For a well-rounded farmer, crops are only half the battle. Sure, you can make plenty of money with them, but nothing adds character to your farm like having some livestock. If you want to start working with chickens, here’s a rundown of the coops in Stardew Valley and their upgrades.
How Do You Get a Chicken Coop in Stardew Valley?
In order to get a chicken coop, you’ll have to go to Robin and have her build you one, the same as any other farm building. She will also be the one you want to go to when you need upgrades for your buildings, which is convenient. You can buy a standard coop from Robin for 4000 Gold, but you’ll also need to give her 300 wood and 100 stone to cover the materials.
Once you have a coop, you’ll be able to take care of four chickens with its built-in hay hopper and feeding bench for you to place the hay into. You won’t be able to keep any other animals in the regular coop, and it doesn’t have anything to hatch eggs or feed your chickens automatically, but it serves as a starting point as you increase your earnings.
You can also keep various objects in the coop, like chests, mayonnaise machines, or furniture, but the most essential thing to have placed is a heater. This will ensure that your animals stay happy throughout the colder days of winter when they can’t go outside and roam. It doesn’t take up much space and only costs 2000 gold from Marnie, so it’s a must for your poultry and livestock.
How Do You Upgrade Your Chicken Coop?
If you’re looking to upgrade your chicken coops, you need to go in the order of when they became available. You can upgrade a regular coop into a big coop, and from there, you can upgrade to a deluxe coop. They all conveniently take up the same amount of space, so as you upgrade, you only need to worry about moving the building if you really want to.
When you upgrade from a regular coop to a big coop, you’ll have the space to take care of 8 animals instead of 4, and you’ll also get an incubator with the coop so you can hatch eggs into baby animals. The incubator will take almost six days to hatch any egg you put in it, except for a dinosaur egg, which will take a little over 11 days. The big coop will cost you 10,000 gold, 400 wood, and 150 stone to build.
Once you’ve decided it’s time for something bigger, you can go from a big coop to a deluxe coop, which will once again increase your capacity for animals by four, from eight to 12 animals max. It’ll cost you 20,000 gold, 500 wood, and 200 stone, but for the price, you’ll get the incubator and an Autofeed system so that you don’t have to take the time to individually place down the hay for your animals.
What Animals Can You Raise in a Coop?
As you can infer from the name, the main animals that you can raise in a coop are chickens, which are the only animals you can raise in a standard coop. However, as you continue to upgrade your farm and coops, you’ll be able to raise a more diverse menagerie and get more back from your investment.
Once you’ve unlocked and built the big coop, you’ll be able to take care of any animals that will hatch out of an egg. That includes chickens, golden chickens, void chickens, ducks, and—believe it or not—dinosaurs. As long as you can hatch the eggs in an incubator, you’ll be able to raise them in a big coop.
When you unlock the deluxe coop, you’ll be able to add one more animal to the collection, but they don’t grow in eggs. You’ll be able to purchase rabbits from Marnie, allowing you to “harvest” a rabbit’s foot occasionally, which you’ll need for the community center. If you dig up a dinosaur egg, you can also place that into the incubator and have your own little Jurassic Park.
That’s about it for chicken coops in Stardew Valley. They’re a great way to pad your income as the years go on, especially during the winter months when there’s not much to grow. For more Stardew guides like how to use solar essence or solar panels, be sure to keep checking back here.
