Stardew Valley Animals: Profit, Products and Upgrades

Animals earn every day without replanting, but only if they are happy and you keep up with feeding and petting. What each one earns depends on its hearts, its mood and your professions, and the gap between the best and worst animal is huge.

At full hearts, selling raw, a Pig earns about 1,875g on a day it goes outside, a Cow about 330g, and a Duck about 122g. The calculator below shows the same for your own hearts, mood and machines.

Start here

1. Which animal to buy next? The Animal Profit Calculator ranks them all with payback days.
2. Saving up for a Deluxe Barn? Read Are Pigs Worth It?
3. Building your first barn or coop? Coop or Barn First? compares them.

Every animal at full hearts

This is the whole ranking in one table. "Processed" means the products are turned into artisan goods (cheese, mayonnaise, cloth, oil) by a player with the Artisan profession. Payback is how many days of processed production it takes to earn back the animal's price.

Two things stand out. The Pig is far ahead, but it only finds truffles on days it can go outside, so it earns nothing in winter or on rainy days. Chickens and Cows are the opposite: they pay for themselves fastest and earn every day, which makes them the safe first purchase.

Hearts change the Pig the most

A Pig's truffles per day depend heavily on how well you have treated it, from about 1.00 at no hearts to 3.0 at five. Sold raw, that is the difference between 625g and 1,875g a day, so a new Pig is a slow investment and a loved Pig is a very good one. Feed it, pet it, and let it outside whenever the weather allows.

What decides the number

• Hearts. An animal earns far less when you first buy it than at full friendship, so the first weeks are slower than any table shows. Petting and feeding every day is how it rises.
• Selling raw or processing. Processing needs machines (a Cheese Press, Mayonnaise Machine, Loom or Oil Maker) and the Artisan profession to reach the "Processed" column.
• Weather and season. Only truffle-finding animals depend on it, but for a Pig it is the biggest factor.
• Space. Each building holds a fixed number of animals, so the real question is often which animal fills a slot best.