Top 10 Best Farming & Ranch Mods for The Sims 4 (2024)

Lately, I've been playing a lot of farming and ranch-themed games in The Sims 4 and I thought it might be useful to share with you some of my favorite mods to make farming more in-depth. With just a few downloads, you can turn The Sims 4 into a much more expensive version of Stardew Valley!

Free Range Animals by Lot51

So first up, is an incredible mod that allows you to have free range animals. It really transforms farm animals from Cottage Living and completely gets rid of the need to have a big barn for every single one. Once you’ve placed down the invisible barn and grazing markers you can purchase animals by clicking the ground where the barn marker was placed and selecting animals from the Appaloosa Plains Ranch & Stables market, which is open daily from 6am to 8pm.

I love this mod because it allows you to have a much more realistic farm or ranch. The ability to have a larger number of animals in the same space makes everything feel much more lively. Also, you can build custom barns and farm buildings that match the style of your farm, rather than being limited to the EA barn. The animals also have a greater impact on the environment, leaving cow pats and mud patches, and roaming across a wider area. They also huddle together inside a shelter during bad weather which is super cute! If you already have animals in your game, you can make them free-range by clicking on them and selecting 'Allow to Roam' (although this is irreversible).

Evolve All & Fertilise All by CarlsSimsGuides

Now this next one is more of a quality-of-life mod and isn’t as exciting as the others in this list. But believe me, you will really appreciate it if you are playing on a lot with a lot of plants or crops. Essentially, this mod enables you to evolve and fertilize all crops simultaneously. This significantly enhances gardening efficiency, reducing the amount of micromanagement required of you as a player.

Cheese Making by BrazenLotus

This next mod is all about cheese! It includes a custom cheese press object and introduces a new cheesemaking skill to the game. Sims can learn how to curdle milk, make fresh cheeses, and craft and age cheese wheels in cellars. These cheeses can be used in the normal recipes in the game, and maxing out the skill will give Sims a buff whenever they eat cheese or a cheese-based dish! Make sure you also download the custom cheeses otherwise you won't be able to craft any wheels.

Custom Animals by The Kalino and SrslySims

If you are disappointed with the limited variety of farm animals in the Sims, this Custom Animals mod lets you download pigs, ducks, and highland cows. Some of these animals can also be traded for meat, although you will need a separate mod for this, which is also linked below.

Mead Making by Pied Piper

Another new skill and method of producing products on the farm is the mead-making and honey-processing mod by Pied Piper. First, your Sims can collect honey from wild honey trees or from the bee boxes already in the game. You can then filter or press this honey using the honey press. There are lots of different types of honey, though the honey you can produce is limited by which world your Sim lives in. You can choose to sell the processed honey or process it further into an alcoholic drink called mead. There is a skill associated with this and like cooking, you will unlock more mead recipes as you progress. I’ve been watching KosmicHippie use this mod in her Medieval Ultimate Decades challenge and I think it works really nicely for historic as well as general farm play!

Live In Business Mod by LittleMsSam

When playing a farm or ranch-style game, I really don’t like selling crops and produce directly from my inventory, as it feels unrealistic. Fortunately, there is a solution: the Live In Business Mod by LittleMsSam. This mod enables you to run a retail store, cafe, or any other business from your home lot. This is ideal if you want to establish a grocery store, farmstand, or farm-to-table restaurant while still working on your farm throughout the day. It's also very user-friendly - simply add the relevant lot trait and use a door to open and close the store.

Produce Stand Retail Mod by BrazenLotus

A mod that goes great with the Live In Business Mod is the Produce Stand Mod. This replaces the previous fridges from the Get to Work retail stores with vegetable stands. It’s fully functional and allows you to store food items to sell in your store. The stands will also slow the rate at which items spoil plus they’re super pretty and really add a nice farm shop feel.

Liquid Press by BrazenLotus

Now yet another object that can be used to process raw ingredients is the liquid press, by BrazenLotus. With this you can create nut milks, seed oils and fruit juices and package them to be sold. You’ll also need to pick up the Core Crafting Module on their website at the same time to make this work.

New Crops/Core Harvestables by BrazenLotus

Quite a few of the mods on this list are by Brazen Lotus because they have a lot of great mods for farming. Number 9 is their Core Harvestables Mod which greatly expands gardening and the type of produce you can grow. The mod replaces the default plants to make them more realistic looking and includes additional plants that can be used with Brazen Lotus’s other mods. I’d really recommend checking out their website because all of their mods integrate with each other and there’s a lot to see.

Functional Mill by icemunmun

My final mod is the Functional Mill Mod by icemunmun. This is a great mod with a whole lot of features. You can process many types of ingredients to produce flour, butter and sugar and more. There’s a rustic and industrial version to suit the aesthetics of your farm or ranch and the mod also introduces the milling skill which allows you to unlock new recipes as you go along. In addition, there’s some custom harvestable plants such as rice, flour and sugarcane that integrate with the mod so that you can grow everything you need for recipes if you have the Simple Living lot trait from Cottage Living turned on.

Like Brazen Lotus, this creator also has a bunch of other mods and harvestable plants to download, so check out their Patreon for more!

I hope you’ll find these useful for your game! Happy modding!

Need Help Downloading Mods? Here's My Quickstart Guide

If you’re unsure about how to download mods and CC, I have a quick tutorial here to get you started.