Farm Sim 22 is taking the world by storm! The latest edition of Farming Simulator dominated the Steam charts last week and players are loving the updates to the franchise.
One crucial element of the game is getting your Total Mixed Ration (TMR) right. Let's take a look at the best way to produce TMR!
Why use Total Mixed Ration?
Total Mixed Ration is essential for optimising the productivity of your cattle. If you want to generate the most dairy products and make a lot of money, TMR is a much better feed than other materials. It's the only feed with 100% efficiency.
The good news is that making your TMR doesn't need to be complicated. It seems intimidating, with mineral feed and getting the right ratios. But once you've got the hang of it, you'll keep your cows fed easily with this method.
The vehicles you'll need
We've got a few choices to make when we're producing our Total Mixed Ration. In fact, there are more options than in any previous Farming Simulator. There's four self-propelled feed mixers and three pull-behind feed mixers to choose from. These are under Animals in the Vehicles menu, or the Tools menu for the pull-behind variants.
You probably won't want the Kuhn RA 142, because you'll struggle to get the mix right. This is a very small mixer so you'll likely need to break up bales to get the feed you want. It'll also take more trips to keep your cows fed! The self-propelled mixers are the quicker way to get the ratios right, as these can break up your bales incrementally.
Mixing TMR
TMR is a minimum of 20% of each of Hay and Silage, a maximum of 30% Straw and a maximum of 7% Mineral Feed. The most efficient way to mix this is to use Straw to bulk out your feed, so you'll want aim for the full 30% here. The remaining 70% can be entirely Hay and Silage, as there's no minimum Mineral Feed requirement. This is purely there to make the game more realistic, but it's not essential to your TMR. You can buy the Mineral Feed in the shop under Pallets.
A quick and easy way to make your TMR is two parts Hay, one part each of Silage and Straw. This will get you within the right ratios of all the products and is easy to keep in mind when you're adding to your mixer. You'll see in the bottom left of your screen the Total Mixed Ration icon appears when the proportions are right and the feed is mixed.
There's a clever trick to overfilling your mixer. If you add full bales and you exceed the volume that your mixer can mix, it will keep the remains of the bale on top and only start mixing it as the mixer empties. Therefore you can overfill your mixer and still add all of the feed to your cattle shed. But beware! Your TMR ratios will still need to be right as that bale is mixed, so make sure there's a little tolerance.