Stardew Valley isn't all crops; farmers are able to raise animals, too. Though animals aren't raised for meat, they do produce eggs, wool, and more, allowing you to make a living on your farm.

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To keep smaller animals like chickens on your farm, you'll need to build a coop — and upgrade it as your operation gets bigger. Whether you just built your first coop or are just trying to figure out if you're missing out on anything, this guide has the answers you're searching for.

Updated April 19, 2023: Coops are a staple part of your farm in Stardew Valley, housing a variety of animals that can help you turn a profit. We've updated this guide for readability so you can find everything you need to know about them.

How To Build And Upgrade A Coop

Building the Coop is a simple matter of collecting the right materials, saving up enough money, and visiting Robin when she's tending the desk at the Carpenter's Shop in the Mountains. Coops can house chickens, ducks, dinosaurs, and rabbits, but you need to unlock the associated coop level first.

Once you've unlocked all coop levels, you can keep any coop animals in any coop, regardless of size.

Coop Levels

The Coops' Special Features Explained

The Feeding Bench is the long wooden thing on the back wall of your coop and is used to feed your animals. Hay that you place on the bench will be consumed overnight by the animals who live in the Coop.

The bench will change size each time you upgrade your Coop so that it can hold enough hay to feed the maximum number of animals that the building can hold.

A Hay Hopper is one of the items that come with the basic Coop. It allows you to access all your hay stored in the Silos on your farm.

An Incubator is added when you upgrade a Coop to a Big Coop. If you place Eggs in this Incubator, it'll hatch them into the associated animal.

The final upgrade you'll unlock — when you upgrade to a Deluxe Coop — is an Autofeed System. This means that, instead of having to go into each coop and place Hay on the Feeding Bench, Hay will be dispersed automatically as long as there's enough in your Silos.

Coop Animals

Chicken

• How To Unlock And Obtain: Build your first Coop and then purchase from Marnie for 800g.
• Produces: Eggs every day (or Large Eggs, once sufficient friendship and happiness levels are reached).
• Associated Artisan Good(s): Mayonnaise, made by putting Eggs into Mayonnaise Machines.
• Sell Price At Full Friendship: 1,040g.

Chickens are an easy, no-nonsense animal to keep on your farm. They cost very little and can turn a massive profit.

You may have seen other Stardew Valley players with Blue Chickens! To get these, you'll need to reach eight hearts of friendship with Shane and see his eight-heart event.

After that, there's a 25 percent chance each time you get a new Chicken (either buying it from Marnie or hatching it) that the Chicken will be blue. It's a purely aesthetic change — the Chicken doesn't produce blue eggs that are worth extra or anything like that.

Duck

• How To Unlock And Obtain: Build your first Big Coop and then purchase from Marnie for 1,200g.
• Produces: Duck Eggs every two days (or Duck Feather, once sufficient friendship and happiness levels are reached).
• Associated Artisan Good(s): Duck Mayonnaise, made by putting Duck Eggs into Mayonnaise Machines.
• Sell Price At Full Friendship: 1,560g.

The extra money you make per Duck Egg compared to Chicken Eggs is a little undercut by the fact that they will only lay a Duck Egg every two days. However, they're still a worthwhile investment for your farm.

Rabbit

• How To Unlock And Obtain: Build your first Deluxe Coop and then purchase from Marnie for 8,000g.
• Produces: Wool every four days (or Rabbit's Foot, once sufficient friendship and happiness levels are reached).
• Associated Artisan Good(s): Cloth, made by putting Wool into a Loom.
• Sell Price At Full Friendship: 10,400g.

Rabbits are for the more advanced Stardew Valley player since they don't turn around immediate profit quickly. However, if you can spare the income, they're great for getting a little extra wool.

Void Chicken

• How To Unlock And Obtain: Obtain a Void Egg (via Random Event or purchasing from Krobus) and incubate it in a Big or Deluxe Coop.
• Produces: Void Egg every day.
• Associated Artisan Good(s): Void Mayonnaise, made by putting Void Eggs into Mayonnaise Machines.
• Sell Price At Full Friendship: 1,040g.

Void Eggs sell for more than your average Chicken (though Large Eggs, which Void Chickens don't produce, do outsell them).

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Dinosaur

• How To Unlock And Obtain: Obtain a Dinosaur Egg and incubate it in a Big or Deluxe Coop.
• Produces: Dinosaur Egg every seven days.
• Associated Artisan Good(s): Dinosaur Mayonnaise, made by putting Dinosaur Eggs into Mayonnaise Machines.
• Sell Price At Full Friendship: 1,300g.

Dinosaurs are a bit tough to find — there are lots of ways to get the Dinosaur Egg, but each method has a fairly low chance of yielding it. It also only produces an Egg every seven days, so, while it's fun to have them in your Coops, it might not always be the most profitable option.

Golden Chicken

• How To Unlock And Obtain: Obtain a Golden Egg (achieve 100 percent perfection and then buy from Marnie for 100,000g, buy from Qi for 100 Qi Gems, or obtain via Random Event with the Witch) and incubate it in a Big or Deluxe Coop.
• Produces: Golden Egg every day.
• Associated Artisan Good(s): Three Gold Star Mayonnaise, made by putting one Golden Egg into Mayonnaise Machine.
• Sell Price At Full Friendship: 1,040g.

While Golden Chickens don't sell for very much at full friendship, their eggs, on the other hand, have a steep price tag, especially for something you're getting daily.

Caring For Your Animals

Happiness And Friendship

Happiness and Friendship are both stats that have an effect on the quality of items your animal will produce. The happier they are and the better friends with you they are, the better items you'll receive.

Food

All animals need to be fed daily. If they aren't fed, that day will not count towards producing their item.

You'll usually feed animals with Hay on their Feeding Bench, so keep an eye on your Hay supplies to make sure you don't run out.

However, animals can also eat grass that's growing on your farm. For them to do this, you'll need to open the door to allow them to roam outside and make sure that the grass is near to their Coop.

Just because there's grass outside that they could eat doesn't mean that they will eat it — especially if it's too far from the Coop. Allowing them to eat grass rather than Hay helps to improve their happiness level.

There are a few occasions when an animal doesn't need to be fed:

• The first day they're alive (either the day that they hatch or the day that you bought them from Marnie)
• On all festival days (the only exception to this is the Night Market, which is a three-day event that only occurs at night.)

Leaving Animals Outside

It's possible to lock your animal out of the Coop by closing the Coop's door before it has returned home. If this happens, they will automatically be grumpy the next day. There's also a small chance they may be attacked in the night — in this case, they'll be lost to you for good.

Next: Stardew Valley: A Complete Guide To The Slime Hutch