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!

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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.

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Originally Posted by LeeInnes

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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How many shovels can you use after you have used your TNT? And after your dynamite? Or will shovels substitute for either of these? And how many ores will stack in front of the mine? Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Fireartisans

How many shovels can you use after you have used your TNT? And after your dynamite? Or will shovels substitute for either of these? And how many ores will stack in front of the mine? Thanks.

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There is no restriction on how many shovel can be use on mine. However, there is a fix number of ores you can get from those equipments: dynamite yields 2 ores, TNT 3 ores and shovel 4 ores. You also get better chance with diamond when using shovel. If you stock pile & organize well, you will never have to store more than 3 of each kind of ores in your barn. Here's how I do it:

- make sure my barn is full and I have items (animal product or from machine) ready to collect
- use 1 shovel/dynamite/TNT on mine
- collect something to make barn full again
- back to step 1

I have 5 smelters with 3 slots each. I only pick up ores when there are more than 3 free slots in all smelters.

http://i.imm.io/1jR4F.png

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Originally Posted by meonhoc

There is no restriction on how many shovel can be use on mine. However, there is a fix number of ores you can get from those equipments: dynamite yields 2 ores, TNT 3 ores and shovel 4 ores. You also get better chance with diamond when using shovel. If you stock pile & organize well, you will never have to store more than 3 of each kind of ores in your barn. Here's how I do it:

- make sure my barn is full and I have items (animal product or from machine) ready to collect
- use 1 shovel/dynamite/TNT on mine
- collect something to make barn full again
- back to step 1

I have 5 smelters with 3 slots each. I only pick up ores when there are more than 3 free slots in all smelters.

http://i.imm.io/1jR4F.png

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Managing the barn is a constant challenge. Thanks for you help.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I learn something new from this site almost every day. Stacking on purpose? Who knew?!? It freaks me out when stuff is "sitting outside" and I'm constantly having to dump stuff to make room in my barn for more and had no idea that stacking was desirable and done on purpose. I find lately I've been doing it with animal feed because I'm making so much with my new system (and I don't know who gets the credit but it gives me plenty for my animals and to sell in my RSS), but it does tend to fill the barn up in a hurry. I like to keep 8-10 premium items on hand at all times for boat orders plus 2X feed for goats, sheep and pigs but I sell cow and chicken feed almost as I make it since it's so quick to make. My barn is at 825 and my silo at 850 which is fine unless I'm trying to store expansion materials. Only then do I get into trouble. I, too, follow the rule of only keeping enough expansion materials equal to the lowest supply and selling off those that I harvest the most to keep the levels in line and free up the storage.

But on purpose stacking? What a concept. Now to keep the control freak inside of me muzzled and leashed. I'm going to go back and read that bit about stacking ore. I don't store much in the barn and usually just harvest from the mine whenever I have a few slots open.

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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.

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Now THIS I need to do as I have a lot of bars taking up space in my barn. Genius!

So stacking just means not harvesting, right? Even if there's space in the barn?

Great information. I stock pile fishing stuff but who would have thought of stock piling other stuff, not me.:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Shealie54

Now THIS I need to do as I have a lot of bars taking up space in my barn. Genius!

So stacking just means not harvesting, right? Even if there's space in the barn?

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It's like this:

When you tap a machine to open the production queue you have to pick up any finished goods first.

If your barn is full, the items stay on the ground outside your machine, and the production queue opens anyway. You can make one item after you tap, without picking anything up.

If the item you make consumed items in your barn (thereby making more space), then the second item you make will cause you to pick up the first item on the stack.

However if you tap your machine to make an item, and then go collect another item (eggs for example) to fill up your barn again, you can repeat this over and over adding new items to the queue without picking up the finished ones. They will just sit there and wait for you to get them when YOU are ready.

It's fiddly, and it takes some forethought, but once you start doing it the benefits are totally worth it. I store almost ZERO ore, bars, or jewelry in my barn right now, it's all on the ground.

Two things to remember - (1) you can only keep 53 items on the ground outside of a machine, and (2) it's first in, first out. So if you made 10 raspberry jams, and then a cherry, and they're all in front of your machine, you're going to have to pick up those raspberry jams first no matter what. That's why I alternate with the finished jewelry - so I only have to pick up a few at a time if I need one or the other.


Stacking is a LOT easier with a machine like the juicer, or the popcorn maker, which only consumes crops. you don't have to worry about filling your barn back up in between each item you make.