Player-owned farm

The player-owned farm (often abbreviated to POF) is an activity released on 3 September 2018. It allows players to manage their own livestock at Manor Farm north of East Ardougne, similar to managing their own house and port. It was developed by the mods Raven, Rowley, Chaose, and James H.

Players can start maintaining their livestock by speaking to Granny Potterington at the farm north of Ardougne, requiring at least level 17 in Farming and level 20 in Construction. As with farming fields, players see their own livestock (crops) and not other people's, so the player-owned farm is not instanced.

The player-owned farm features the Farming achievements, and four seasonal music tracks at the farm (which are required for completionist cape). These seasonal music tracks are only available during the respective real-world season in the northern hemisphere, or can be listened to/unlocked by using the seasonaliser to change the season at the farm.

Location
The main hub of the player-owned farm is the Manor Farm. The Ardougne lodestone is located directly next to the farm, and the Ardougne cloak provides a teleport to the farming patches. Granny Potterington is located at the centre of the farm, in front of her house.

Tutorial
For the tutorial follow the yellow dots on the ground. Players must first start the tutorial by talking with Granny Potterington and completing the following steps:
 * 1) Pick up Jack the yak from behind the farmhouse and talk to Granny.
 * 2) Sell Jack to Prezleek (yak buyer), located beside the well in front of the house (gain 500 beans).
 * 3) Buy a deed for a small pen from the Farmers' Market (right-click "farmers' market" on Granny, cost 100 beans).
 * 4) Buy two rabbits from the market and check each of them in the inventory (cost 10 beans each).
 * 5) Build the small pen (click "build" on the broken paddock (small)) and place the two rabbits inside (click "check animals" or use the common brown rabbit on small paddock).
 * 6) Check the rabbits by clicking on them in the pen and click "cure disease". Then investigate all options and choose "administer treatment". Click flu.
 * 7) Talk to Granny to get fruity mush and return to pen to 'fill trough', and head back to Granny.
 * 8) Pass the time with her until the rabbits have matured; talk until option to advance time or wait 22 minutes.
 * 9) Take the two rabbits out of the pen. (Optionally "gather produce" for 275 Farming experience each.)
 * 10) Talk to Granny to get more fruity mush.
 * 11) Bring the rabbits to the breeding pen behind the main farmhouse. Click "check animals" on the breeding paddock or use the rabbit on it.
 * 12) Fill trough. Soon a baby bunny will appear (or talk to Granny to advance time until this happens).
 * 13) Talk to Granny to complete the tutorial.

The baby bred during the tutorial can be sold off to Myfi (rabbit buyer) next to the well. Talking to Granny after the tutorial rewards the player with 100 additional beans and gives information on how the farm works, including buying and selling.

Gameplay
After completing the tutorial players may purchase pen deeds from Farmers' Market to unlock more pens. They can then build pens in which to keep their livestock using Construction materials. Players can build a maximum of two pens of each size; small, medium, and large.

Players can place livestock in their pens and raise them. The types of livestock that players can raise includes rabbits, chickens, chinchompas, sheep, spiders, zygomites, cows, yaks, and dragons. Animals have a "checked" and "unchecked" state. Unchecked animals can be banked, and stack in the player's bank. Once an animal is checked it will no longer stack in the bank and will have unique stats and traits. Checked animals are not tradeable on the Grand Exchange, but it is possible to trade them directly with other players.

An animal's stats include its health and happiness levels and its weight, speed, and attractiveness which are measured in grammes, gallopers, and beauty marks, respectively. Animals have names; there are up to 30 possible names for each gender of each different type of animal. Animals advance through the growth stages of egg, baby, adolescent, adult, and elder, although some animals do not have the egg stage. Players must care for the animals by providing them appropriate food. Farming experience is gained for each stage advanced. Animals may be sold at any stage of their development.

Selling adolescent animals is always the best profit, but the most experience and produce are gained from growing an animal to Elder.

On the map farm animals are shown as yellow dots in their pen as any other NPC and muck is shown as red dots like items, but eggs (chicken, spider or dragon) are not shown on the map.

