FarmVille Feed Trough: Everything you need to know

Time to shove aside some of those FarmVille Halloween decorations and make room for the new Feed Trough. This new building will help you attract a rotating list of wandering animals by filling it up with animal feed. Check back once a day to see what new animals (some common, some rare) have been lured in by your bait, then add them to your menagerie or sell them for extra coins.

Here's how to get started:

When you log into FarmVille, you should receive a pop-up that lets you know your trough is ready to be placed on your farm. If you don't get the pop-up or can't place the trough right away, you can find it lurking in your gift box.

farmville feed trough gift

Click 'use' to place the Animal Trough on your farm. Note: I had to clear out a spot to do it -- this building is roughly the same size as the pigpen and takes up four plots of space of your farm.

Once the trough is placed, the work has just started. The good news is that you don't have to collect building materials from friends to complete it, but you will have to collect feed from friends to start attracting animals. This can be done several ways:

1. Post a message on your Facebook wall asking for feed from friends.
2. Buy feed using Farm Cash (each 'serving' costs 1 Farm Cash).
3. Visiting neighbors can fill up your feed trough.
4. Score extra feed (sometimes) by visiting neighbors and filling their feed trough.

farmville feed trough inside

The trough will change appearance as it fills up with food. See the progression below:

farmville feed trough stages

Once your feed trough is full (it'll take 20 units to fill 'er up), you will get a notification and the option to share feed with friends via a Facebook Wall post.

farmville feed trough full

After the trough is full, check back every 24 hours to see if a wandering animal has taken up residence in your new trough. Don't wait too long, though, or the animal will wander away, taking some of your feed with it.

farmville poncho llama

farmville feed trough missed animal -- games.com


Looks like there will be rotating list of wandering animals, and you can see exactly which animals are making the rounds by looking inside your feed trough. Right now, the lineup consists of six animals (see image above), and only one -- the Pancho Llama -- is new to the game.

farmville feed trough animals

On a scale of 1-10, I'd rate this new feed trough about a 6. I'm already asking my FarmVille neighbors for enough stuff already and now asking for feed to maybe catch a cool animal, well, it feels like overkill. Maybe I'd be more motivated to beg for feed if there were more exclusive animals for the taking -- maybe that will be the case in the coming weeks.

FarmVille Mystery Game receives English animal update

In honor of the launch of the English Countryside in FarmVille, Zynga has updated the Mystery Game with a full set of English animals. This Mystery Game udpated later than usual this week, rather than the Sunday night update that became the norm during the Winter Holiday season. We're not sure if this means that FarmVille is back to its original Tues/Thursday update scheme, but it is something to think about.

As for the Mystery Game itself, it will cost you 20 Farm Cash per dart, which is more than the normal price tag of 16 Farm Cash. For that price, you'll have a chance of receiving one of six animals:

Hedgehog
Jersey Cow
Mole
Red Fox
Short Hair Cat
Thoroughbred Horse

Of course, if you receive either the Jersey Cow or the Thoroughbred Horse, these two do come with the possibility of offspring. Place the Jersey Cow in the Dairy Farm and you'll have a chance at a Jersey Calf, while placing the Thoroughbred Horse in the Horse Stable will give you a chance to breed a Thoroughbred Foal that can be shared with friends.

You'll only have a few more days to win these exclusive items, so play fast to not miss your chance.

Which animal did you win from this week's Mystery Game?

FarmVille Animal Sneak Peek: Rainbow Cow, Flowery Cow, Zesty Pony and much more

I hope you're in the mood for some new Cows and Horses to launch in FarmVille, as we've come across a slew of unreleased images of five different animal pairs - three Cow and two Horses, each with a matching Calf or Foal - along with a new Pig that we believe will begin launching in the game as early as this weekend.

The Cows are mostly colorful options, like the Rainbow Cow and Flowery Cow (just look at the flower ring around its head - adorable!). The other Cow is the Hereford Cow, which is a brown and tan variety for those that like more realistic options when it comes to your animals. As for the Horses, you'll soon be able to pick up either he Zesty Pony (which is orange and off-white, but not to be confused with the Candy Corn Pony that launched last Halloween), and an Exmoor Pony, in a much more calm pair of brown shades.

The final animal is the Pumpkin Pig. Again, this little piggie screams of Halloween, so who knows? Perhaps this is a very, very early unreleased item for this year's celebration. We personally doubt that, as it's more likely that we'll see this little guy released sooner, rather than later (a new Co-Op Job reward, perhaps?). We'll make sure to let you know when any of these animals start launching, so keep checking back.

Which of these animals are you most excited about adding to your farm? Do you love the striped Rainbow Cow, or are you more of a fan of the Zesty orange Pony?