How to Get Nothing but Bottles from Special Delivery Boxes in Farmville

Due to the recent drop in interest in breeding sheep and pigs, some people may be experiencing trouble getting enough bottles to feed their piglets and lambs.  In response to this demand for bottles, Farmville made a change so that special delivery boxes would start giving us bottles.  Although we can now get bottles from special delivery boxes, it does not always mean that we can successfully get bottles every time we try.  in fact you may end up opening many special delivery boxes and find nothing but building materials or shovels.  Luckily, there are several methods you can use to assure that your special delivery boxes always give you bottles.

1. First of all, it is important to understand how special delivery boxes work.  You boxes generally detect everything on your farm that need building materials.  When you cash in the boxes they are most likely to detect a building furthest to the left on your farm.  However, you can tell for sure which building the boxes are detecting by counting how many building materials are needed for a building compared to how many materials your delivery boxes give you.  For example, you may have an orchard that needs six nails and your boxes give you six nails.  This means it is likely that your boxes are counting what is needed to complete that orchard.
2. Now that you know which building your boxes are delivering for, go ahead and use those nails on that building or orchard.  If it is an orchard, it is fine to complete the orchard since it cannot be expanded.  However, if your special delivery boxes are counting what is needed for your nursery, your stable or anything else that is expandable, then fill the building with nails but do not use the last nail. 
3. Once your first building is almost complete, the boxes will start counting another building on your farm.  Continue this process on the buildings being counted until they are all 99% complete.  You can leave each building un-built or un-expanded by holding back only one building item per building.  Though it will work to hold back one item, it may be best to hold back several items so you never accidentally complete the building.  If this happens, the building will automatically go into expansion mode and you will have to use a lot more special delivery boxes to almost complete the building before you get bottles again. 
4. Once you partially finish all of your building, your special delivery boxes should start to exclusively count what is needed to complete your lambs and piglets.  Though may happen for a while, you may find that your boxes will start giving you shovels instead of bottles.  If this happens, there are several methods you can use to assure that you will only get bottles.  The first thing you need to check is the lambs and pigs that are on your farm.  If your boxes give you only two bottles each time and the rest shovels, then you most likely have a partially fed piglet or lamb on your farm that has eight bottles.  This means that the boxes are counting your lambs and piglets but it is starting with the one that is the most full.  So go ahead and complete that lamb or pig and then you can start opening ten boxes at a time.
5. The next method you can use to assure that you always get bottles, is to buy a nursery and place it on your farm.  Since it is a building, Farmville should immediately start counting the materials needed for the nursery.  If you don't care about having a nursery, completely fill the nursery with building materials but do not use even one bottle.  This way Farmville will always be counting the ten bottles that are needed for the nursery every time that you cash in special delivery boxes.  If you want to use the nursery, build it completely and then complete the expansion except for the bottles.  This way your building will stay at the 20 capacity, but the lack of bottles will fool delivery boxes into giving you nothing but bottles. 
6. Lastly, your boxes will give you bottles, but be sure you are only requesting the number of bottles that are needed in the building that the game is counting.  So if the boxes are counting your nursery, then count the bottles needed to complete the nursery and then use that number when collecting boxes.  Keep selecting ten boxes at a time until you have fed the piglets and lambs that you would like.  This will assure that you are only requesting the number of bottles that are needed to finish the building and that you will not end up getting other materials that you did not want.  
7. Finally, at this point you should only get bottles.  However, if you are still getting shovels and not exclusively bottles, you may want to consider selling your cellar and using a barn or shed until you you are no longer have trouble getting bottles.  Though this does not happen often, you don't want to chance having getting 500 shovels before you start getting bottles. 

So now that you have set your farm up to assure your special delivery boxes are giving you nothing but bottles, you should try to assure that you don't use up your bottles right away.  So if you are breeding sheep and attempting to breed a particular type of sheep, you will know if your breed was successful by examining the color of the resulting lamb.  If the lamb does not appear to be what you were trying for, either adopt the lamb or place the lamb on your farm and do to feed it.  Continue to try for the breed you are attempting to get.  The same thing is true for breeding pigs.  So by looking at the piglet, you should know whether or not you got the breed you were trying for.  So do not feed that piglet right away.  Instead save your bottles for when you finally get the breed you are shooting for.

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New Farmville Sheep Breeding Patterns

I am sure that many of you who enjoyed breeding sheep prior to Farmville's sterilization of illegal sheep are aware that breeding has become much more difficult.  Though Zynga has made several announcements with respect to changes, none has given Farmville players much hope when it comes to future breeding.  However, if you are having trouble getting anything but plain and white sheep, here are some tips in order to have better results.  

In Farmville's latest official statement indicated the following changes in Sheep Breeding:

1. It is no lo longer realistic to expect 80-100% pattern adoption when breeding.

2. Breeding a design with a non design sheep will give you a small chance of getting an offspring with that pattern.

3. Breeding a design with the same design will give you a greater chance of getting the design to breed.

Keeping these factors in mind, here are some of the observations that I made in my attempts to breed different designs:

Mixing Designs and Colors:

If you breed one design with a different design or one sheep with two colors that are completely different from the sheep you are breeding it with, you are most likely to get a plain color of sheep.  The color of sheep that that you will get has a high probability of being the base color of the first sheep that you select when breeding. 
Example:
base color black + base color purple = plain black

However, since getting plain sheep is getting quite old, the best thing to do is to avoid mixing designs and colors. Know also that you are more likely to get a plain sheep which is the base color of the first sheep picked if you breed a design sheep with a plain sheep or if the breed two sheep with the same base color.  Here are some combinations that will give you better results.

