pastures and crop fields

[RetardedIntelligence]

hi guys
what is the biggest size of pasture and crop field and orchard that can one worker hold it??

[jensenthecat]

Try about 4x4. The game will let you know how many workers you need.

[ASpasticHamster]

Crop fields 12x12

Chickens 8x17 will hold 22 chickens.
Sheep 16x10 will hold 10 sheep.
Cattle 18x12 will hold 10 cows.

*** BIGGEST ISN'T THE MOST EFFICIENT!!! ***

For orchards 15x4 is best for 1 worker as it has the most trees for the number of space the plot takes up.

Crop fields 9x9 (i have found 10x10 or 11x11 are ok but if you get an early frost you will end up losing some of the harvest).

Pastures: Chickens 12x12 will keep 24 chickens and one worker is fine.
Sheep 16x16 for sheep (will hold 16 sheep).
Cattle 16x15 or 15x16.

You can go for max size possible on pastures and set to 1 worker but I haven't personally tested the difference in yield between 1 worker and the number suggested by the game. I would do a bit of googling or reddit searching and see what other people have found.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by ASpasticHamster:

Crop fields 12x12

Chickens 8x17 will hold 22 chickens.
Sheep 16x10 will hold 10 sheep.
Cattle 18x12 will hold 10 cows.

*** BIGGEST ISN'T THE MOST EFFICIENT!!! ***

For orchards 15x4 is best for 1 worker as it has the most trees for the number of space the plot takes up.

Crop fields 9x9 (i have found 10x10 or 11x11 are ok but if you get an early frost you will end up losing some of the harvest).

Pastures: Chickens 12x12 will keep 24 chickens and one worker is fine.
Sheep 16x16 for sheep (will hold 16 sheep).
Cattle 16x15 or 15x16.

You can go for max size possible on pastures and set to 1 worker but I haven't personally tested the difference in yield between 1 worker and the number suggested by the game. I would do a bit of googling or reddit searching and see what other people have found.

With regard to livestock, I have tested it and found that there is absolutely no difference to the number of workers assigned in regard to its size. You can assign 4 workers to work one 10x10 pasture and they will be just as efficient as 1 worker. I've tested this with pastures as big as 24x24 using the CC mod. They also produce the same amount of meat and other products (leather, wool, feathers, etc.) regardless the number of workers, only the size of the pasture matters.

Pastures are definitely the way to go, and the bigger the pasture the better, and never assign more than one worker per pasture, regardless the size. The only downside to creating large pastures at the beginning of the game is that you have to wait until the pastures become full before they start harvesting them. A 24x24 pasture for chickens takes a long time to fill.

Crops, on the other hand, the number of workers is very important. It can determine whether or not you have the time to harvest all your crops. I have found that different crops will take different amounts of time to both grow and harvest, and the number of workers plays a very important role in determining both time and the amount of harvest. Planting appears to take the same amount of time, regardless of the crop.

When my crops are ready to be harvested I will often temporarily reduce the number of builders in order to increase the number of workers harvesting.

[mbutton15]

I wrote a guide a couple of years ago on crops, which you might find helpful:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=540024593
As for pastures, from my experience 1 worker is good enough to work even a max size pasture for chickens and cows. But my sheep just kept dying off when they only had 1 worker so I increased to 2 workers and now they manage to breed OK.

[Alaskan Glitch]

I just created a 30x30 pasture (the largest you can create using the CC mod). It will hold 56 pigs, by the way. Initially, I thought it would take a long time to fill up, but I was wrong.

I use the Medium+ to start, which gave me 8 pigs. It took the builders a year to complete the 30x30 pasture (256 items to be removed, 116 logs, and 116 build time), and you can only get a maximum of 2 builders to work on it. Which is rather strange considering that once the pasture has been completed you can assign as many as 25 herdsman to each pasture. Talk about overkill.

Just 6 years after the pasture was completed the population of 8 had become 16. By year 10 (9 years after the pasture was completed) it had doubled again to 32. By year 13 (12 years after the pasture was completed) the pasture maxed out with 56 pigs and the slaughter began.

Now I also built a smokehouse, salting house, and butcher, so there are a lot of various pork products in my meat locker and storage barn. But in order to test the amount of food being produced from this one 30x30 pasture with only one herdsman I turned off all my other sources for food. No hunters, no gathers, no fisherman, no crops, not even shorehouses collecting frog legs, no other source of food except from the pigs. With a population of 25 he was producing more food than was being consumed. With a population of 30 he was breaking even. With a population of 35 he was starting to lose ground.

It is difficult to be more precise because whenever you build a new home, you are going to see a temporary drop in your food production. I am not sure how much of that drop was the result of hording or the result of an increase in population.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by mbutton15:

I wrote a guide a couple of years ago on crops, which you might find helpful:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=540024593
As for pastures, from my experience 1 worker is good enough to work even a max size pasture for chickens and cows. But my sheep just kept dying off when they only had 1 worker so I increased to 2 workers and now they manage to breed OK.

Nice guide. I'm going to have to study those figures you provided.

I am going to have to disagree with you about using your farm labor during the winter. As long as you give priority to the crops, there shouldn't be any problems using them as builders. You just need to make sure they get back to their fields by early Spring. Throwing in a few builders during harvest time can also help speed up the harvest.

[Wuji]

This wiki has much better information on pasture sizes. Forgive the horrible ads.

https://banished-wiki.com/wiki/Pasture#

The pasture limits are 20 tiles per cow, 16 per sheep and 6 per chicken.

If you want 14 sheep then you need 224 tiles (14 sheep * 16 tiles/sheep) [2]

It should also be noted that pastures can become infested, during which your livestock will be slowly killed until the pasture is emptied. If a pasture becomes infested, it is recommended you build a small pasture to house some backup livestock. Once your main pasture is emptied, the infestation disappears.

Efficiency
You'll see the best efficiency of the pens in the table bellow. Note that the optimal size of the pens for cattles and sheep are the biggest possible pens with 2 herdsman. The 10x20 pen is the least efficient because you can only hold 1 more cattle than the biggest pen for 1 herdsman. The table below shows the best and worst possible grids per herdsman composition.

Squares--Grid---------------Herdsman---Cattles---Sheep-----Chickens-Remark

49--------7x7-------------------------1---------2-------3--------------8--Too small
180-9x20/10x18/12x15--------------1---------(9)------11------------30--Biggest pen for cattle
192------12x16-----------------------1--------9-------(12)-----------32--Biggest pen for sheep
198------11x18-----------------------1--------9-------12------------(33)--Biggest pen for chickens
200------10x20----------------------2--------10-------12-----------33 Don't use, requires two herdsmen, build 20x20.
400------20x20----------------------(2)--------(20)-------(25)----------(66)--Best ratio for cattle/sheep

* (BEST SIZE)

[kevinshow]

i usually go with 4x15 orchards and 15x8 farm fields and 20x20 pastures. Using that size, I can usually inter-mix farms and orchards. For example, one farm, then 3 orchards, then one farm again.

pastures would be the main one that might change, depending on the part of the game you're in. however, there's no reason I need to change the orchards or farm sizes from starting to late game, so I keep those the same , pretty much all the time.

the only time I change up is just to be different and play a different way.

[Asguard]

I do 5x11 i don't size is the problem you must have plenty of store and your food limit is not max out. before i start i pause and set all resource to 999999 that they won't stop working be if you get behind on the it is hard recover from it.