When Farmville introduced the new nursery barn, it was just another exercise in asking friends to help build a structure and then store animals inside. But unlike other structures, it didn't really save any room, given than nursery animals are so small and the barn only holds 20 of them. But as one might predict, the allure of the nursery barn is the ability to grow a full-sized adult animal.
How Does the Nursery Barn Work?
The concept is simple, place baby horses or foals (currently the barn does not accept other baby animals, like turkeys or sheep), "tend" the nursery daily, and sometimes an adult animal is produced. What makes the nursery barn truly unique (and clever) is that the adult animal grown often looks nothing like the foal, resulting in an entirely different breed of animal!
When the adult grows, the farmer receives the adult animal and that baby animal disappears from the nursery barn and can be replaced by another baby animal from the farm. This is a great way to reduce the hefty stocks of baby calves and foals some farmers have collected since their introduction. The farmer is also able to post a feed story sharing a foal version of the animal that has been grown.
This is a very smart cycle, because then friends can put that foal into their nursery barn and do the same thing, and it may grow into yet a different breed, resulting in increased diversity of animals being offered on Facebook feeds.
How to Get Farmville Baby Animals
As mentioned above, foals and calves can be collected from Facebook feeds. But farmers can produce baby animals on their own by placing a bull in each dairy farm owned, or by collecting the wandering stallion that sometimes appears on the farm or is shared by friends in feeds. The bull is a permanent fixture in dairy farms (a separate bull is needed for each barn owned to produce calves). The wandering stallion hangs around only for one collection cycle – it guarantees the stable will produce a foal, but then the stable will not produce a consumable that cycle (farmhands, arborist or extra XP).
When an animal grows up in the nursery barn, the farmer has the option of displaying the animal on their farm (some, like the cream draft horse, are quite beautiful). But the farmer can also choose to place the adult animal into a dairy farm (for calves) or the stables (for foals) and eventually receive a foal of the *same* variety this time. That baby animal can then be placed in the nursery barn and possibly produce yet another variety to further the diversification cycle.
Not all varieties of horse and cow are being produced through the nursery barn, but several are breeds that would have required farm cash originally in the marketplace, which makes it satisfying when one is produced. Hopefully, the breeds produced will expand over time.
In the dairy farms and stables, any animal variety placed will produce exactly the same breed of baby animal, but it is random when that particular animal will breed, so it may take some time, especially for the more rare breeds with only one or a few animals in the building. For those with multiple dairy farms (up to 5 with coins, possibly more with 20 farm cash), placing the rarer breeds in one farm and then harvesting that farm first may increase the chances of getting a rarer calf. A second nursery barn can also be bought for $5,000 coins, but again must be constructed with help from friends.
Have fun using the nursery barn and playing around with trying to breed and grow the different varieties of horse and calf. Happy farming!
Nicki Heskin - Nicki Heskin lives with her husband and two incredible daughters, ages 9 and 5, in Claremont, California. Over the years, she's had an ...
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