Same Design and Same Secondary color:

I found the best results when breeding two sheep that have the same secondary color and the same design.  If you are not sure about the secondary color, here is an example:
purple-secondary black-secondary black-secondary

So basically, the secondary color is the color of dots, stars, or belt or the outside color in the Camo sheep.  So when you breed Camo sheep, be sure to have two Camo sheep with the same secondary color.  If breeding the sheep above in the example, you want to breed it with another camo sheep with black as its secondary color but which has a different base color.  Here are the possible results:

1. Same Color and Design: When breeding same design/same secondary color, your greatest possibility will be getting a sheep that has the same colors as the second sheep that you selected.  So if you chose the green/black Camo Ewe first and then you chose a red/black Camo Ram, you have a good possibility of getting a red/black Camo sheep.  Though it's not always great to get the same exact color and design of sheep, this could be useful for sharing sheep with your neighbors.


2. Plain Sheep: The second most likely result from breeding the same design and secondary color is that you will get a plain color of sheep which will have the same base color as the second sheep chosen when breeding.  So if we are using the same example above, it would be green/black Camo + red/black Camo = Plain Red sheep.

3. Base Color Jumps to Secondary Color: Finally, the least likely result of pairing same design and same secondary color sheep is that you will get the base color of one sheep to come out as a secondary color in the resulting sheep.  Since this will give you more color options, this is the best result, but definitely the hardest to achieve.

Lamb Colors

Since you are not likely to know what your sheep is until you feed it, here is a clue to knowing ahead of time.  Knowing this will also help you decide if you want to keep a sheep or give it away.  If you already know it is the same type of sheep that you already have, you may prefer putting it up for adoption.  So, be aware that the color of the lamb will be the base color of the sheep once it grows up.  Though this does not tell you whether or the sheep will be plain or will have a design, you will still have a better idea of what to expect.

Finally, you should also be aware of a not so wonderful glitch that Zynga is currently investigating.  When breeding two Flashing sheep, you are most likely to get a plain white sheep.  The only time that I got something else was when breeding the rainbow Ram with a flashing sheep.  In this instance, I got only plain colors of sheep but no flashing colors.  So if you are eager to breed flashing sheep, you may want to avoid the frustration and wait until Zynga works out this problem.  

Though we would like to have more options when it comes to breeding, this is what we have presently.  Know also that you can apply the same breeding patterns to pigs since there is presently no difference between sheep and pig breeding.  Though this should eliminate some of the confusion when it comes to breeding, hopefully Zynga will make sheep and pig breeding easier in the future.

Latest Announcement by Farmville: Plain Sheep and Pigs are Not a Glitch

In an announcement on the Farmville forum, the Farmvile Community Manager stated that the recent high occurrence of plain sheep is not a glitch and that this is what Farmville players should expect now from breeding sheep and pigs.  Though it was speculated that the high number of plain white sheep may be a glitch, the community manager specified that the 80-100% certainty of pattern adoption which was the norm when sheep breeding was launched was actually a glitch. 

The announcement went on to assure that if you are disappointed in the low rate of patterns being passed on in breeding, you can request a refund of farm cash for the purchase of rams or ewes and that Farmville would remove these sheep from your farms.

Though the option of refunding farm cash for bum sheep is a generous offer by Farmville, without the prospect of ever having sheep that produce, the idea of sheep breeding has lost its appeal.  Many of the responses to this announcement were that of disgust and disappointment.  Many players pledged they would return their rams and never waste farm cash on a sheep or pig again.  Players also expressed disgust with Zynga in general for how they handled the whole sheep breeding issue and vowed that Zynga would never get any of their money again. 

So, though I was waiting patiently for Zynga to work out the bugs with sheep and pig breeding so that it would once again be exciting, I regret to bring you this news since it appears that this will not happen.  So if you are someone who has no problem collecting bottles, you may enjoy trying over and over and over again until you finally get a patterned sheep or pig to breed the pattern.  However, if you are like me and probably like many other players who can never get enough bottles, then breeding sheep and pigs may just be too much work for so little possibility of a favorable outcome.  So, though I continue to hope Zynga will bring the excitement back to sheep and pig breeding, it appears that they are adamant about their decision and do not seem to care about what the players really want.

Link to Forum Announcement

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The Farmville Addiction Test

If you go directly to tend to your farms first thing in the morning, spend money on farm cash, or play Farmville all day, there is a good chance that you are addicted to Farmville.  If you suspect that you are addicted and want to know whether you really are, I challenge you to take this test.

Farmville Addiction Test:
The test is simple.  All you need to do is "stop playing Farmville for one whole week."  So, do you think you can do it? If you want to try, the only rule is that you cannot make any other changes to your life during this week.  If you are used to getting onto Facebook everyday, you must continue to do this.  If you have daily access to the Internet, you cannot take this test while on vacation or when you are without Internet access.  Additionally, you cannot delete or block the Farmville application nor can you change any settings on Facebook to make it easier for you to avoid the temptation of playing.  The reason for this is that you must be able to hear about and read updates on new things in Farmville without being tempted to jump back into the game.

