🐔 Complete Animal Husbandry Guide

Animal husbandry is a stable passive income source in the mid and late game. This guide covers coop and barn animals, product processing, building costs, and daily care essentials to help you build an efficient animal farm.

🏗️ Buildings and Costs

All animal husbandry buildings are constructed by the carpenter Robin and require gold and materials. Once built, you can purchase animals from Marnie.

Building	Cost	Materials	Capacity	Animals Allowed
Basic Coop	4,000G	300 Wood + 100 Stone	4	Chicken, Duck, Rabbit, Dinosaur
Big Coop	10,000G	400 Wood + 150 Stone	8	Same as above + Auto-Feeder
Deluxe Coop	20,000G	500 Wood + 200 Stone	12	Same as above + Auto-Feeder
Basic Barn	6,000G	350 Wood + 150 Stone	4	Cow, Sheep, Pig, Goat
Big Barn	12,000G	450 Wood + 200 Stone	8	Same as above + Auto-Feeder
Deluxe Barn	25,000G	550 Wood + 300 Stone	12	Same as above + Auto-Feeder

🥚 Coop Animals

Animal	Purchase Price	Product	Product Sale Price	Production Cycle
🐔 White Chicken	800G	Egg	50G	Daily
🐔 Brown Chicken	800G	Large Egg	95G	Daily
🦆 Duck	1,200G	Duck Egg / Duck Feather	95G / 250G	Every 2 days
🐰 Rabbit	8,000G	Wool / Rabbit's Foot	340G / 1,000G	About every 4 days
🦕 Dinosaur	—	Dinosaur Egg	350G	About every 7 days

🐄 Barn Animals

Animal	Purchase Price	Product	Product Sale Price	Production Cycle
🐄 Cow	1,500G	Milk	125G	Daily
🐐 Goat	4,000G	Goat Milk	225G	Every 2 days
🐑 Sheep	8,000G	Wool	340G	About every 3 days
🐷 Pig ★	16,000G	Truffle	625G	Daily (outdoors on sunny days)

🔬 Product Processing

Processing animal products doubles their profit—it's the key to getting rich from animal husbandry:

Raw Material	Processing Equipment	Product	Product Sale Price	Time
Egg / Duck Egg	Mayonnaise Machine	Mayonnaise	190G / 275G	About 3 hours
Milk	Cheese Press	Cheese	230G	About 3 hours
Goat Milk	Cheese Press	Goat Cheese	400G	About 3 hours
Wool / Rabbit Wool	Loom	Cloth	375G / 437G	About 4 hours
Truffle	Oil Maker	Truffle Oil	1,065G	About 6 hours

💖 Animal Care and Daily Routine

The core of animal husbandry is not "buy an animal and get output," but "raise the animal's mood and friendship to maximum." Mood determines whether that day's output is a large product, and friendship determines the product's quality distribution (regular / silver / gold / iridium). A fully befriended, full-mood animal can produce 2-3 times the daily value of a beginner's animal. Daily care must form a stable morning-and-evening rhythm.

❤️ Friendship and Mood System Deep Dive

Animals have two independent values: Friendship (long-term accumulation) and Mood (daily fluctuation). Understanding the difference between the two is key to high-end animal husbandry. Friendship determines product quality (silver / gold / iridium star chance), while Mood determines product size (regular / large). Both must be maxed to reliably produce the highest-value iridium-star large products.

System	Effect	Ways to Increase	Factors That Decrease
Friendship (0-1000)	Determines quality distribution	Daily petting (+15), going outside to graze (+8)	Not petted (-5), not fed (-20), door left open at night (-10)
Mood (0-255)	Determines large-product chance	Going outside to graze, Heater warmth	Not going outside on rainy days, nighttime wildlife scares, not fed

⭐ Product Quality Factors

Animal products also come in four quality tiers—regular, silver, gold, and iridium—with the same sale price multipliers as crops (×1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 2.0). Quality is directly determined by Friendship: 0-200 is almost all regular, 200-500 starts showing silver, 500-800 shows gold, and only 800+ yields iridium. Processed products (Mayonnaise, Cheese) are fixed at regular quality, but their sale price already includes the processing value-add, so raw materials from high-friendship animals are more profitable after processing (because gold/iridium raw materials used for wine/oil get extra bonuses).

• Petting is the top priority: Pet every day—even just once is better than not at all.
• Going outside to graze gives double benefit: It raises both friendship and mood simultaneously, the most cost-effective care action.
• Winter Heater is essential: Without a Heater, animal mood zeroes out, and even at max friendship they only produce regular quality.

🏗️ Building Upgrades and Unlock Path

Both Coop and Barn have three tiers: Basic, Big, and Deluxe. Upgrades must be done sequentially (no skipping), and each upgrade doubles capacity, unlocks new animal types, and adds an Auto-Feeder function. When planning upgrade paths, simultaneously consider the animal purchase budget and processing equipment matching to avoid the awkward situations of "pens but no animals" or "animals but no processing."