Animals
Different livestock can be obtained via Combat (common and Rellekkan rabbits, spiders, Fremennik yaks and dragons), Hunter (Piscatorian rabbits and chinchompas), Summoning (spirit yaks) or the Farmers' Market (tutorial rabbits, chicken, sheep and cows). Unchecked and checked animal babies / eggs can be traded with other players, but only the unchecked ones can be bought from the Grand Exchange.

You can turn off the warning when checking an animal, but at this time you cannot turn the warning back on.

When you obtain an animal, either you automatically receive it in you inventory or you should pick it up (see in the table below).

Pens
There are two pens of each size in your farm and one breeding pen. You cannot have different animal types in the same pen, nor put animals in the incorrect-sized pen.

A pen deed must be purchased from the Farmers' Market Farm upgrades before construction.

When player can't obtain the required materials by themselves, they could alternatively purchase pen construction kits with beans. As those are fairly expensive, it is only recommended to do so as a lower levelled ironman.

Feeding
Animals require feeding to grow and retain happiness and health. Once an animal has been added to a pen, you can fill their trough with suitable elements, listed under the animal's info in the pen or clicking "get info" for animals in your inventory. Add the appropriate food to the trough, which can hold up to 1,000 produce. Food can be added either noted or unnoted, and the trough can be used from both inside and outside the pen.

Adding food from outside is done up to 60 at a time, but using on trough from inside the pen allows any amount 1 - 1000 to be added in one action. Currently, using on trough from inside the pen is the only way to add Variety mush back into a Chinchompa's trough.

Food is eaten every 2 hours (game time 00:00, 02:00, 04:00 etc.) and the correct food will raise animal health and happiness slightly. Foods can be taken out of the trough as mush in order to reuse with other paddocks, but the original items cannot be reclaimed. As all food sources result in the same amount of produce, cheaper sources are better.


 * Fruit, Dell Monti will give 40 pineapples to anybody who has completed the easy Karamja achievements, with an additional 40 cooking apples for those who have completed the elite Karamja achievements. Also if you have completed sub-parts of Recipe for Disaster you are able to buy cooking apples from the chest. Additionally, Arhein in Catherby sells 40 pineapples for 2 coins each per day. While they take 42 hours to grow, Arc berries can also be harvested a few hundred at a time and used as fruit.


 * Seeds such as sunchoke seeds and fly trap seeds sell on the Grand Exchange cheaply and in large quantities, up to 1,000 every four hours. This makes it easy to stockpile a large amount of food. A Master Farmer is also close to the farm, who can be pickpocketed for a vast variety of seeds.


 * Mushrooms can easily be obtained in large numbers by harvesting mushroom clusters on The Islands That Once Were Turtles, Goshima or Uncharted Isles, although it makes the most sense to slice and sell the more valuable Uncharted Island mushrooms instead of using them for feeding purposes.


 * Meat - Stocking up on raw meats is most efficiently done by buying Raw bird meat pack daily from the shop in Oo'glog after completing the As a First Resort quest. If you need larger quantities than provided by the packs, the shop also sells a variety of other raw meats and is relatively close to a bank. If you don't have access to Oo'glog, Cows can be killed to quickly obtain large amounts of raw meat. Grizzly bears can be found just east of the manor farm if you're in a pinch. Raw fish are another alternative to meat for the same animals and buy fast on the GE.

Disease
There is a chance of animals becoming diseased. There are six different diseases with different symptoms. Players will have to correctly identify the animal's disease and cure it to gain 2 Farming experience. To do this players must examine different parts of the animal (such as the mouth, eyes, legs, and stomach) to gain information about symptoms. From this the player can identify the correct disease and cure the animal, no specific item needed.

Animals cannot die from a disease, their stats are lowered instead. Using the incorrect treatment would result in lowering the animals' stats further. Curing an animal increases its stats. Having enough food in the pen decreases the chance for animals to become diseased.

Curing 100 animals completes the Animal Whisperer achievement. Animals with high stats will not become diseased. Use animals with low stats in pens without food in order to complete this achievement.

There are common symptoms among the diseases (e.g. Smelly breath is present in flu, curse, and foot-in-mouth). Common symptoms are underlined in the table below.