Test Results:
The test results are also very simple.  If you have trouble getting through the week and end up playing first thing after the week ends, you are still most likely addicted but to a lesser degree since you were able to get through the whole week without touching the application.  If you break down at any time during this week, even if it is just to accept or send gift requests, then you are most certainly a Farmville Addict.  Though many people know they are addicted and have no intentions of quitting, this may not seem like a problem.  However, if you start to feel like your Farmville addiction is negatively effecting your health, finances or relationships, then you should definitely consider removing the addiction.  Fortunately, many people play Farmville without being addicted, so removing the addiction does not have to mean removing the game.  However, if you are a true addict, I guarantee that you will feel better about playing if you know that you can take it or leave it.

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Farmville Strategy: How to Get English Cows From Your Nursery

As you may have already heard, you are able to place an English calf in your Nursery and have it grow into an English Cow.  Though you can do this and get an English cow from time to time, there is a method you can use to get many English cows every day. Here are the steps:

1. The first thing you should be aware of is that your nursery may give you things other than what you have in your nursery if you have had it for a while and harvested it with many types of babies.  So if you try this method and get something other than an English cow, this may mean that you need to build a new nursery.  So if you have to rebuild, make sure you keep your nursery at 20 capacity and no more and do not harvest it with anything but English calves.
2. The next step is to place one English calf in your nursery and the rest of your calves outside of your nursery.  Once your nursery is ready, harvest.  If you get an English cow, great.  If not, remove the calf and place it on your farm.  Then pick up a ready English calf with the hand moving feature and place it in your nursery.  Your nursery will be ready once again.  Harvest.  If you still get nothing.  Do the same steps again but this time, place the ready calf in and then place another calf to give you a total of two, then harvest.  Keep alternating the number of calves that you put in from one to two or three.  This gives you better chances of getting a Cow. 
3. Once you get an English cow, you can continue to try for cows until you run out of English calves; it is up to you.  Just know that with each English cow, you will loose an English calf that will grow up.

So, now that you understand this, you may have the problem of not having enough English calves.  This is an issue that I ran into so here are some things you can do to get more calves.

1. Find a handful of neighbor who have English cows and calves and who are interested in doing a calf swap with you.  So whenever you get an English calf either from your dairy or nursery, you will agree to send that friend the link.  Then whenever they get English calves from their nursery or dairy, they will do the same. 
2. I believe that nursery calves have 5 links all together and dairy calves have 10 links.  So a good number may be 3-5 friends. 
3. How to share links: The best way to share a link is to send it through chat if you see them on line. This may not always be possible so you can also send the link in a message or make it viewable only to the neighbors you share calves with.  If you have additional links after you share with your select neighbors, you can use a link shortener such as bit.ly to shorten your link and re-post to Facebook.
4. If your friends have English calves to share but are interested in receiving something different, then send them eggs or whatever they are looking for in exchange.  Keep doing this until you have a good number of calves or for as long as you are interested in making English cows.

By using these methods you should always have enough calves to use in order to grow up multiple English Cows.  Plus, once you get a lot of English cows you should have no problem getting them to breed in your dairies.  Farmville doesn't release new types of cows and horses to grow up in your nursery too often. However, when they do, remember that you can use this same technique to produce plenty of the new type of cow or horse.  So have fun with this one until the next new release. :) 

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Zynga Deals Fatal Blow to Farmville Sheep Breeding Craze

Farmville players display a large degree of disapproval over Zynga's recent announcement that so called, "illegal" sheep and pigs would no longer be breedable in Farmville.  Zynga recognized in their statement that most Farmville players received their illegal sheep and pigs through legitimate means.  So Zynga will not take these sheep and pigs from honest players.  However, since Zynga placed breeder tags on pig breeding, they were able to trace the source of illegal sheep.  Zynga announced that those players who received their illegal sheep through illicit means will have all of their special feature sheep changed into plain colors.

So this means that sheep and pig designs other than plain, dots and stripes will no longer breed anything but plain designs and colors of sheep.  This also means that all of the special features such as flashing, masked, split color, and electric will no longer breed into anything but plain sheep colors.  Included in the breeding casualties are Star and Camo designs which will also no longer be available until Farmville officially releases these designs in the market.

Some of the most frequent comments on Zynga's unpopular move to sterilize illegal sheep were players calling Zynga out for being greedy, players pointing out that Zynga failed to see revenue gained from players buying love potions and bottles, players calling on Zynga to hire the hackers who made the cool sheep, and players expressing general outrage over Zynga's shortsightedness and failure to realize how excited Farmville players were over all the special types of sheep.

Overall, the general mood to Zynga's recent announcement on illegal sheep breeding is outrage and includes calls to leave the game and to stop spending money on farm cash.  Though Zynga never intended for the sheep breeding craze to spiral as it did due to the interjection of unplanned sheep types, Zygna seems to be missing the big picture.  The Farmville players that spend money on Farm cash are the same die-hard players stocking their farms with all sorts of crazy types of sheep.  I cannot see how alienating this crowd of players will do anything but decrease Zynga's revenue in the long run.

