Farming for Blockheads Mod Guide: Market, Fertilizers & Animal Automation
Farming for Blockheads adds a handful of purpose-built blocks that streamline the most tedious parts of Minecraft farming. The Market block lets you buy any seed, sapling, or flower for Emeralds, while three color-coded fertilizers upgrade your Farmland with bonus growth, extra crops, and trample protection. A Feeding Trough and Chicken Nest round out the mod with hands-free animal breeding and egg collection.
Overview
Farming for Blockheads is a small, focused mod that solves three common frustrations: finding seeds and saplings, keeping crops growing efficiently, and managing animal breeding. It adds a total of three placeable utility blocks, three fertilizer items, and a friendly Merchant NPC. Everything in this mod works independently and requires no other mods, though it integrates cleanly with JEI if you have it installed.
You can browse every item and recipe the mod adds using the tabs at the top of this page. This guide walks you through what each block and item does, how the fertilizer system works under the hood, and how to configure everything to suit your world.
Getting Started
- 1
Craft the Market
The
Market is the centerpiece of the mod and likely the first thing you'll want to build. It requires Logs, Planks, and one piece of Red Wool. Place it down and a Merchant NPC will spawn in front of the block with a fun entrance animation: they might appear in a puff of magic particles, fall from the sky, or dig up out of the ground depending on the surroundings. - 2
Buy Seeds and Saplings
Right-click the
Market block or the Merchant NPC to open the shop interface. Items are organized into four categories: Seeds, Saplings, Flowers, and Other. Place Emeralds in the payment slot on the left, select what you want from the scrollable grid, and take your purchase from the output slot. One Emerald buys one item by default, though modpack authors can customize prices. - 3
Craft Fertilizers
The three fertilizers each require Gold Nuggets, Wheat Seeds, and a color-specific ingredient.
Red Fertilizer uses Bone Meal, 
Green Fertilizer uses Wheat, and 
Yellow Fertilizer uses Dye. Each recipe produces 4 fertilizers. Right-click them on Farmland to upgrade it to 
Fertilized Farmland with that color's trait. - 4
Set Up Animal Automation
Craft a Feeding Trough and place it near your animal pens. Load it with any breeding food (Wheat, Carrots, Seeds, etc.) and it will automatically feed and breed nearby animals every 5 seconds, up to 8 animals per species. For chickens specifically, craft a Chicken Nest and place it nearby to automatically collect Eggs as they're laid.
The Market
The Market is a crafted block that serves as your one-stop shop for all plantable items. When you place it, a Merchant NPC spawns in front of it. This NPC is purely cosmetic and functional: it shares the Market's inventory screen, avoids Zombies, and despawns with a poof of particles if the Market block is ever broken. The Merchant has a random name drawn from a configurable list; the defaults are "Swap-O-Matic", "Emerald Muncher", and "Weathered Salesperson". There's also a rare 0.1% chance the merchant spawns named "Pam" or "Blay" as an easter egg.
The Market's inventory is organized into four tabs: Seeds, Saplings, Flowers, and Other. The default payment for everything is Emeralds. The system is fully data-driven, which means modpack authors can add custom entries, change prices, disable categories, or add items from other mods by editing JSON files in the config/farmingforblockheads folder. If you have JEI installed, all Market recipes show up there too.
The Market automatically detects items from other mods and categorizes them. If an item's registry name contains "seed" it goes in the Seeds tab, "sapling" goes in Saplings, and "flower" goes in Flowers. Everything else falls into the Other category. Mods can also register their own custom categories.
Market Recipe
You can place multiple Markets in your world. Each one spawns its own Merchant NPC. This is useful for building a proper marketplace area or placing Markets in different bases across your world.
Fertilizers and Fertilized Farmland
The fertilizer system is the mechanical heart of this mod. There are three fertilizer items, each applying a different trait to Farmland when right-clicked. Fertilizers work on both regular Farmland and already-fertilized Farmland, which means you can stack two different traits on a single block. The three traits are Healthy (red), Rich (green), and Stable (yellow).
Red Fertilizer (Healthy Trait)
Red Fertilizer applies the Healthy trait, which gives crops a chance to grow an extra stage each time they tick. By default, this chance is 100%, meaning crops on Healthy Farmland grow roughly twice as fast as normal. This stacks with the existing random tick mechanic, so your crops will noticeably outpace anything planted on regular Farmland. The bonus growth chance is configurable via the fertilizerBonusGrowthChance setting (0.0 to 1.0).
Green Fertilizer (Rich Trait)
Green Fertilizer applies the Rich trait, which gives a chance to produce bonus crop drops when harvesting. When a crop is harvested from Rich Farmland, the mod rolls a chance (default 100%) to duplicate one of the non-seed drops. This effectively doubles your crop yield per harvest. The bonus crop chance is configurable via fertilizerBonusCropChance.
Yellow Fertilizer (Stable Trait)
Yellow Fertilizer applies the Stable trait, which prevents the Farmland from being trampled by entities walking or jumping on it. Stable Farmland also resists reverting to Dirt when it dries out, as long as crops are planted on it. This is especially useful for paths through farms or areas where animals might wander.
You can apply two different fertilizers to the same Farmland block, combining their effects. The valid combinations are Healthy + Stable and Rich + Stable. You cannot combine Healthy and Rich on the same block, and applying the same fertilizer twice has no additional effect. For the best farm, use Rich + Stable for trample-proof bonus crops, or Healthy + Stable for trample-proof fast growth.
