter), and then stack completed items outside the kiosk. I intentionally produce bracelet/necklace/bracelet/necklace/bracelet/necklace... etc, and leave them there.

When I get a blue order, I just pick up as many finished items as I need and leave the rest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CheddarLimbo

Great tip.

I take this two steps further and stack my completed metal bars outside the smelters (one type of metal per smelter), and then stack completed items outside the kiosk. I intentionally produce bracelet/necklace/bracelet/necklace/bracelet/necklace... etc, and leave them there.

When I get a blue order, I just pick up as many finished items as I need and leave the rest.

---

I never have any bars to stack. I added slots to the smelters to equal three for each smelter and have three slots at my jewelry machine. But I never thought of stacking the jewelry. Since I had my fire sale yesterday my barn is less than one third full so it will take awhile for me to be able to do that but I'll have to try that too.