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Farmville Launches Pig Breeding and Love Potion Crafting

For those of us who could not get enough of sheep breeding, Farmville has just launched Pig Breeding.  Though the process looks a lot like sheep breeding, there is sure to be many new different designs to experiment with.  Another great development is Farmville's release of love potion crafting.  I am sure this will be a relief to many Farmville players since sending a request every 4 hours was getting quite tiresome.  Here are some details on both new additions:

Pig Farming
When you enter your farm, you will be prompted to place a pigpen on your farm.  Once you have completed building the first level of your pigpen, you will receive a green boar.  This definitely makes it convenient to get started.  Plus, you can build a pigpen on both your home and English farm and receive a boar for each.  When you place your boar and pig in the pigpen, you will use the same love potion that you use for sheep and breed in the same manner.  You will be given an option to keep or give away the piglet and you can grow it up using the same amount of bottles.  The only thing that is different is the type of colors and pig designs you will encounter.  Here are a few examples:

Love Potion Crafting
When you go to your English Countryside farm, you will need only to open up your Brew house to see the addition of love potion as one of your crafting options.  In order to make love potion, you will need Field Beans, Pink Asters, and English Peas bushels.  So if you haven't done it already, start working on expanding your brew houses so you can make as much as possible.  In addition to love potion, you will find that nails, bricks and boards are also craftable now depending on what type of crafting building you have on your home farm. 

I think that everyone will agree that these are all great improvements.  So, all we need now is an easier way to get bottles.  Then we can feed all our lambs and piglettes waiting in line to grow up. :)

Farmville Sheep Breeding: The Magnificent Devil Sheep Descendants

Though the breeding of the infamous Devil sheep has, for the most part, been near to impossible.  Farmville players who have Devil sheep may be focusing too much on the failure of the flashing horn and red eye features to pass on to its descendants.  However, if you have received one of these, somewhat genetically flawed, Devil descendants, then I doubt you feel disappointed in the least.  Of all the special featured sheep out there,  the Devil sheep descendants are the craziest.  Though I am sharing an picture of one of these sheep, without the animation, the image hardly does it justice.
Example of a Devil Descendant (without animation)

Example of a Devil Descendant Lamb

Devil Descendants:
Since you may not know a Devil Descendant when you see one, here is a list of their common features.

Flashing Mask Colors: Instead of having a single color of mask, Devil Descendants constantly flash all different mask colors.

Rapid Flashing: The Devil Descendant tend to flash at a much quicker rate than Flashing sheep and Poppers. In fact, they flash so fast that they look like little strobe lights.  When you visit a neighbor's farm, you will notice this type of sheep first since it will be constantly tweaking and popping.

Split Color Feature: Most Devil Descendants have the split color feature, which devides horizontally through the middle of the sheep.  So while, the top half of the sheep's base color is flashing one set of colors, the bottom half is flashing another set of colors.

Electric:  The Electric Feature in Devil Descendants is never one color of Electric.  Instead the Devil Descendant has electric lines that flash all different colors.  Since electric is a feature that goes off for a while and then comes back on, you will see the same thing in the Devil Descendants.  When the electric lines turn on, the lines run a spectrum of colors and disappear for a moment and then turn right back on.

Popping Colors: Sometimes instead of flashing the base color, Devil Descendants flash the secondary color which gives the sheep the appearance of colors popping out at you.
All of the features that I've described above are constantly flashing and moving.  The parts of a Devil Descendant that are not moving are the base color or the sheep's design color which is the secondary color.  If you are not sure which colors are which, the base color is the backdrop of stars and dots whereas the secondary color is the color of the stars and dots.  In a Camo sheep, the base color is in the middle and secondary is on the edges. Though there are some variations in the combination of special features that occur in Devil sheep descendants, they tend to keep most of the features at once and this is what makes them look so crazy.

Breeding Tips:
Breeding of Devil Descendants should be done in a manner similar to breeding multi-feature sheep, but is ultimately easier.  Instead of getting a sheep that is missing several features, as is seen in regular multi-feature sheep, the Devil Descendant will ever give you another Devil Descendant or it will give you a plain or single feature lamb.  So, you will know when you see the lamb weather or not the breed was successful.  In order to have the best breeding results, you will want to pair the Devil Descendant with a sheep that has no special features.  Though two Devil Descendants can be bred together, ultimately breeding with a plain patterned sheep will give you the highest ratio of breeding success. 
So if you don't already have a Devil Descendant, they are well worth seeking out. Though this type of sheep may not be as easy to find as some of the others, you are sure to bump into one on on a neighbor's farm.  If you do, you shouldn't ask your friend for a Devil Descendant since they may not even be aware that this is what they have.  Instead, post a sign next to the sheep once you find one and ask if you can have on of those.  It may be a little forward, but there's no way you're neighbor will be wondering what sheep you are talking about.  Lastly, once you get a Devil Descendant, be sure to share lambs with your friends, since it is probably the last type of crazy featured sheep we will see for a while.

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How to Breed Rare Calves in Farmville

The processes of breeding calves has gone through many changes since the time that Farmville first released the dairy barn for cows.  However, now that other breeding crazes such as sheep breeding have been introduced, the chances are very low that Farmville will make additional change to dairies and how to breed calves.  So here are some of the best methods you can use to breed rare calves. 
Calf Breeding Basics:

1. You can only get one calf a day.  However, if you are able to get a bull for your English Farm, you can get two calves in a day.
2. You can only have 5 coin bought dairies on each of your farms. 
3. There are 10 calf links on each calf post from a dairy.
4. If you happen to get an English calf, you can put it in your nursery barn and grow it up which will give you five English calves to share with your friends.

