Barns vs Pasterns

[Gamzee]

What are the main differences from the barns and pastures? And which ones are better?

[EclipticEnd]

What are the main differences from the barns and pastures? And which ones are better?

Pastures grow grass which counts towards feed for any horse housed there; any horse within a pasture will graze on the grass. You're able to use less Oats/Weight Gain/Performance Mix/Hay/etc. which means you're spending less money on upkeep.

The amount of grass in a pasture is impacted by the amount of horses housed there; the more horses there are, the less grass will be available per horse and therefore the less each horse eats. Pastures allow for one type of feed besides the automatic grass intake. The quality of grass is impacted by the amount of horses in the pasture and will fluctuate over time. Your horse may end up gaining or losing weight because they're eating more/less; it's not a controllable source of food.

Pastures are good for foals as it'll ensure the foals don't under-eat before weaning at 6 months of age. They're also good for non-competitive horses as it'll cost less for feed. The trade is that you're not guaranteed to keep a horse's weight the same without adjusting how much they're fed each turn.

Pastures are also good for lowering temperaments of horses. Hay takes a lot of space in a horse's stomach, so if they're already eating 80% grass from the pasture then you only need to do 20% hay, which the horse might be able to have room for. All hay types are high in fiber, which lowers temperaments, but take a lot of space in the horse's diet. Grass is the same, but won't take up room in the horse's daily feed amount.



Barns on the other hand do not offer any feed, and therefore you must provide all of the feed for any horses housed within them. This means they cost more for feed upkeep than pastures.

However, you have 100% control over how much the horses inside eat. Once you set an amount of feed, the amount will not fluctuate unlike grass within a pasture. This makes them ideal for competitive horses since you can control their weight. Barns are also ideal for raising temperaments of horses as you can give them pure sugary feed if you want.


If you're training horses then I'd suggest one pasture and then majority barns; the pasture would be for foals to make sure they're eating enough until the point where they can eat 100% weight gain feed; at that point they can be moved into a barn. Pastures are also good in the case that you need to lower temperaments, which is also often handled during training. Endurance horses, for instance, should be bombproof which is the lowest possible temperament.

If you're competing horses then I'd say barns to control weight. If your horses are anything other than High Strung, which is normally for racing disciplines, then you'll need a pasture to swap between; it's often difficult to keep a horse bombproof in a barn because of the lack of natural fiber that pasture grass provides.

If you're simply breeding horses and not worrying about the rest of that, then do mainly pastures. Feed each turn will cost less and weight and temperament won't really matter. If foals aren't kept in a pasture while they're young then they won't consume enough feed to maintain energy.

I'd suggest keeping one barn minimum to house a grinder horse as you play; they're most effective at the correct weight and temperament.