Goat Farming In Eorzea : FFXIV

Just because I haven't been posting about FFXIV recently doesn't mean I've stopped playing. It's just that not much ever happens to a goat farmer.

It's easy work and the hours are good. Well, I say hours - more like hour. Sometimes we're done in forty-five minutes.

Each day I wake up in my inn room, roll off my huge, downy bed, big enough for a whole Lalafel family, and ring for my trusty if curious Miqo'te retainer. We consult for a few minutes over how the night's sales went. Last night we made over 25,000 gil. Not bad for an hour's work. Then I waddle saunter out in Ul'dah, hire a chocobo porter and take the three-minute ride to Drybone. That's where the goats live.

When I was new to the farming game I just ran all over poisoning goats left and right, but those old-fashioned ways don't pay the way the modern farming methods do. All that running about just isn't efficient.

After a bit of scouting around I found a fine spot just above the petrified Goobue, where two groups of goats graze very close together. That's where I set up my farm.

In all there are six goats there and the day's first task is to kill them all. With Eggy the Ifrit and my trusty chocobo companion helping to round them up and finish them off that only takes a few seconds, but you can't keep a good aldgoat down, I'm very pleased to say. They begin popping back in seconds and from then on it's all about spinning in a slow circle to spot them coming in and firing off a constant round of Bios to tag them.

Eggy and the bird work on the last one while I bring in the next and we keep that going until there's a full stack of goat skins in my pack. Some goats have no skins at all, some have up to three. It evens out. Then there are the horns. They sell for a decent chunk of change, too, so they're always welcome. The meat, not so much. Goat curry has yet to catch on in Gridania it seems.

All the while we farm there's a constant stream of people passing through to visit the Goobue. Why, I have no idea. I'm wary of people coming onto my land, like any farmer, but so far no-one's challenged my ownership rights. Not like when I tried sheep farming up in Coerthas. It's every man or bot for himself in those parts. Baskets of fleece may sell for a lot more than aldgoat skins but I can kill twenty goats for every sheep. And anyway, it's cold up there.

After an hour or so it's time to go to market and take the rest of the day off. All the money is going into the housing fund. If I can average twenty thousand a day for a month or so, I'd like to think that would be enough.

I hope so, anyway. Farming goats is a fine hobby but I wouldn't want to do it for a living.