How to Breed a Specific Rare Calf:

1. If you just got a new type of cow that you would like to breed, the best way to do this is to have more than one of this type of cow.  The reason you want more of that type of cow, is because Farmville often favors the type of cow that that has the greatest number in your dairy. 
2. The second thing you need to do is to use a dairy that has only at a capacity of 20 cows.  The reason for this is because your chances of getting a calf are based on a ratio of numbers of cows to cow capacity.  So, if you have 4 cows in a 40 cow capacity dairy, you will have less chances of getting a calf than if you have 4 cows in a 20 cow capacity dairy. 
3. The next thing you need to do is to place a lot of cows on your farm so they can be used as seeders.  Since calf breeding using seeders can never be 100%, you should assure that you are using seeder cows that are also rare types of cows.  These should be cow types that you would not mind getting the calf from in the event that the type of cow you are trying to breed is not selected.
4. Once you have your empty 20 capacity dairy, at least two of the rare type of cow, and a lot of ready seeder cows on your farm, then you are ready to begin.  Using the hand moving tool, grab one of the rare types of cows and place it in your empty dairy.  Harvest.  If you do not get a calf, grab your second rare cow and place it in your dairy.  Place each of your target rare cows in the dairy and harvest before you start using the other seeder cows.
5. If you did not get a calf with this first attempt, go ahead and grab a seeder cow and place it in the dairy with your 2-3+ rare calves and then harvest.  If you still do not get a calf, this time you will have to look inside the dairy and remove the seeder cow.  Keep using the seeders until you get a calf.  Hopefully FV will follow its most prevalent rule in cow selection and that is to select the cows that have the greatest number in your dairy and not the seeder.

Hands Off Approach to Breeding Rare Calves:
If the previous approach sounds like a lot of work, you are right.  It is not something that you will want to do every day. The first approach is nice to do when a new type of cow comes out that you want to breed right away.

1. So in order to have a hands off approach to breeding rare calves, you need only to fill a dairy with as many rare calves as possible. Remember the capacity ration when doing this.  So if you have 15 rare cows, you should place them in a 20 cow capacity dairy.  This will give you better chances of getting a calf. 
2. Once you get more rare calves you should expand your dairy and try to fill it to the next level.  The reason for expanding is that you have better chances of getting a calf every day if you have a full 40 capacity dairy than if you had a full 20 capacity dairy.
3. When you have your dairy full of rare cows, then wait for it to be ready and harvest.  Be sure that this is the first dairy with a bull in it that you harvest for the day since that is the most likely dairy that will produce a calf. 
4. If you do not get a calf on the first try, you can use your cow seeders to try again.  The good thing is that with fuller dairies, it is unlikely that you will have to try more than two or three times before getting a calf.  Furthermore, since your dairy only has rare cows in it, you are sure to get a rare calf.

So, if you follow these two methods you are sure to get at least one rare calf in a day and maybe more since you have the opportunity to get 4 rare calves every day.  You have two chances of breeding in your dairies on both your home and English farms.  Plus you have two chances of growing up a calf in your nursery and then sharing the calves with your friends.  So have fun with it.  Since you can only get one calf in a day from dairies, you will definitely be happy to get the calf you are trying for.

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Farmville Sheep Breeding: How to Get a Ram

Changes to Farmville Sheep Breeding

On 14 April of this year, Farmville made the announcement that they had made some changes in sheep breeding.  Instead of getting three lambs of one gender and then one of the other, the gender of the lamb is now random.  The statement from Farmville went on to say that though the lamb gender would be random, there would be less possibility of getting a Ram.  So, is sheep breeding truly random now?  Here are the differences that I have found so far:

Lamb Gender
Before the change, you had a higher chance for a boy lamb when selecting the Ram first and then the Ewe and vice versa.  Following the change, the opposite seems to be the case.  When selecting the Ram first, you have a higher chance of getting a girl lamb and when selecting the Ewe first, you have higher chances of getting a boy.  Though this does not happen all the time, it happens enough that to form a definite pattern.

Design
Before the announced change, the design was for the most part determined by the Ram.  However, since the change, I see more and more breeds that do not follow this pattern.  Getting the Ewe's design is therefore much easier than it was before.

Color
Before the change, the base color was determined by the Ewe and especially when selecting the Ewe first.  Now it is possible to get the base color of the Ram.  This change is particularly nice since all of the special features such as Flashing, Electric, Popping Colors, Split Color and Masked are coded just like colors.  So before if you received an Flashing Ewe from a friend, then you would be able to breed that Flashing feature easily.  However, if you received a flashing Ram, you would have to try much harder until you were able to get the Flashing feature to breed.  Now, you can get a Ram or an Ewe with the special feature and easily breed either one to get the feature in the lamb.

Tips for Success
Though breeding results have become more random, they have also become easier.  This is great news for those of us who rely on the limited amounts of love potion we can get from friends rather than spending farm cash.  Although breeding is easier, there are still some things you should do in order to get the best results.  The most important thing you can do is to pair your special featured sheep with a plain design sheep.  For example: If you have an Electric sheep and you want to breed that feature, you are better off choosing a Camo, Star or any design of sheep that does not have any special feature.  Pairing these two will give you better chances for having a lamb with the special feature you are trying to breed. Secondly, if you select the sheep with the special feature first when breeding, you will have a higher chance of getting a sheep with that special feature.

