Stardew Valley Barn Guide: All You Need to Know

Besides farming, animals play a big role in Stardew Valley. They provide products that are not only necessary in community center bundles but can also get you quite a bit of gold. The two structures needed for keeping animals in Stardew Valley are a coop and a barn. Today, we will be focusing on the latter, walking you through everything you need to know about a barn in Stardew Valley. With that said, let’s begin!

How to Get a Barn in Stardew Valley

Like many other farm buildings, barns can be purchased from Robin at the carpenter’s shop. You’re going to need the following things to build a barn:

• 6000 Gold
• 350 Wood
• 150 Stone

This is the most basic barn you can buy that requires 7×4 empty tiles worth of space. You will need to wait three days for Robin to finish building the barn. After that, you can select to upgrade the barn or purchase animals to live inside it.

Also, if you don’t already have a silo, make sure to purchase it from Robin as well. It will help you out a lot while caring for all the animals on the farm.

Barn Levels in Stardew Valley

Now that you have bought the barn, let’s see how you can upgrade it to include more capacity and better quality-of-life features.

1. Barn

The initial barn Robin constructs for you is simply called a barn. It provides the smallest interior, which also limits the number of animals you can have to four. These animals can only be cows and ostriches. The footprint of the first-tier barn is 7×4 tiles, but this area doesn’t change when you upgrade the barn.

The features this barn has are the hay hopper and the feeding bench. Hay hopper is an immovable object that you can acquire hay items from by right-clicking it. This is however the case only if you have the silo, so make sure to build it in advance.

The feeding bench is the place you can put the hay on. It will include as many available slots as the barn capacity, so four in this case. You can put the hay here also by right-clicking. If you took too much hay from the hay hopper, you can simply put it back in the silo by interacting with it or the hay hopper. Here’s an easily readable overview of this barn:

2. Big Barn

When you visit Robin after she has made the barn for you, you will see that she offers a “big barn” option now. This is an upgrade available for your existing regular barn. You need the following to complete this purchase:

• 12,000 Gold
• 450 Wood
• 200 Stone

Once you have the required resources, you can select the big barn option and choose the barn you want to upgrade in Stardew Valley. When you do so, Robin will start working on the barn the next day, and you’ll need to wait for two days for her to finish. This barn’s capacity is doubled to eight, and the animals it supports are cows, ostriches, and goats.

The footprint stays at 7×4 tiles. However, apart from the features the previous barn provides like hay hopper and feeding bench, the big barn also allows your animals to get pregnant. This means that if you leave the “Allow Pregnancy” option in the animal’s menu, they will have a chance to have a baby if the capacity isn’t full.

So, you won’t even need to pay for more animals, but just multiply the ones you already have. This barn upgrade will allow you to save money by not purchasing more animals. But it cannot provide different animals that produce the most valuable products. For them, you will need to upgrade the big barn to a deluxe barn in Stardew Valley.

3. Deluxe Barn

When you visit Robin for the third time, she’ll offer the deluxe barn option. This is the maximum and best barn upgrade you can have. Because of that, it’s much more expensive than the first two barns. The deluxe barn requires you to have the following resources:

• 25 000 Gold
• 550 Wood
• 300 Stone

After you collect the resources, select the deluxe barn and choose a big barn to upgrade. This construction will also take two days to complete. Once it’s done, you will be able to house twelve animals in it. Those can include cows, ostriches, goats, sheep, and pigs. The footprint stays the same at seven tiles long and four tiles wide.

The features this barn provides are the same as the big barn with the addition of the most amazing quality-of-life feature – an auto-feeding system. Yes, that’s right, you no longer need to gather the hay from the hay hopper and distribute it manually across the feeding bench. The deluxe barn will do this for you.

All you should pay attention to is to never run out of hay in the silos, since your animals will not be very happy if they’re hungry.

To sum it up, if you want to construct a barn and upgrade to the deluxe barn as soon as possible, you’ll need the following resources:

• 43,000 Gold
• 1350 Wood
• 650 Stone

You can purchase the stone and wood from Robin herself, but the deluxe barn will then cost 69,500 gold during the first year and 175,500 gold every year afterward.

All Barn Animals in Stardew Valley

Now that you have got a barn, you can start putting animals in it. To get most animals, you will need to purchase them from Marnie at her ranch, just south of your farm. Each of the animals requires a spot in the barn and a different amount of money to buy.

Moreover, each barn supports different animals inside it. But if you have the deluxe barn, you can purchase any animal and put it in a non-upgraded barn. Now, let’s look at all the barn animals, how you can get them, and what they give you.

Cows

Cows are the most basic barn animals that you can buy for 1,500 gold each in Marnie’s shop. You can milk an adult cow every day with a milk pail to obtain milk. Milk pail is a tool you can also buy from Marnie for 1000g. Milk by default is worth 125g, but can cost 250g for iridium quality.