Breeding
Mature animals can be added to a breeding paddock to create baby animals. Animals can only breed in the adult and elder stages, and the breeding paddock has four slots, so only one male and one female should be placed in the paddock to leave room for two babies. Reaching the animal cap of your pens by breeding will prompt a message. An example for the breeding pen is:. The breeding chance of a pair of animals will be affected by their stats. If their health and happiness are low, their breeding chance is reduced. Make sure they have food and wait. There are treat items, such as special honeycombs and some kinds of milk (strawberry and vanilla milk), that speed up the process a bit. Diseased animals will not breed. Players are able to use the breeding process to create specific baby animals with particular traits.

When a baby is born in the breeding paddock, the player will receive the message:

Additionally, players can buy the small, medium and large pen upgrades to allow animal breeding inside them, however, without failure mitigation. When breeding happens in one of the pens, the player will receive a message based on which directional pen it occurred in. An example would appear as:

Animals of the same species and same gender may result in offspring as if bred, with the text This has a much lower overall chance of offspring than a male and female. The bad luck mitigation does not apply to same gender animals.

The achievement Barooooo! is accomplished by killing yaks to obtain a very rare drop - an orphaned baby Fremennik yak; not by breeding same gender yaks for adoption (the description of the achievement says "Adopt a baby yak.").

Animals can have up to three traits. There is a chance for players to receive rare "shiny" animals from breeding. Sparkling (Shiny+ Trait Slot 1/2/3), Glistening (Shiny++ Slot 2/3), and Radiant (Shiny+++ Slot 3) traits boost this chance. Shiny animals have a different appearance to regular ones when older than the baby stage; the word 'Shiny!' appears on the 4th line below Gender when mouse-over only in the inventory or bank; not in the pen. They give +10% more Farming experience as they are raised, and when sold to the buyer, count as a "wildcard" for the buyers' preferred breed. 'Shiny!' animals do not help breed more shiny animals; they must have one of the shiny traits in order to do so.

You can boost the breeding chance by using the farming perk totems on small pens with elder rabbits in them. The master farmer outfit gives a better chance of positive traits from breeding. To keep track of all the breeds you have already collected, you can go to Granny's faithful companion, Sam the sheepdog, or take the breeding log book from the table and check the status at any time.

Breed of offspring

 * Breeding kandarin cows with the touch of vanilla, strawberry scent, or chocolatey goodness traits have an increased chance to result in a vanilla cow, strawberry cow or chocolate cow, respectively. These traits are not required to breed a flavoured cow, but will make it much easier to do so.

Breeding success
To maximise breeding efficiency :
 * Get the mating pair 100% happiness with Delicious honeycomb.
 * Get the mating pair 100% health with Medicinal honeycomb.
 * Put a mating pair that has Studly trait (Virile would be the second best).
 * Tier 2 rabbit perk: have at least 1 elder rabbit in both small pens with a totem for each.
 * Enough food all the time.

Information:
 * Parent traits have a slightly higher chance of being inherited than other possible traits. Some traits are more dominant than the others (Chief, Owsla) and are more likely to be passed on compared to other traits.
 * Mucking out does not affect the chance of breeding.
 * Attractiveness, weight, and speed have no effect on breeding.
 * Having a third mature animal in the breeding pen does not increase the breeding chance. It is better to have just two for having an extra space for a second baby.
 * You can get 2 babies at once. Happens commonly with rabbits, uncommonly with chickens and chinchompas, rarely with zygomites, and extremely rarely with dragons.
 * Interbreeding of the variants of the same species is possible. For example, a Common rabbit and a Piscatorian rabbit could give a Common rabbit or a Piscatorian rabbit.
 * Breeding variants of different species is also possible. For example, two Rellekkan rabbits could give a Piscatorian rabbit as a baby. The exception to this is chinchompa breeding, where the offspring can only be the same as one of the parents.
 * The rabbit breeding perk is multiplicative. It would increase the dragons' breeding chance from 80 to 88%.
 * There is bad luck mitigation in the Breeding Pen, which means that if your breed chance fails five times you get a guaranteed success. This protection does not exist in other pens.


 * Avg. breeding times assume no bonuses from traits or other sources bred in breeding pen with failure mitigation.