Though I miss the previous certainty of sheep breeding, Farmville always seems to change things for the best.  I am sure that you and many others will love this new change since it makes breeding designs and getting boy lambs much easier than before.  So I hope that you will have fun with all the new possibilities.

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Farmville Official Statement: Illegal Sheep Pardoned

Though rumors have been circulating among Farmville Players that Farmville will be removing the so called, "illegal" sheep from the farms of players, you can rest assured that your sheep are safe and that FV will not take them.  On 4/14/2011, Farmville released an official statement about the existence of the illegal sheep.  FV clearly expressed that most players are likely to have obtained the unreleased sheep designs and colors by legitimate means.  They also indicated that they were unaware of how someone was able to hacked the unreleased design codes and that it would be somewhat impossible to determine whether or not someone had used a hack to placed an illegal sheep on their farm.

Furthermore, Farmville's announcement indicated that the source of the illegal sheep has been stopped so hackers will no longer be able to produce new types of sheep and place them on their farms.  The announcement also stressed that, FV recognizes the innocence of the masses in this issue and will not punish regular players by taking the offspring of these illegal sheep. So rest assured, you can keep all of your beauties and continue to breed them.  However, since FV has patched the source of the illegal sheep, you should not expect to see any new types of sheep mysteriously appear until FV has officially released them. 

Farmville's Official Statement on Illegal Sheep: http://blog.farmville.com/ (4/14/2011)

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Farmville Sheep Breeding: How to Get a Ram

For those of you wondering how to get a Ram in Farmville, there are several methods that you can use to obtain your first Ram.  In addition to sharing this information with you, I will also share information on breeding once you have your first one.

Obtaining your First Ram

1. You are probably already aware that you can buy a Ram in the Marketplace but this will cost you farm cash.

2. If you don't want to spend farm cash, you can always finish the Farmville quests in the top left-hand corner of your screen.  This first set of quests will give you a Ram called Brutus which is a violet blue color and has the hooded design.

3. Finally, you can ask one of your neighbors to send you a boy lamb.  Once you have this boy lamb, you can place him on your farm and grow him up.  Once he is grown, you will be ready to bread.

Tips for Breeding Rams
Once you have your first Ram, you may want to breed more Rams.  Fortunately Farmville just changed the formula for how often you get a Ram in order to make the process random.  Though FV's official statement that gender selection is random, I still find that you will have a higher chance of breeding a boy lamb if you choose the Ram first and then the Ewe when breeding.  Another good thing to know is that the design of your sheep is bread through the Ram.  So even if you have one Ram, you are going to want to get others so that you can breed the different sheep designs.  The Sheep designs to date are Polka dot, Hooded, Belted, Star, Camo, and single color.  So be sure to ask your friends to send you the different types of Ram so you can breeding the different designs.

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Farmville Sheep Breeding: How to Breed Popping Colors Sheep

You may have heard rumors about a strange new type of sheep with popping colors.  In fact, you may have already seen these beauties on your neighbor's farms or even be lucky enough to have one already.  In any of these cases, you will wish to learn more about all the different type of Poppers and how to breed them.

Popping Colors Sheep Basics:
A Popping Colors sheep has gained this name due to its appearance of the colors popping out at you.  This effect is best demonstrated in the Star or Dots pattern since it is the stars or dots that flash.  In essence, the Popping Colors sheep are just sheep that have the flashing on the secondary color rather than the base color.  In a Flashing Sheep, you will see the flashing in the base color which is the color around the stars.  Here is a breakdown of the different types of Poppers that you will encounter and that you may wish to collect.

Types of Popping Colors Sheep:

Popping Colors: This is the Basic Popper that has the stars or dots flashing continuously.  In this instance, the base color (the color around the stars) can be any color.

Flashing Poppers: This type of Popper has stars that flash different colors while the base color also flashes different colors.  This is a very neat looking effect.

Electric Poppers: In this type of Popper, you will see the stars or dots flashing different colors at all times.  However, in the Electric feature, the electric lines come on at different time intervals.  So when all the rest of your Electric sheep light up, you will see that your Electric Popper also lights up.  So in addition to flashing stars or dots, you will see electric lines lighting up in all different colors around the stars.  In my opinion, this is the most fascinating type of Popper.

Split Color Poppers: These Poppers can be a sheep that is split in color through the middle with flashing stars or dots, or it could be a Split Color Flashing Popper.  This would mean that both of the split base colors will flash while the stars flash different colors.  That will make three different parts of the sheep flashing different colors at once.

Changing Mask Poppers:  These types of Poppers are Masked sheep but instead of the mask remaining one color, the mask will flash different colors while the stars or dots flash colors as well.  This feature can be combined with the Flashing, Popping, and Electric features resulting in a very crazy tweaked out sheep.

Though it is not clear to me whether these different features can be combined through breeding, it is a certainty that if one of your friends has different types of combination Poppers, they will be able to breed that sheep and share the Popping Colors features as well as the other features that it can be combined with.

How to Breed Popping Colors Sheep:
So in order to start breeding Poppers, you will have to ask one of your friends to send you a Popper lamb.  If you want certain features such as a Flashing Popper or a Changing Mask Popper, be sure to be specific when asking what type of Popper you would like.  Secondly, be sure to ask your friend for a girl lamb since Popping Colors like all other special features is coded like a color which means the Ewe is the one to pass it on.  If you can only get a Ram, you may still be able to breed the features, but it will take longer and more tries.

