There are a lot of cute animals that you can purchase and raise on your farm in Stardew Valley. There are Coop and Barn animals, and they all have their uses.
The Chickens are probably the best Coop animals in Stardew Valley, as you can get them at a cheap price, and you can easily make them make you money. The only problem with Chickens is that they only make you real money if you make them happy.
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Most players would probably have no idea how to make an animal happy in Stardew Valley, as you would usually only pay attention to the friendship hearts and suppose that everything works great.
To raise and take care of your Chickens properly in Stardew Valley, you need to feed and pet them every day, and you have to make sure that they don’t spend time outside in the cold or rain.
Table of Contents
- How Chickens Work in Stardew Valley
- How Many Chickens Can You Have Per Coop in Stardew Valley?
- How to Get Large Eggs From Chickens in Stardew Valley
- How to Befriend Chickens in Stardew Valley – Increase Their Friendship
- How to Make Chickens Happy in Stardew Valley – Increase Their Mood
How Chickens Work in Stardew Valley
Chickens are farm animals that live in the Coop in Stardew Valley and produce Eggs every day. You can sell Eggs for a minimum of 50 g at Pierre’s Store or at the Shipping Bin on the farm.
To get Chickens, you will first need to build a Coop on your farm. You can do this from the Carpenter’s Shop. Players only need 300 Wood, 100 Stone, and 4k g.
Once you have the Coop on your farm, you can talk to Marnie at her Ranch to buy a Chicken for 800 g. When you buy the Chicken, you will also have to click on the Coop where you want it to live.
The Chicken that you get will be a baby, and it will take 3 nights for it to grow into a mature, egg-producing Chicken.
To make sure that your Chickens actually produce Eggs, you will need to feed them every day. If you don’t feed them, they won’t even grow up to actually start producing Eggs.
There are two types of Chickens you can get at the start of the game: White and Brown Chickens. The only difference between these two Chickens is that their Eggs have a different color. However, the sell price is the same.
Later in the game, you can also unlock Blue Chickens, which produce White Eggs, Void Chickens, which are more profitable than normal Chickens, and Golden Chickens.
How Many Chickens Can You Have Per Coop in Stardew Valley?
For the level 1 Coop in Stardew Valley, you can only have 4 Chickens inside.
The Big Coop, the 2nd level upgrade, can hold 8 Chickens inside, and the Deluxe Coop, the final possible upgrade, allows 12 animals inside.
The Big and Deluxe Coop can also hold other types of animals inside. The simple Coop can only have Chickens living in it.
How to Get Large Eggs From Chickens in Stardew Valley
One of the things that make Chickens the best Coop animals in Stardew Valley is that they can produce Large Eggs.
These Large Eggs are twice as expensive as the normal Eggs and will allow you to make gold quality Mayonnaise (worth 285 g without any professions).
The Large Eggs are the true treasure that Chickens can give you, and they can give these beauties every day if you take care of them properly.
To get Large Eggs from Chickens in Stardew Valley, you will have to max out their friendship and mood stats.
This means that you will have to be best friends with your Chickens and also keep them extremely happy to get Large Eggs on a daily basis.
Here is the exact mathematical formula that calculates if a Chicken will give you a Large Egg the next day:
- (Friendship + Mood)/1200
How to Befriend Chickens in Stardew Valley – Increase Their Friendship
To properly take care of your Chickens in Stardew Valley, you will have to increase your friendship hearts with them to the max.
Each friendship heart with a Chicken is worth 200 friendship points. You can have a total of 5 hearts with them, which means the maximum friendship value that you can get with them is 1k points.
Once you get 200 friendship points with a Chicken, they will already start getting a chance to produce Large Eggs.
There are two things that you can do to increase your friendship with the Chickens in Stardew Valley:
- Pet them (+15 friendship points)
- Let them eat grass outside (+8 friendship points)
Unfortunately, there are many things that you might do, by accident, to lower your friendship with the Chickens every day:
- Don’t feed them (-20 friendship points)
- Let them sleep outside (-20 friendship points)
- Don’t pet them (-10 friendship points)
So, if you want to make sure that you get those friendship hearts fast with the Chickens, make sure to pet each and every one of them every day. As long as you do that and give them food, you won’t have any problems getting those numbers up.
How to Make Chickens Happy in Stardew Valley – Increase Their Mood
Animal Mood is a weird stat, as there isn’t an easy way to figure it out. For friendship, you can always check out the hearts.
However, for mood, you will have to interact with the Chicken after you pet them to see one of three reactions:
- Looks really happy today!
- Looks fine.
- Looks sad.
Mood is just a number that can go from 0 to 255. Chickens will be “happy” if they have a Mood over 200. They will also be “sad” if they have their Mood under 30.
This means that you can get a 100% chance that your Chickens will give you Large Eggs if you manage to get a high enough friendship and Mood with them.
If you manage to get all 5 hearts with a Chicken (1,000 points), you will have an 83% chance, even with 0 Mood, to get a Large Egg the next day.
However, it is almost impossible to have maximum friendship with a Chicken if they are sad, as most things that lower Mood will also lower friendship.
Still, with maximum friendship and 200 Mood, you will have a guaranteed 100% chance of getting Large Eggs every day.
Factors that Influence Mood Positively
Here is a list of all the things that you can do to increase the Mood of your Chickens in Stardew Valley and to make them happy:
- Let them eat grass outside (Increases Mood to 255)
- Pet them (+32 Mood)
- If they have Mood over 150 and it is Winter, keep them closed inside the Coop with a Heater (+4 to +8 Mood every 10 in-game minutes)
- Feed them (+4 Mood)
- If they have Mood below 150, keep them outside after 6 PM (+4 to +8 Mood every 10 in-game minutes)
As you can tell, eating grass outside is the most overpowered method to make your Chickens happy.
Once you will see the things that can negatively affect mood, you will realize that you should make sure that all your Chickens eat grass outside once, and then you should keep them locked in the Coop forever.
To make sure that your Chickens are happy in Stardew Valley, you just have to be patient. You just need to feed and pet them every day and make sure that you don’t make stupid mistakes, like locking your Chickens outside at night.
As long as you are patient, you should be able to get their Mood and friendship to the maximum level, allowing you to get Large Eggs almost every day.
Factors that Influence Mood Negatively
Here is everything that you can do to lower the Mood of all of your Chickens. Avoid these things to keep them happy:
- Let them outside in the rain or during Winter (-4 to -8 Mood every 10 in-game minutes)
- Let them outside past 7 PM (-4 to -8 Mood every 10 in-game minutes)
- Let them sleep outside (Lose half of their current Mood)
- Don’t pet them (-20 Mood)
- Don’t feed them (-100 Mood)
Usually, it is very hard to meet some of these criteria. Chickens will head inside their Coop at 6 PM every day. The only way you can cause one of them to suffer from these effects is if you close their Coop door before they all go inside.
This is why you should place a fence around the area where your Chickens will go outside, as this way they will always reach the Coop in time.
You don’t even have to close their door when it rains the next day, as they won’t leave the Coop by themselves. The only way they can be outside in the rain is if you closed them out by mistake the previous day.
There is also almost no way to actually get an animal stuck outside during the Winter, as they never leave their Coop. The only way you can do this is if you trap them outside the night of Fall 28.
That’s everything you need to know about how to raise and take care of Chickens in Stardew Valley!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