Selling
Players may sell their animals for beans. The number of beans depends on the species, stage of growth, traits, etc.

When first starting out, it may be easier and quicker to buy baby animals from the farmers' market for the specific seller. Buy two extra animals (one male and one female). Once all babies are adolescents, keep the best two and sell the others. At adolescent stage, you'll receive more beans than you spent and this will help get the breeding off the ground.

Selling traits
Other bonuses:
 * +5%: Animal farmer outfit
 * +10%: Master farmer outfit
 * +10%: Buyers' preferred breed
 * +10%: Buyers' preferred trait
 * +25%: If both buyers' breed and trait is matched
 * +52%: is the max possible with Lucky/Unlucky for Some/Fortunate traits, Master farmer outfit, and buyers' breed/trait matched

Players can sell up to 12 small animals (daily), 8 medium (every two days), and 6 large (every three days), to their respective buyer.

Selling prices
The following table displays an animals' growth stage and its standard selling price, not taking into account the buyers' preferences nor master farmer outfit bonuses.

Buyers
Buyers spawn at reset and change daily for small animals (buys 12), every two days for medium animals (8), and every third day for large animals (6). The buyer that spawns is based upon the animal(s) that you currently have in your pens. If both pens for a certain size is empty, then the buyer will request the lowest-level animal type at that size (rabbits for an empty small pen, sheep for an empty medium, or cows for an empty large). If there are different types of animal at the same size of pen, each of the buyers at that size has an equal chance of spawning.

Buyers' reset
When a buyer resets, a new buyer is generated based on the animals in the pens. The new buyer replaces the buyer of that size if they are still present - if it is the same buyer, then the number they ask for is reset, as well as the specific breeds and traits. (e.g. if Myfi still wants 4 rabbits, preferring Rellekkan cream and Virile, at reset she will reset back to 12 rabbits and generate a new breed and trait to prefer).

Essentially, when a buyer spawns, they will stay on the farm until either: they buy the requested number, they are dismissed, or they reset.
 * Small buyers reset every day.
 * Medium buyers reset every 2 days, stays for up to 2 days.
 * Large buyers reset every 3 days, stays for up to 3 days.
 * Buyers can be dismissed, however, this does not help you in any way.
 * To have a Buyer spawn you must actually Login during the day of their spawn.

Growth stages
Most animals have four growth stages: baby, adolescent, adult, and elder. The exceptions to this are chickens, spiders, and dragons, which start out as eggs and therefore have five stages. Each stage takes a certain length of time and will advance if the animal is in the pen, even if you are logged out. Animals will not advance growth stages while in your inventory or bank.

Baby animals may be born when the player is away from the farm or is not logged in. The baby animals won't grow until you see the message: in the chat once you are on your farm or logged back in on the farm.

Gathered produce
Every time one of your animals grow, you can gather its produce for items and Farming experience. The experience from harvesting is not affected by bonus experience or other experience modifiers, but it will fill Farming urns. This table does not take animal traits or master farmer outfit bonuses into account.

Player-owned farm produce based potions
Multiple produce items from the farm are used for making new skill potions. Drinking a super invention potion is required for Blow Out the Cobwebs achievement. Use the potion in the Invention Guild and unlock a blueprint that is above your level. If your level drops before you finish it, you will not succeed - but, the solution won't change. You can take a screen shot, drink another dose, and use the same solution.

Considerations regarding beans vs experience
The highest rate of beans is obtained by selling an adolescent animal. Should a player decide to grow an animal further, (up to elder) for experience, the rate of experience is as follows

Perks
Once an animal reaches the elder growth level the player will receive fewer beans for selling them. However, elder animals may be added to a pen with a farm totem (bought from Farmers' Market) for a chance to gain a perk that affects gameplay outside of the area. Possible perks include a chance to gain a clue scroll from harvesting; increased damage to all spiders including Araxxor/Araxxi; and a chance to save skillchompas. There are a total of 12 animal perks: one per gender for cows, chickens, and sheep; and one each for the other animal types.

By adding an elder animal to a pen equipped with a farm totem, players receive a Tier 1 perk. By putting the same species of animal in the second pen that is also equipped with a farm totem, players instead receive the Tier 2 perk. Animals that have male/female perks that differ but occupy the same pen (equipped with a farm totem) will receive both the male and female version of the perk.

