How to Build an Animal Farm

Now that we can breed animals, farming has become a great source of food and wool (and feathers, leather, and eggs as well). Unfortunately, the animals in minecraft are glitchy and it's difficult to keep them contained in their pens even in single player. In SMP it's a nightmare.

The problem is twofold.

First, animals are able to push each other up and over walls. You can solve this with a roof or with high walls, but with high walls the animals will push up the side and then fall back down - taking damage. Over time they will eventually die from this, which can be a problem if you have a small farm. Low walls with a roof is better than high walls, but it generally doesn't look very good and it's also possible for animals to glitch through or into the roof the same as walls.

Second, animals are able to glitch their way through or into a wall. Double thick walls will reduce this problem but over time they can still get through. Triple thick walls seem to solve the problem of escape, but instead of escaping the animals suffocate in the wall and die. Glitching through walls happens in two situations. If a pair of animals is pressed up against a wall by other animals, it's possible for their baby to appear inside the wall after they breed. Once stuck in the wall the baby can glitch through to the other side over time. The other situation is when a chunk is loaded. Every time a chunk loads it's possible for the animals to load slightly before the walls. If this happens they can have enough time to move into where the wall will appear. Over enough chunk loads an animal can make its way all the way through the wall.

The following tutorial provides a near foolproof method of keeping an animal farm that results in zero escapes and zero deaths via wall suffocation. The original idea came from Exavious, but this design has quite a few changes made by me as a result of stress testing it.

Two things to note about this design. First, you can alter the size to fit your needs. I wanted 10x10 pens and that's what is used in this tutorial. Second, it would work just as well above ground instead of sunk in to ground level - I like the in ground design because I can easily navigate around to see into each pen and getting in/out is easier.

1)Dig a hole 16x16 and 4 deep.




2)Place a row of blocks around the bottom edge and 2 blocks on top of that in each corner.

3) Place a ring of pressure plates in the center leaving 2 spaces between the pressure plates and the bottom ring of blocks. The size of the ring depends on the size of the hole you dug. I have a 10x10 ring. No matter what size pen you use, you need a 2 block space between the pressure plates and the bottom ring of blocks.

4)Add another row of blocks around the top edge.
5)If you plan to keep sheep in the pen, fill the land inside the pressure plates with dirt. For any other animal the floor doesn’t matter.



6)Again, if using the pen for sheep, get some grass in there. If you’re building an above ground pen you can just start out by building on grass. If your building below ground and have time, you can just build a dirt staircase from the top (where there is grass) down to the bottom. The grass will grow down and spread. If you’re building in the middle of a desert, like me, you can place a grass block that you dug up with a silk touch pick or bough from someone else who did.

7)Make an infinite water hole. Just dig a 4x4 hole 1 block deep and pour a bucket of water in 2 opposite corners. Now you have an endless supply of nearby water.

8) Place a bucket of water on top of each block that rings the edge of the floor. The pressure plates stop the water from flowing past them, creating a wall of water.

That’s it.The water flows from the edges towards the center and keeps the animals from being able to get close to the walls.This prevents them from glitching through or over.If you put enough animals in the pen they will bunch up and push some of them through the water and to the edge.The ridge around the top prevents them from going over and getting out.

This also works for chickens, but they occasionally drown if you get very many in the pen.I removed the water from my chicken pen and none have escaped so far.

Getting out is a bit of an issue.I just jump in to feed or harvest, but it’s not possible to jump out.Donors and travelers can use the magic carpet or compass to get out.For everyone else, you can place a column of blocks in the center with 1 empty space between the ground and the column, and use a ladder to get out with a walkway to the edge.I can’t guarantee that this is escape proof, but I haven’t seen any get out with this in place (it’s possible they could glitch all the way up the ladder, get onto the walkway, and walk all the way to the edge without falling back into the pen – but not likely):

You could also tunnel down in the center with a trapdoor over the hole and dig an underground passage in and out – I think this would be a time consuming way to access the pen though.

You can very comfortably fit 10-15 animals in a pen this size.What’s the maximum number?I don’t know, but I filled a pen with this many (40+) as a test and none escaped:

A view from above of a complete farm:

A larger pen I use for cattle:

 

Coterie Craft

Hey, I gave you credit.

 

Except for the chickens I've had no drownings - even when stress testing it.