FarmVille Sheep Breeding Upgrade: Receive new patterns by leveling up

While we told you that Sheep Breeding in FarmVille would be given the Pig Breeding treatment, with levels and new patterns to unlock, we weren't exactly sure of the feature's release date. Turns out - it's now! The next time you log into your farm, you'll see a pop-up like the one above, letting you know that the upgrade has launched on your farm.

To ensure that you have at least one male Ram to breed sheep, you'll be given another Brutus the Ram for free, and will immediately go into placement mode to place the Ram where you'd like on your farm. From there, the actual breeding process works the same way as before, but your results when breeding will have changed. That is, you'll earn points for each Lamb successfully bred (right now it's three points), and will also earn points if you put a Lamb up for adoption and a friend claims it.

When you breed enough Sheep, you'll go up levels, earning free bonuses like Bottles and Love Potions along the way. Once you reach Level 5, you'll start unlocking new patterns. Level five is the Tiger Stripe Ram. You'll be able to track your progress towards each new pattern on the "Progress" tab of the Sheep Pen, and here's what you can expect to unlock over time:

Level 10 - Flower Ram
Level 15 - Racing Stripe Ram
Level 20 - Heart Ram
Level 25 - Checkered Ram
Level 30 - ZigZag (Lightning) Ram

Please note that the name of the Level 30 pattern is still up in the air, but it looks like Lightning or a "ZigZag" pattern to us. As with Pig Breeding, when you hit any of these milestone levels, you'll actually receive a free Ram with that pattern, to allow you to get right to breeding more Lambs that look the same. With the new 50/50 chance for pattern inheritance, at least you (hopefully) won't waste too many Bottles or Love Potions in trying to breed more flower Lambs, for instance. Even if you don't end up with the kind of Lamb you wait, remember that you've still earned breeding points, so it's never really a waste.

It's possible that more patterns will be added to this Sheep Breeding upgrade in the future, and if that's the case, we'll make sure to let you know.