I'll try to explain how rare item drops (Tools, LEMs, SEMs & BEMs) work on pets & animals.
When do we get rare item drops?
While harvesting crops from fields (wheating), collecting animal products from farm animals, waking up pets and cutting down trees & bushes; you will get a rare item drop for each 'X'th action on your farm. The number X is constant and specific for each level. For example on a level 100 farm you get 1 rare item drop for every 77th field you harvested, or 77th plant you have chopped down or 77th animal product you have collected. For a level 50 farm the number 'X' is 69. The X values for each level, which I taken from this post by meonhoc, will be included in the second post of this guide, so check #2 if you want to find the value of number 'X' for your current level.
There are 3 different cycles for rare item drops and those 3 are independent from each other:
First one is harvesting crops: You get 1 rare item drop for each 'X'th field you harvest crops. This obviously is basic wheating and it happens all the time. Just keep having room in your Barn and Silo and keep pushing.
Second one is cleaning dead plants: You get a rare item drop for each 'X'th plants you have chopped down. This happens once a week or so if you don't do anything unsual.
The third cycle is assigned to farm animals & pets: Pets & farm animals are combined to the same cycle and they do not have individual cycles. That's pretty tricky and it means if you don't wake up any pets, you can get a rare item drop for every 'X'th egg you have collected, or you can alternatively wake up one of your pets to proceed a bigger step in the cycle. So if you wake up 1 pet in the middle while your are counting eggs, you will get a rare item drop before reaching the 'X'th egg.
Farm animals including chickens, cows, pigs, sheep & goats contribute a single step in the cycle. Bees, lobsters, ducks, lure fishing or net fishing does NOT take any part in the rare item drops.
Pets are contributing bigger steps in the animal cycle, varrying between +8 & +42.
Step values for each pet are listed below. Check the second post of this guide also for a visual list with pet pictures: #2
How do I use these numbers?Code:Retriever=22 Tabby=26 White B.=25 Pinscher=28 Calico=32 Fluffy B.=25 Hound=34 Tuxedo=20 Bay H.=30 Provence D.=8 Palamino=36 Andalusian D.=9 Pinto H.=42 Anatolian D.=10 Andalusian=42
The counter on the cycle works like this: For examples; If value of the number 'X' is 60 for your level, you need to reach 59 (X-1) and then collect one animal product from any farm animal to get the most efficient results. However, it doesn't matter if you exceed 59 (X-1), when waking up a pet, exceeding X-1 does not give you a rare item drop & it only means that your next animal action will give you a rare item drop. So for the best results if the value for your current level is X, aim for X-1 and finish with a single +1 step: collecting an animal product; eggs anyone?
But first let me give you an example of terrible horse parenting:
Let's say that the value 'X' for your current level is 77 (which is valid for any level 77 & above player) and you have previously made 75 steps on the current round of your animal cycle. This means, if you'd knew, collecting 2 eggs would easily give you a rare item drop. But instead if you wake up a pinto, which has a value of 42 steps, you will NOT get a rare item drop. Remember exceeding 76 will only mean that your next move will give you a rare item drop. Now that you have reached 117 with the first pinto, if you wake up a second one you will finally get a rare item drop. Congratulations! You have succesfully wasted 2 pinto horses!
Do I need to count all those eggs and milks that I collected in between???
If you want to be in full control, you need to go the 'die hard' way of counting every last one of animal activity. If you are capable of doing that, you certainly belong to a group that I'm not a part of & I adore you!If you want to join the crusade and be in total control, I can only suggest using the M+ function on an oldschool calculator.
as it always remembers unless you remove the battery.
But you certainly don't need to stress so much about it.
First case is when your donkeys are asleep and all your other pets are wandering: The Lazy Donkeys
You can do: egg - 1st donkey - egg - 2nd donkey - egg - 3rd donkey - egg - 4th donkey - egg - 5th donkey - egg - 6th donkey and finish off all the farm animals.
What this does is to enable you to make smaller steps of +8, +9 or +10 to the cycle, and the farm animals in between let's you check if you exceeded the number 'X' and prevent you from wasting any more pets, so this gives you the best results without die hard counting.If you ask which type of donkeys you should wake up first, don't.
Hold on to your luck and deceive yourself that your choice was the 'right' one.
BTW if you have many farm animals (like chickens cows and pigs) ready to be harvested, you can distribute them to each donkeys. So if you have 40+ farm animals ready you can also do: 5x farm animals - donkey - 5x farm animals - donkey etc. This way you could search somewhat better.
The second case is when all your pets are asleep: The Morning Scenerio
Note that having as many farm animals ready as possible helps here. So try to feed as many of them as possible before you sleep.
Now start with above the above described: farm animal - 1st donkey - farm animal - 2nd donkey - farm animal - 3rd donkey - farm animal - 4th donkey - farm animal - 5th donkey - farm animal - 6th donkey - farm animal pattern. Likewise increase the number of inbetweener farm animals if you have 'plenty' of them ready.
In this second case you need to stop once you get a rare item drop. This process is needed for you to get your initial rare item drop without counting all animal activity. Once you get that initial rare item drop your counter is set back to zero. And you can start counting and calculating the pets afterwards. Or you can also choose the previous combinations that you have gathered.
Remember, once you get the initial rare item drop, aim for X-1 or as close as possible to X-1 without exceeding it and finish with farm animals.
If it gives you a rare item drop, horse - cat - bunny + 2 eggs is a good example; horse - dog + 13 eggs is not such a good one as you might end up short of farm animals before you wake up all your pets. You will have 10+ rare item drops if you bought all the pets from the shop, so spending wisely is key
Example for high level players who have all of the pets:
A guideline is included in the second post of this guide for any level 77 player and above, who have bought all the pets: #2
If you haven't already, I suggest assigning one field to your pets, plant 1 tomato to that field each time you wake up your horses, dogs, cats & bunnies; as these pets & tomatoes have the same duration of 6h. This way you can easily check when your pets needs to be woken up. Donkeys sleep every hour. If you want to monitor that too you can match them with cows or plant 1 cotton (or indigo) every time you wake them up and you'll know your donkeys will wake up once there is 1h30m left for the cotton.
Last thing to remember: Always check that you have enough room in your barn before you proceed.
Thanks for reading & special thanks to the 'AdvoCat'
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