Fertilizer Comparison
| Red Fertilizer | Green Fertilizer | Yellow Fertilizer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trait | Healthy | Rich | Stable |
| Effect | Double growth chance | Bonus crop drops | Prevents trampling |
| Default Chance | 100% | 100% | Always |
| Config Key | fertilizerBonusGrowthChance | fertilizerBonusCropChance | N/A |
| Prevents Trampling | No | No | Yes |
| Stackable With | Stable only | Stable only | Healthy or Rich |
Fertilizer Regression
Each time Fertilized Farmland provides a bonus (either an extra growth tick or a bonus crop drop), there is a configurable chance for the block to revert back to regular Farmland. By default, this regression chance is 0%, meaning your fertilized soil lasts forever. Server admins and modpack makers can increase this with the fertilizerRegressionChance config option (0.0 to 1.0) to make fertilizers a consumable resource rather than a permanent upgrade.
Animal Automation
Feeding Trough
The Feeding Trough is a block that automatically breeds nearby animals without any player interaction. Place it within range of your animal pens (default range: 8 blocks in every direction), fill it with any valid breeding food, and it handles the rest. Every 100 ticks (5 seconds), it scans for nearby adult animals, checks whether they can breed, and feeds one animal per cycle. It consumes one food item per feeding.
The trough has a built-in population cap of 8 animals per species by default. Once there are 8 or more Cows nearby, it stops breeding Cows but continues breeding Pigs, Sheep, or any other species that hasn't hit the cap. Both the range and cap are configurable. The Feeding Trough has a single inventory slot, so you'll want to automate restocking it with a Hopper if you're running a large operation.
Feeding Trough Recipe
The Feeding Trough counts animals per species within its range, not total animals. If you have 8 Cows and 3 Pigs nearby, it will stop breeding Cows but keep breeding Pigs. Be mindful of your pen layout if you want different population targets per species. You can adjust the feedingTroughMaxAnimals config to change the cap.
Chicken Nest
The Chicken Nest is a passive collection block specifically designed for Eggs. Place it near your Chicken pen and it scans for dropped Egg item entities within an 8-block radius (configurable via chickenNestRange). Every second, it checks for nearby Eggs on the ground and pulls them into its single inventory slot, which holds up to 4 Eggs at a time. You can extract Eggs from the Chicken Nest using a Hopper or any item transport system that supports Forge's item handler capability.
The Chicken Nest only collects naturally dropped Eggs; it won't pick up items thrown by players. Combined with a Feeding Trough, you can build a fully automated chicken farm that breeds chickens and collects their eggs without any manual work.
Chicken Nest Recipe
Configuration
Farming for Blockheads keeps its config in the standard Forge config folder. Most options are in the common config, which applies to both singleplayer and servers. Here are the key settings:
Configuration Options
| feedingTroughRange | 1-16 blocks (default: 8) |
| feedingTroughMaxAnimals | 1-∞ per species (default: 8) |
| chickenNestRange | 1-16 blocks (default: 8) |
| fertilizerBonusCropChance | 0.0-1.0 (default: 1.0 = 100%) |
| fertilizerBonusGrowthChance | 0.0-1.0 (default: 1.0 = 100%) |
| fertilizerRegressionChance | 0.0-1.0 (default: 0.0 = never) |
| merchantNames | Custom name list for the Merchant NPC |
| showRegistryWarnings | Client-only, for modpack devs (default: false) |
The Market's inventory is also customizable through JSON data files. The mod looks for compatibility files in the data/[modid]/farmingforblockheads_compat/ directory and a manual override file at config/farmingforblockheads/MarketRegistry.json. Through these files, you can add custom items to the Market, change payment costs, disable entire groups of items, or create new categories. This system automatically loads compatibility data from other mods that provide it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens to the Merchant if I break the Market block?
The Merchant checks for a valid Market block every second. If the Market is broken, the Merchant disappears with a particle effect and is removed from the world. Placing a new Market spawns a brand new Merchant.
Can I combine all three fertilizer traits on one Farmland block?
No. The mod only supports five Fertilized Farmland variants: Rich, Healthy, Stable, Rich + Stable, and Healthy + Stable. You cannot combine Rich and Healthy together, and you cannot have all three traits on a single block.
Does the Feeding Trough work with modded animals?
Yes. The Feeding Trough works with any entity that extends Minecraft's AnimalEntity class and accepts a breeding food item. This covers most modded animals that follow standard Minecraft breeding mechanics. The trough checks each animal's isFood() method, so as long as the food item in the trough matches what the animal eats, it will work.
Does Fertilized Farmland revert back to normal Farmland over time?
By default, no. The fertilizerRegressionChance config is set to 0.0, meaning Fertilized Farmland is permanent. Server admins can change this to any value between 0.0 and 1.0 to make the farmland revert after providing bonuses, adding a resource cost to the system.
Can the Chicken Nest be automated with Hoppers?
Yes. The Chicken Nest exposes its inventory through Forge's item handler capability, so Hoppers, pipes, and any other item transport system can pull Eggs out of it automatically. Place a Hopper below or adjacent to the Chicken Nest to route collected Eggs into a Chest or further processing.
How do I add custom items to the Market?
Edit the config/farmingforblockheads/MarketRegistry.json file. You can define custom entries with an output item, payment item, and category. You can also create custom categories, override existing entries to change prices, or disable default item groups entirely. The mod reloads this data on world load, or you can force a reload with the /farmingforblockheads reload command.