Building Tier	Capacity	New Feature	Unlocked Animals	Recommended Timing
Basic Coop	4	—	Chicken	Early summer, year 1
Big Coop	8	Auto-Feeder	Duck, Rabbit	Fall, year 1
Deluxe Coop	12	Auto-Feeder	Dinosaur (hatched)	Year 2
Basic Barn	4	—	Cow, Goat	Fall, year 1
Big Barn	8	Auto-Feeder	Sheep, Pig	Winter, year 1
Deluxe Barn	12	Auto-Feeder	—	Spring, year 2

🐑 Sheep Shearing Cycle

Sheep produce Wool, but you must shear them manually with Shears (unlike chickens and cows, which produce automatically). At max friendship, Wool grows back about every 3 days; a regular bundle sells for 340G, or 375G when processed into Cloth. Combined with the "Shepherd" profession branch (the opposite branch of Coopmaster, chosen at Farming level 10), Wool grows faster—a stable mid-tier income source in the late game.

• Shearing timing: When the Wool is fully grown, a distinct white fleece appears on the sheep—click to shear.
• Cloth processing: The Loom takes 4 hours to finish; it's recommended to have 1 Loom per sheep to avoid raw-material buildup.
• Role: Sheep profit is mid-tier—mainly for social gifts (Emily loves Cloth) and textile material. Not recommended as a primary income animal.

🐷 Pig Truffle Hunting Guide

Pigs are the highest daily-profit animal per head in Stardew Valley, but a few often-overlooked details directly affect returns. Pigs only find Truffles when they go outside on sunny days—they completely stop production on rainy days and in winter. Truffles appear randomly on outdoor tiles around the pig and must be picked up manually. At max friendship, a pig produces 1-3 Truffles per day, averaging 1.5.

Item	Data	Notes
Per-head purchase price	16,000G	Bought at Marnie's Ranch
Per-Truffle sale price	625G (regular)	Iridium 1,250G
Truffle Oil sale price	1,065G	Oil Maker processing, 6 hours
Daily output (max friendship)	1.5 Truffles	Sunny-day statistical average
Per-head daily profit	About 1,000G+	After processing into Truffle Oil
Stop conditions	Rainy days, winter, not going outside	Requires advance processing equipment

📊 Animal ROI Comparison Table

Payback period per head, calculated at max friendship, including processing, over a full season (28 days with about 20 sunny days):

Animal	Total Investment (incl. amortized building)	Daily Profit (incl. processing)	Payback Period	Recommendation
🐔 White Chicken	About 2,000G	About 190G	About 11 days	★★★★★ Beginner top pick
🐔 Brown Chicken	About 2,000G	About 275G	About 8 days	★★★★★ Fastest payback
🐄 Cow	About 4,000G	About 230G	About 17 days	★★★★ Barn starter
🦆 Duck	About 3,500G	About 140G	About 25 days	★★★ Also for gifts
🐐 Goat	About 6,000G	About 200G	About 30 days	★★★ Long cycle
🐰 Rabbit	About 10,000G	About 130G	About 77 days	★★ Gift-only
🐑 Sheep	About 10,000G	About 130G	About 77 days	★★ Mid-tier
🐷 Pig ★	About 18,000G	About 1,000G+	About 18 days	★★★★★ Late-game king

🤖 Automated Operations: From Dawn to Dusk to a 5-Minute Routine

The ultimate goal of animal husbandry is "passive income"—spending only 5 minutes a day to complete all care. Reaching this goal requires three layers of automation: the first layer is Auto-Feeding (included in Big Coop / Big Barn and above), where Hay is automatically dispensed from the Silo with no manual work; the second layer is scaled-up processing equipment, with 1 corresponding machine per animal so raw materials enter the pipeline the same day; the third layer is building placement optimization, putting the Coop / Barn near the farm entrance with processing equipment clustered along the path, for a minimalist "pet on entry, collect on exit" flow.

After completing all three layers, the daily routine for 12 pigs is just: open the door at 6 AM (5 seconds) → pet 12 pigs (30 seconds) → collect Truffles (1 minute) → load Oil Makers (30 seconds), totaling under 3 minutes—yet daily profit can exceed 7500G. That is the final form of Stardew Valley animal husbandry.

🎯 Beginner Animal Husbandry Roadmap

1. Late spring, year 1: Save 4,000G + 300 Wood + 100 Stone, build a Basic Coop
2. Summer: Buy 4 Chickens (prioritize Brown), build 4 Mayonnaise Machines, pay back in 10 days
3. Fall: Upgrade to a Big Barn, introduce Cows and Goats, add Cheese Presses
4. Winter: Complete the Deluxe Barn, start introducing Pigs (buy 2-4 to test the waters first)
5. Spring, year 2: 12 Pigs at full capacity, with 6 Oil Makers, entering the passive-income golden age
6. Summer, year 2: Expand to a second Deluxe Barn, double the Pigs, daily average breaking 15,000G