Can sheep farmer perform multiple exchanges at once?

Question

We were playing Agricola last night and I ran into an unusual situation. I had three pastures, each able to contain four animals. I also had the House Goat minor improvement, which means I was not allowed to store any animals in my house. I had a total of eight sheep, and no other animals.

I had the Sheep Farmer occupation, and wanted to use its ability twice to convert six sheep to two boar and two cattle. My question is, do the conversions have to be sequential, or can they be synchronous? In the first case I cannot store both the boar and the cattle as I have five sheep after the first swap which take two of my pastures. In the latter case I end up with a breeding pair of each type of animal.

Answer 1

The card doesn't say you can do multiple conversions at the same time, so they have to be sequential.

However, in other situations, it's established that you don't have to have room for animals if you're going to immediately use them for something else. For instance, if you receive animals from an action space, you can immediately afterwards cook them, without having to find room for them in between.

I would argue that the Sheep Farmer works the same way. In this case, you can use it twice in succession, without having to take animal storage limits in account.

I'll add a ruling to this effect to the next edition of the Unofficial Agricola Compendium, which many players consider to be almost authoritative.