Stardew Valley is an absolutely wonderful and extremely fun farming simulator and of course animals are a huge part of the entire experience. However, the animal experience in the game isn’t perfect and there are a lot of ways it can be improved by either making it easier or harder. This list of mods includes ideas for making farming more fun or just changing the look of your barn and coop animals.
1. A Bonafide Special Blue Chicken
Our first mod one this list is a wild one and makes your blue chickens way more interesting than the rest of your boring regular coloured chickens. The Bonafide Special Blue Chicken Mod makes it so your blue chickens actually drop pearls which are actually pretty hard to get in Stardew Valley.
An important thing to know about this is that you are going to need to befriend Shane to learn about and be able to purchase blue chickens, gift him some beer or peppers and he’s an easy friend to complete in your first two seasons in game. You also need to have at least 3 hearts with these chickens to get the pearl drop!
2. Animals Die
Did you know in Stardew Valley you can just not feed your animals for months and they’ll stay alive? Yup. There is no death mechanic for animals in the game and the Animals Die mod changes that entirely and makes it so much more challenging to keep your animals going.
They don’t just die from being hungry either, your animals can die from both old age and illness which really adds a level of challenge and realism to your play through of Stardew. You can even pair this with animals need water and have them die from dehydration!
3. Animals Don’t Eat Grass
Making sure your animals stay fed is a very annoying task in the game, but grass is the best way to keep them going in the non-winter months. However, they just eat up ALL the grass so quickly especially if you have tons of animals on your farm.
The animals don’t eat grass mod will make it so that as long as you have grass outside near your animals, they will be fed without actually consuming the grass. It’s like the grass is growing back immediately when they eat it but they don’t actually eat it.
4. Animals Need Water
Many players have a huge problem with the fact that animals don’t need water to be happy. Like, what kind of animals just need hay or grass and that’s fine? Well, the animals need water mod makes it so you need t also make sure your animals have access to water to keep your relationship up.
This mod takes those trough inside of your barns and coops and makes it functional so your animals drink it and need this to stay happy. You can also make sure they are hydrated by making sure they have access to some sort of outdoor body of water.
5. Be Rich With Animals
Something that happens in Stardew is that for many players the emphasis on raising animals decreases because making other artisan goods will really make you earn income more quickly, especially if you can make ancient fruit wine. The be rich with animals mod is awesome because it makes it so much easier for you to earn an income with your animals.
One big part of this mod is that they make it so your eggs produce way more mayonnaise so you can earn more than double the money. Milk will produce 2 cheese as a regular size and large milks can produce up to 5. This will seriously change how much money you can earn!
6. Better Pigs and Recolours
A very popular mod type for Stardew Valley’s animals is mods that change the way that animals look. There are tons of players who think that the animals in the vanilla game are too grumpy looking and honestly these pigs are very lumps and a big weird to look at. It seems the longer you look at the vanilla pig, the weirder looking it is. This simple better pigs and recolours mod changes the level of grumpy the pig looks and gets rid of the lumps in the side view and makes the butt a little smoother.
7. Better Ranching
A serious annoyance in Stardew is never knowing if you’ve milked or pet an animal yet and the better ranching mod will give you indicator bubbles above the animals to show you who needs love. This will make you run through your barns and coops so much quicker and not accidentally go back and have to re-do a milking that was already done.
Another giant annoyance you may have before getting your hands on an auto-grabber is the failed attempts at both milking goats/cows or shearing your sheep and this mod adds warnings letting you know that things failed so you can get things done quicker without missing an animal.
8. Cuter, Fatter Cows
The cows in Stardew Valley are cute, but they just aren’t cute enough. The Cuter, Fatter Cows Mod is absolutely beautiful and makes these cows be a gorgeous little chonk monster. These cows have a larger face, a large bottom and just a rounder look. In addition to this they added some cute colouring and making the cows so much more fun to look at.
9. Dino Velociraptor Reskin
One of the most fun artifacts you can find in Stardew is a dinosaur egg which can be incubated and turned into an actual dinosaur who will make dinosaur mayonnaise each day inside of your coop. But what if that dinosaur was a velociraptor instead? This mod is incredible because it changes the look of the dinosaur egg animal into a cute colourful velociraptor. 8 colours of a gorgeous dinosaur available!
10. Easy Petting
The Easy Petting Mod makes it so much easier for you to see who has been pet and who still needs love. This mod will add small dialogue bubbles above the animals on your farm, this includes your coop animals, barn animals and your cat or dog.
There’s not much more annoying then accidentally clicking on an animal that you’ve already pet without knowing which ones have been pet properly. Plus, these are so adorable and the heart in the dialogue bubble is so cute!
11. Elle’s New Barn Animals
A very popular creator for Stardew animal mods is Elle who created more than one mod on this list. The first of Elle’s mods is the new barn animals mod that changes the vibe of the vibe of your chickens, sheep, goats and pigs and makes them genuinely so much cuter.
Elle even adds new animals like a deer and an alpaca that you can get to really mix up the kinds of animals you have in your barn. Plus, there’s a bunch of skins for each of them so there are a ton of colours for you to enjoy!
12. Elle’s New Coop Animals
Our next mod follows the same idea as New Barn Animals and changes up the look of all animals in your coop. This applies to the chickens, ducks, rabbits and dinosaurs and makes them so darn cute. With this mod you’ll get over 20 skins for your chickens, 7 for ducks, over 20 for rabbits and 6 for dinosaurs giving you a ton of options to make them cuter.