1. Once you have your Popping Colors Sheep, place her in your sheep pen along with a Ram that has the design that you would like to be on its offspring.  So if you want Popping Stars, breed your Popper with a Star design Ram.

2. Additionally, you will want to choose a Ram that has no special features.  Though you may want to experiment later, choosing a featureless Ram (no flashing or mask) will give you better chances of having the Popping feature selected in the lamb.

3. Next, you will want to select the Ewe first and then the Ram when breeding.  Doing this will favor the Ewe's Popping Colors feature and the Ram's design.

4. Finally, if you received a Ram from your friend instead of an Ewe, you will want to select the Ram first until you succeed in getting the Popping feature in a girl lamb.  Selecting the Ram first will favor the Ram's Popping feature.  Once you are able to make a Popping Colors Ewe, you should switch to using the Ewe instead of the Ram in order to make breeding easier.
I hope that this guide will help you have a better understanding of the different types of Poppers and how best to breed them.  Once you have both a Ram and an Ewe, have fun mixing and matching and creating all the new and fascinating types of Popping Colors sheep.

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Farmville Sheep Breeding: How to Get Your Second Sheep Pen

I am sure there are plenty of Farmville players who are still wondering when Zynga will allow us to place our second sheep pen on our home farm.  Though, Zynga announced that this would be possible nearly two weeks ago, whenever I went to the market to try to buy my second sheep pen, it was locked.  However, today I made a wonderful discover and was finally able to place my new sheep pen.  If you are like me and procrastinate on the Farmville Goals located in the top left part of your screen, then this is where you are missing out.  Completing the newly released Goals is the key to unlocking your second sheep pen.  To be more specific, your sheep pen will be unlocked after completing the "Save Dr Fluffy" Goal which includes harvesting 100 radishes, getting 6 electric torches from your neighbors, and visiting 6 of your neighbor's farms.  So go straight away to finish those tasks and you will be well on your way to placing your new pen on your home farm.

Second Sheep Pen Tips:
So once you've unlocked your sheep pen and built it, you will be able to breed all of your sheep that you've been collecting over time on your home farm.  It is an exciting new adventure; however, don't feel rushed to start.  The first thing you will need is a Ram and you do not have to use farm cash to get one.  Just go to your English Countryside Farm and breed your sheep until you get a Ram.  Selecting the Ram first will give you better chances of getting a boy lamb.  Select "keep" lamb then instead of placing it on your farm, click on the arrow.  Your lamb will go directly to your gift box.  All you have to do now is travel back to your home farm and grow up your lamb and then you will have a Ram and will be ready to start breeding.  Remember that the sheep design breeds primarily through the Ram so you may want to go back to your English farm to make Rams for all the different designs and then place them on your home farm.

So have fun breeding all of your new sheep with your old sheep.  This should give you plenty of different colors and who knows, maybe a new design could pop up as well.

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Farmville Sheep Breeding: Answers to The Devil Sheep Mystery

You may have already heard rumors about a so called "Devil Sheep" with red eyes and red flashing horns.  However, I wonder how many of you have actually seen a devil sheep or a Devil sheep lamb posted to your feed.  Even if you have a neighbor or two with devil sheep on their farms, have you wondered why they haven't shared with you?  After hearing so much about Devil sheep, but never seeing them, I decided to investigate in order to answer the many questions surrounding this new type of sheep.  Though I was not fond of what I discovered, here are some of the common question and the answers that I found to them:

Where are these so called Devil Sheep and why won't anyone send me one?
The reason you have not been seeing Devil sheep in your Facebook news feed and why your friend have not yet sent you one is because the hackers that got the code for this type of sheep messed up somehow and the sheep either cannot be bread or are highly difficult to breed. For those who attempt to breed the Devil Sheep, the resulting sheep does not keep the red eye feature.

Where did the Devil Sheep Come From?
Though it is not clear whether the Devil sheep is an unreleased type of sheep or whether it is a design made by a hacker, it is certain that the Devil sheep feature was not accidentally bred and was not released by Zynga.  The Devil Sheep code is being shared around the Internet as well as the instructions for making a Devil Sheep clone through the programs Charles and Bot, which are commonly used for hacking on-line games. 

If this is true, why did I see a Devil Sheep on my FB news feed?
Though most of the people who have successfully placed Devil Sheep clones on their farm say that breeding the Devil sheep is impossible, there are some who insist that it is possible but assert that the chances for a successful breed are very low.  So if you have actually seen a Devil Sheep, then it may be true that breeding these clones is slightly possible.

Okay... So how do I get a Devil Sheep?
So, now that you know the scoop on Devil sheep, and if you still are determined to get one, here is how.  You presently have only one option available to you.  Since Zynga has recently announced that they have stopped the source of illegal sheep, in other words they have patched the hack, the only way that you can get a Devil sheep is from a friend.  If the rumor is true that these sheep can sometimes have a successful breed, you could in theory find a very patient friend who would be willing to make attempt after attempt to breed a Devil Sheep in order to send you the lamb.  So though obtaining a Devil sheep may be possible, I personally don't think that having one would be worth it since it is unlikely that you will be able to breed them or share them with your friends.  If you cannot breed and share them, what fun is that?  So unless Zynga fixes the code which will allows the Devil Sheep features to be passed on to a lamb, it is unlikely you will be able to get your hands on one of these sheep. 