If a cow reaches a higher friendship with the player, they can even produce large milk. This item is a lot more valuable than regular milk, with a base price of 190 gold. Though large milk of iridium quality is worth 380g.

You can further affect the prices of animal products with the rancher profession, which will increase them by 20%. You can also sell the cow if you want to and its value will depend on the friendship points you have with it. If you’ve reached five hearts of friendship with a cow, its selling price will be 1 950g.

Goats

To purchase a goat you’ll need to have at least a big barn upgrade. Each goat costs 4,000 gold and you can buy them from Marnie. Similarly to cows, you can milk goats typically every day with a milk pail and they’ll provide you with goat milk. This item is worth 225g by default, but this price can go up to 450g for iridium quality.

If you have sufficient friendship points with a goat, they’ll give you large goat milk. Large milk is worth 345g by default, but with iridium quality, it can cost even 690g. All these prices are affected by the rancher skill, which increases the cost of animal products by 20%. If you’ve reached five hearts with a goat, its selling price will be 5 200g.

Sheep

You’ll need to own a deluxe barn to have sheep. Every sheep costs 8,000 gold. You can shear sheep with shears to obtain their wool. Shears are another tool you can buy from Marnie. Wool costs 340g by default but can cost up to 680g if it’s iridium quality. The rancher skill further increases this price.

These animals will usually regrow their coat every three days if they’re fed and decently happy. But, if you’ve reached over four hearts with a sheep, they’ll regrow the coat every other day. Also, if you choose the shepherd profession, the sheep will regrow their coats every single day. The selling price of a sheep with all five hearts is 10 400g.

Pigs

Pigs are the most valuable barn animals and also the most expensive. They will require a deluxe barn and will cost 16,000 gold. Pigs can dig up and reveal truffles every day on your farm. They will be presented as foraging items you can collect, which will also be affected by the gatherer skills. Every truffle’s base price is 625g, but iridium quality truffles are worth 1 250g.

Though, unlike other animals, they will only provide truffles when they’re outdoors. So, during rainy days and winter, you won’t get any truffles. If you’ve reached five hearts with a pig, you can sell it for 20 800g.

Ostriches

Ostriches are only barn animals you cannot purchase. Instead, you’ll need to find the ostrich egg first. This item is obtainable on Ginger island, by solving the journal scrap #10 puzzle or in volcano dungeon’s rare chests.

Not only that but since the barn doesn’t include an incubator like the coop, you’ll need to make an ostrich incubator. You’ll receive the recipe for this machine from Professor Snail, after completing the fossil collection and surveys at the island Field Office. The required resources to make an ostrich incubator are:

• 50 Bone fragments
• 50 Hardwood
• 20 Cinder Shards

Once you make the incubator, you can place it inside any barn. Right-click it with the ostrich egg to put the egg in it. Then, you’ll need to wait for almost ten in-game days for this egg to hatch and for you to see the ostrich. After the ostrich is grown up, it’ll produce an ostrich egg every seven days if it’s fed.

You can then produce another ostrich with this egg or simply sell it for 600g. Iridium quality ostrich egg is worth 1 200g, but can also be affected by the rancher skill. The selling price of an ostrich is 20 800g if you reach five hearts of friendship with it.

How to Keep Barn Animals Happy

As you can see, keeping your animals happy is important, as they will then provide you with better quality products and therefore more money. This is especially useful in the early game and it’s not even difficult to accomplish. But friendship points are not the only factor in making your animals feel happy, as there is also the mood value.

You can see it by accessing the animal’s menu. If it says that your animal looks happy, then the mood is high, but if it says that your animal looks sad, then the mood is low. So, besides keeping the friendship between you and the animal steady, you should also make sure they’re in a good mood. So, to keep your animals happy make sure to:

• Pet them regularly.
• Let them eat grass outside.
• Feed them hay during rainy days and winter.
• Put a heater, which you can buy from Marnie, in the barn so animals are warm during winter.
• Let them stay in the barn if it’s raining or during winter.
• Do not trap them outside during the night.

Most of these requirements are pretty obvious, so let’s take a look at the last one. As you probably realized by now, you can open the barn’s door, similarly to the coop. This will allow your animals to go outside and eat grass. But, it can also allow you to lock your animals outside, which will not be good for your friendship and their mood.

But that’s not all. If you do leave them outside during the night, they might even be attacked by wild animals. This is an event that can happen after the player sleeps. There is a chance that if an animal is left outside, it will be attacked. If that’s the case, it will be removed from the game completely.

If you view other animals’ menus, the message will be displayed saying that the animal looks stressed and paranoid and that it seems like something bad happened the night before. To avoid this event from happening, simply leave the barn and coop doors open so animals can get inside. You can close them in the morning if it’s winter.

So that is pretty much all you need to know about the barn, big barn, deluxe barn, and barn animals in Stardew Valley. All this information may seem overwhelming at first, but no worries as you’ll get a hang of it once you build a barn and tend to your animal friends daily. With that said, what barn animal is your favorite? Tell us in the comments below!