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Cows in Stardew Valley
A farming game such as Stardew Valley would not be complete without animals to raise and later on, gather products from. Cows are one of the many animals you can take care of in Stardew Valley.
Needless to say, cows in Stardew Valley do not fall from the sky; instead, they are purchased from Marnie’s Ranch which is located in the northeast area of Cindersap Forest. Located near the southeast entrance to Pelican Town. Marnie sells each cow for 1,500 gold and upon availing, there is a 50% chance for you to get either a brown or white cow (don’t worry, the milk is the same no matter what the cow’s color).
However, before planning to buy a cow, here’s a reminder. You should have built atleast a regular-sized barn where your cow would take shelter. It is also worth noting that cows in Stardew Valley can’t be milked immediately since they are just cattle when bought and still aren’t fit to produce milk. Therefore, you have to feed them every day and after five nights, they will mature and finally be able to produce milk.
How to Milk Cows in Stardew Valley
Mature and well-fed cows in Stardew Valley are able to produce milk every day but, in order to collect their milk, you would need another piece of merchandise from Marnie’s Ranch–the Milk Pail which is sold for 1,000 gold.
With the accumulated interactions and extra attention paid to your cows, you can easily reach a particular friendship and happiness level with your cow for it to be able to produce Large Milk. Aside from that, friendship and the mood of a cow affect the quality of milk produced which is why it is vital that you keep improving both. Such activities that could increase your friendship level with your cows are petting (especially when you have a Sheperd profession), letting them eat grass outside, and milking them. On the other hand, things that could set their mood also include petting, eating grass outside, and keeping them well-fed.
Also, milking cows may be performed manually or automatically.
Guide on Milking Cows
Manual
To manually milk your cows in Stardew Valley simply means to actually interact with the cow you’re about to milk. You just simply need to walk up to your cow, with the Milk Pail equipped. After that voila…you successfully milked your cow. As mentioned earlier, manually milking cows increases your friendship level by 5.
Automatic
Milking cows does sound like a not-so-tedious work, however, it would be a whole lot another story if you own a quite larger number of cows. It would be time-consuming, leaving you with less time to tend to other animals and do other activities set for the day. It is fortunate that an automatic milking method is available in Stardew Valley.
Once you reached a farming level of 10, Marnie will notify you through the mail that an Auto-Grabber is now available on her ranch. But, since it is quite a rare item, it will cost you 25,000 gold. Undeniably, it is expensive but it is a good investment since it will be a very helpful tool since it automatically collects all goods produced by the animals inside the barn where it is placed. To harvest the goods gathered by the Auto-Grabber, you simply need to walk up to it. The white color on the Auto-Grabber would tell you that it contains goods.
Uses of Cow Milk
Milk offers a wide variety of benefits. It could be sold, serve as replenishment and gifts, and used as an ingredient for some recipes.
Profit
Milk could be sold as is to make a profit. Its price varies depending on its quality. For regular milk, the prices are 125 gold, 156 gold, 187 gold, and 250 gold for regular, silver, gold, and iridium quality milk. The Large Milk given by cows in Stardew Valley is, of course, more valuable than the regular milk. Its price would increase to 190 gold, 237 gold, 285 gold, and 380 gold. With a Rancher Profession, there would be an additional 20% in its selling price.
If you are seeking to profit more from using milk, you can create cheese from the milk. Needless to say, Large Milk could be turned into a higher-quality cheese. Also, a Rancher Profession will increase its selling price by 20% and the Artisan Profession by 40%.
Regeneration Effect
Aside from making money with milk, milk can also be consumed to restore energy and health. Regular milk could restore 38 energy and 17 health, silver-quality milk replenishes 53 energy and 23 health, gold-quality milk regenerates 68 energy and 30 health, and lastly, iridium-quality milk helps regain 98 energy and 44 health.
Recipe
To further increase the energy and health regained upon consuming milk. Also, it could also be used to create other sumptuous foods with a higher energy and health restoration value.
Such foods that require milk are Artichoke Dip, Chowder, Complete Breakfast, Ice Cream, Lobster Bisque, Miner’s Treat, Omelet, Parsnip Soup, Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Soup, Rice Pudding, and Banana Pudding.
Gift
If you have too much milk in your inventory and wonder about where to best use it, gifting villages with milk is not a bad idea. However, you should still consider to whom you will gift milk since villagers have different preferences.
Those that would definitely be delighted to receive milk from you are Evelyn, Jodi, Leah, Linus, Marnie, Pam, Penny, Pierre, and Robin. On the other hand, Abigail, Alex, Caroline, Clint, Demetrius, Emily, George, Gus, Harvey, Jas, Krobus, Leo, Maru, Sam, Sandy, Sebastian, Shane, Vincent, and willy would just shrug a shoulder with you gifting them milk.
You have to be very careful not to give milk to Dwarf, Elliott, Haley, Lewis, and Wizard. They dislike it and be extremely cautious to giving milk to Kent since he hates it.
