When running your ranch you will need to know the best way to make money, and the best crops in Ranch Simulator.
There are many different things you can add to your ranch and many different mechanics that affect them.
When it comes to the best way to make money, the best crops you farm as well as the animals you keep synergize to bring you a lot of money in return.
- Sell Animal Produce (with a focus on Chickens and Pigs)
- Grow crops that have a low time to grow, and are re-harvestable (with a focus on Watermelons and Bell Peppers)
If you want to explore your surroundings and see what you can find while looking around the world check out our guide on how to find oil in Ranch Simulator.
Ranch Simulator: Animal Husbandry
At the beginning of the game when players are trying to get things off the ground, knowing how to increase the money they have can be a hustle.
The best way to go about it is using chickens. After the tutorial has finished, you can use the funds you have at that time to go down to the store, and purchase chickens.
Chickens
In the beginning, you will want to just purchase chickens, and then sell their eggs back at the market, to get even more chickens.
They will lay eggs each day at 16:00, and there will be a steady flow of cash. It may not appear to be such a huge cash flow in the beginning, but as you begin to get more chickens the money will keep flowing in.
Just make sure to buy food for your chickens and keep the coop stocked up with water.
At some point, you can also purchase a rooster for your chicken coop. With a rooster, chickens will be able to lay fertilized eggs that will grow into baby chicks.
Usually, to check if an egg is fertilized, you should use an ovoscope purchased at the general store, but there is another way to tell. Fertilized eggs are laid every day at 10:00. Unfertilized eggs are laid every day at 16:00.
You can check at the beginning of the day, and if you find eggs then they will be fertilized eggs. Just be careful, because chickens and roosters will chase you for some time if you take the fertilized eggs.
Pigs
Another animal you can raise that will greatly affect your economic management is pigs.
Male and female pigs cost $300 each and can be found in the general store.
Pigs have several age stages, each stage providing more pieces of pork meat. The maximum yield from a single pig is 26 pieces of pork.
Though pigs bought from the general store provide 7 pieces of pork when killed, that’s why breeding pigs will be important.
Pigs can be bred by placing a male and a female pig close to one another. After a while you should see hearts floating around the animals, indicating successful mating.
After 3 to 5 days mother pig will give birth to varying amounts of piglets (about 3-4). Piglets need their mother to eat for some days until they can eat on their own.
Once a fully-grown pig is killed, and you get the 26 pieces of pork, you can sell them back at the general store for $30 for each piece of meat.
So you just need a male and a female pig, and with enough care, you will get an abundance of money from them as well.
Ranch Simulator: Crops to Grow
Crops are another great way to get money, and these are the best crops to grow in Ranch Simulator.
Let’s go over some of the basics first though.
To start planting fruit and vegetables, you’ll need to build a crop plot. You can then purchase seeds from the general store to plant within the plots.
All small crops require 1 unit of water to fully water them, but some crops will consume water more quickly than others.
Crops can be watered with a bucket or using sprinklers. Sprinklers require a windmill to use. They will water crops within a small radius around them once a day but must be activated once upon placing them.
Sprinklers can be placed on the ground outside, or crop plots.
Now the reason crops can be a great way to earn money is the re-harvesting mechanic.
All crops besides cabbages can be harvested between 0 and 10 times. Upon each harvest, there is a 10*n% chance of the crop dying, where n is the number of times harvested.
So, for the first time, you harvest a plant, there is a 10% chance of the plant dying, on the second harvest, there is a 20% chance, and so forth until the tenth harvest. At the tenth harvest, the plant now has a 100% chance of dying.
If you manage to get close to the tenth harvest, you will have gotten way more than your money’s worth for what you purchased them for at the general store.
There are two seeds you will want to plant in the beginning that can yield a nice amount of money.
| Crops | Seed Price (per packet of 10) | Sell Price (individual items) | # Per Harvest | Time to grow |
| Watermelon | $10 | $7 | 1 | 15m |
| Bell Pepper | $20 | $2 | 5 | 20m |
These crops are the best ones to use in the beginning to snowball your money, as you start using a little bit of everything.
Final Thoughts
Managing your budget, and having enough money to get everything you want when you want it is really important.
If you want to try our hunting to get more meat to profit of off, check out our guide on the best place to hunt in Ranch Simulator.
With all the information about the best way to make money, and the best crops laid out, you will be able to hit the ground running as you start the game. Let us know in the comments what crops you use the most, and which animal you think are worth.
With thousands of hours played on Nintendo systems since the original Gameboy, Nikiforos is happy to share his endless passion for Nintendo franchises and everything he can get his hands on.
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