Traits
There are a total of 78 traits; 18 of these traits are species-specific. Any animal may have 1-3 different traits. Most traits can appear in any slot. Some traits may only appear in slot 3, some in slot 2 or 3 only, some in slot 1 or 2 only.

The amount and nature of these traits is random but can be influenced and inherited by parent traits. Traits can also be re-rolled by using a trait re-roller (you select which specific trait to reroll). The master farmer outfit gives a better chance of positive traits from breeding and checking. '''Multiple traits on the same animal stack. Traits of similar boosts stack. Same traits on both parents stack. Everything stacks.'''

Mucking out
Each animal produces different types of muck in their paddock. When players "muck out", they gain Farming experience depending on the type of muck that is attempted to be cleared. The amount of muck in each pile varies (minimum = 1, maximum = 20).

Mucking out for cows 20 times is needed for I Hardly Manure achievement which can be done in either a large pen or the breeding pen.

Muck does not affect animal stats or breeding chance, so its only use would be for experience and master farmer fragments or when needed for composting, but for each of these uses there are better methods (except for dragon manure).

Players can collect all three kinds of manure (manure, green or dragon) if one has an empty bucket in the inventory, but mammal and bird dropping cannot be collected.

Manure is used for regular compost. Green manure is used for supercompost. Dragon manure is used for ultracompost, which increases yield of Farming patches and dramatically decreases disease chance.

It is possible to obtain Mod Dolan's rubber duck from this activity.

Manure mound
The manure mound can be found north-east of Granny Potterington's house. It may be continuously turned for Farming experience. Strange rocks, golden rocks, and master farmer fragments can be obtained from turning the manure. Mod Daze's homework and Mod Dolan's rubber duck can also be obtained here.

Pickle the cat
Pickle the cat may be talked to using a catspeak amulet or a cramulet. If he has caught 10 or more mice, talking to him will complete the In a Pickle achievement.

Beehives and milk
Players can interact with the beehives behind the large pen on the east side of the farm. Certain types of plants may be added to a beehive which can result in a variety of different honeycombs. Noted flowers may be used. Each beehive produces one honeycomb from one flower on the hour, provided flowers have been added, and insect repellent is required to harvest honeycombs. Honeycombs can only be used at certain animal growth stages. Beehives can hold up to 27 flowers per type of flower per full load. Although different flowers can be placed in a single hive, it is probably better to use one type per hive for organisational purposes. If different flowers are put into a single hive, the production of special honey will be random.

Given that the price of Marigolds in the Grand Exchange is high at the moment due to high demand, a viable option is to buy the 10 marigold seeds from Olivia in Draynor Village or Coeden in Prifddinas and farm them in the flower patches since they only take around 18 minutes to fully grow.

Right-clicking the beehives can allow the player to see how many flowers have been deposited.

To harvest the special honeycombs, click on the hive and choose the option "Check Beehive." Make sure to spray hive with insect repellent or you will get stung. Choosing the option "Take honey Beehive" will result in a regular honeycomb being collected instead.

There are only two kinds of milk that can improve the stats of any animal: strawberry and vanilla. Chocolatey milk and plain milk have no effect. Yak milk is used in Herblore. In the long run it would be a much less reliable and far more expensive source of stat boosters compared to beehives as their production is limited by the cows' growth stages.

Farmers' Market
The Farmers' Market is the shop operated by Granny Potterington. Various farm upgrades and other Farming-related items can be purchased using beans.

Achievements
All achievements of the Farming subcategory of the Skills achievements are related to the player-owned farm, 10 of which are hidden achievements.

Music unlocked

 * Autumn Breeze
 * Ms Granny Potterington
 * The Sight Of Spring
 * Summer Lovin'
 * Winter Workin' Night and Day

Trivia

 * The animal stats for Weight, Attractiveness, and Speed are currently purely cosmetic. There were plans for shows for the animals to compare your animals with other players' that would provide a prize for the heaviest, prettiest, or fastest animals entered. These plans were placed on hold for the moment.
 * Logging out or hopping worlds removes the muck from the animal pens.