Although, I was hoping to find the answers to breeding the Devil Sheep, I hope this information will at least solve the Devil Sheep Mystery so you no longer have to wonder.  Though patience is not in the vocabulary of many Farmville players, we may just have to wait this one out until the Devil Sheep is officially released and available to all.

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Farmville Sheep Breeding: How to Breed an Electric Sheep

Farmville continues to come out with new and interesting sheep designs and special features.  One of the more recent additions has been the appearance of Electric Sheep.  Though there is no formal name for this sheep, electric seems to be what most people use to describe them.  Just in case you are still unsure what this type of sheep looks like, here is an example:

Notice how the stars have a bright green outline around them.  The neat thing about these sheep is that you may already have them and not even know it.  The outline around the sheep turns on for a short period of time and then turns off.  So pay attention to your sheep and if you find one, grab it and breed it to make more.  Another aspect about the Electric sheep is that the color of the electric outline can be different.  So far, I have seen white, green, blue and red Electric outline colors. In the Popping Colors sheep which have the electric feature, the electric outline flashes all different colors.

How to Get an Electric Sheep
Though, I wish that I could tell you the formula for making an electric sheep from scratch, I don't know anyone who has done this.  The best and fastest way to get an electric sheep is to ask one of you neighbors to send you an Electric lamb.  Since the Electric feature is available in one color sheep and Split color sheep, you may get two types of lamb that could be electric.  The first type is a solid color with a slight outline.  The electric outline is actually very difficult to see, so you may mistake this lamb for a regular lamb.  Here is an example of an electric lamb with the black base color:

Notice that you can barely see the green lines in the lamb.  Furthermore, the picture of the lamb is taken at the time that the lamb is sent.  Sometimes the electric lines are not bright and sometimes they are.  This can be tricky since you may not know if it is electric until it has been sitting on your farm for several minutes.

This is an example of a split color lamb.  This sheep will have the top half one color and the bottom half (for this particular lamb) will most likely be red.  You cannot see an electric outline, but when you place it on your farm, it may light up.  So when you feed your lamb, you may find that it has an electirc outline.  My experience has been that split color sheep usaully have white electric outlines. 

How to Breed an Electric Sheep
Once a friend sends you an Electric lamb, you will be ready to breed.  However, there are some breeding basics that you should be aware of that will save you a lot of time, love potion, and possibly your sanity. :)  I have provided a breakdown of these rules below:

Sheep Gender: Rams generally pass on design and the secondary color.  Ewes generally give the base color and the special features.  Note: Since the Electric outline in sheep is considered a feature, it is passed on through the Ewe.

Sheep Color: There are a variety of different colors, but you should know that the placement of the color on the sheep determines what colors the resulting sheep will have.  The base color, is the color is the color around the Stars or Dots sheep and the inside color for a Camo design.  The secondary color is the star or dot color and also the outside color on the Camo design.  Sometimes you will find third colors; especially in Camo sheep.
In this sheep, Maroon is the base color and Black is the secondary color.

Sheep Designs: Some of the sheep designs are Star, Camo, Collar, Dot, Belted, and one color sheep.  Remember the design is decided by the Ram.  So if you want the Star design, ask your friend to send a Ram of that design.

Special Features: The special features out there right now are Masked, Flashing, Split Color, Electric, and Popping.  All of these special features breed in the same way as the sheep's base color.  So, these traits are passed primarily through the Ewe.

Sequence Selection: Which sheep you select first when breeding makes a difference in what you will get.  Generally, if you want the Design of the Ram, the base color and special features of the Ewe to come up, then select the Ewe first.  Selecting an Ewe first favors the Ewe's base color and gender and the Ram's design.  If you pick the Ram first, you are more likely to get Ram's colors and gender and there's a chance of capturing the Ewe's design.

Electric Specific Breeding Tips:
When applying these rules to breeding Electric sheep, you should start out by requesting an Electric girl lamb so that you will get an Ewe.  If you get an Ewe, breeding should be easy.  Choose the Ram with the design you want to be on the sheep and then breed it with the Electric Ewe.  Be sure to select the Ewe first in order to favor the Ewe's Electric feature and the Ram's design.  You should get exactly what you want.  If you do not, cut out some of the elements.  Use a Ram without special features and with a lighter color.

If you are lucky enough to get an Electric Sheep from a friend but you get a Ram instead of an Ewe, breeding may be more difficult but not impossible.  Select an Ewe with no special features and with a light color.  When breeding, select the Ram first and then the Ewe.  This will favor the Ram's color and features (electric) and the possibly the Ewe's design.  You may have to try this several times and with different Ewes before you get an Electric Ewe.  You may also have the issue of getting boy lambs instead of girls.  This may happen because choosing the Ram first also gives preference to the Ram's gender.  However, you will eventually get the feature to go into a girl lamb.  At this time, use the Ewe to breed and you will find it much easier.  Furthermore, when you want to share the Electric feature, breed an Electric Ewe and Ram together to have better chances of getting the feature.

I hope that this information will help you fill your farm with all different types of Electric sheep.  It is a fun feature to play with, so try lots of different combinations and have fun with it. :)

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