13. Elle’s Town Animals
When you’re walking around Stardew Valley you’ll often see really adorable animals just moving around the world like butterflies, seagulls, and woodpeckers but the vanilla game animals just aren’t cute enough. Using Elle’s Town Animals will completely redo how these animals look and honestly make them so fluffy and adorable looking. This won’t do a
14. Gender-Neutral Farm Animals
If you get annoyed that all of your animals are gendered in Stardew Valley, the Gender-Neutral Farm Animals Mod is for you. This mod changes all of the she/he and him/her language when speaking about your animals to they and them pronouns as to not gender them and let you have little non-binary animals in your farm.
15. Harvest Moon Animals
Did you know that Harvest Moon was a big inspiration for Stardew Valley? If you’re a huge Harvest Moon fan you may want to change out your animals for the ones that look a bit more like the ones from Harvest Moon for a bit of nostalgia and you can do that with the Harvest Moon Animals Mod.
This mod applies to your cows in the barn, chickens in the coop and if you choose a dog in the game it applies to your dog as well.
16. Holiday Animals
Have you ever been playing Stardew during the holidays and just wished that you could have animals look a bit more festive? The Holiday Animals Mod adds some really cute holiday decor for your animals that will bring you right into the spirit.
This applies to any animals that live in either the barn or the coop and will add things like Santa hats, reindeer ears, lights or a cut bow on the bottom. They are genuinely so cute and make your animals feel so adorable and festive.
17. Instant Animals
We all know that Marnie is a flake and spends more time with Lewis than she does at work, so it can be hard for you to get your baby animals into your barn since she’s never working. With the Instant Animals Mod you can get animals into your barns and coops with just a few clicks instead of having to travel.
18. K’s Goat Replacers
Let’s all be honest here, the goats in vanilla Stardew Valley aren’t really the cutest animals in the world. The K’s Goat Replacer Mod will change the vibe of your goats that you get from Marnie and make them have a more adorable face and a cuter tail for sure.
This modder has already also created the same mod for the other animals in your barn including your cows as well as your pigs and finally your sheep.
19. More Animals
There are dozens of dog and cat breeds out there but in the game you only get to choose one of three options and that just isn’t enough. The More Animals mod adds some new variations of cats and dogs for you to download and add to your game. This makes the moment when Marnie comes over and tries to give you an animal so much more exciting.
20. More Barn and Coop Animals
Do you ever play Stardew and just wish you could have more animals in your barn or coop? 12 just doesn’t seem like enough if you really want to make a great income in your game. Using the More Barn and Coop Animals Mod will allow you to have four more animals in both your coops and barns and help you to earn a bigger income.
This is a really great mod because it can open up four more slots for PIGS so you can make a bunch more money from iridium truffles in non-winter months, a serious and beautiful money maker without having to add more barns to your farm and waste space.
21. Pastel Animals
If you aren’t really into the realistic colours and vibes of the animals in the game and want your farms to be more adorable then the Pastel Animals Mod is a perfect one for you. This mod adds options for purple, pink, blue and even an albino/ghost option for your animals. They end up being so cute and making the game much more fun just by changing up some colours.
22. Pokemon Animals
Do you ever open up Stardew and wish you could have some Pokemon characters inside this game? Well, you aren’t the only one to the point where a Pokemon Animals Mod has been released for the game that changes an animal to be a cute pokemon character just for the fun of it. This may not effect your income or do much, but darn it is fun.
23. Qute Animals
Our next mod is an animal replacement mod and is genuinely so adorable. If you want your animals to have adorable happy expressions and big chunky bodies you need the Qute Animals Mod. This will replace your barn animals with these adorably round and colourful animals that just look more vibrant and fun!
24. My Cuter Farm Animals
There are so many mods for you to download to change the look of your animals in Stardew Valley. My Cuter Farm Animals Mod changes all of the animals in both the barn and the coop to look a bit more muted in colour and changes the vibe of their look.
This mod also makes the sheep look so much fluffier and adds a really fun and adorable set of hair to the goats to make them look so adorable and gives them more personality than the vanilla animals.
25. SH’s Wild Animals
When you’re walking around in Pelican Town you’ll find that any wild animals you encounter will scurry away the second you get close making it sad that you don’t get to just vibe with them. This SH’s Wild Animals Mod is awesome because it adds different types of animals and a whole system where they will appear in different areas at different times of the day and in different seasons.
This definitely won’t change your gameplay, but it will change the vibe of the town and make it feel more adorable and dynamic. There are actually dozens of animals you’ll see including deers, ducks, foxes, hedgehogs and so many more.
27. Treat Your Animals
A very large part about earning relationships in Stardew Valley is gifting other people things to earn more hearts. Well, why doesn’t it work like that with your animals? You can now give your animals objects as gifts which is so fun!
There is even a whole poisonous foods system where animals will lose relationship if you give them stuff like chocolate cake. This can increase your friendship with these animals and being able to treat your animals like you do with the villagers is so darn fun and realistic.
28. Trent’s New Animals
Are you sick of the same few animals in your barns and coops each day and are looking for new animals to hangout with? Well, Trent’s New Animals is going to add some really fun animals for you to have in your barns and coops that can be purchased from Marnie.
This mod adds animals such as a silkworm, armadillo, peacocks, moles and more and can turn their output into things like cloth and cheese to earn an income.
Final Thoughts
Adding these animal mods to your game is so wonderful to really change up how you play and interact with your animals and can just improve your animal experience past year one. Happy playing!
