The Sims 4: Everything You Need to Know About Cows

The Sims 4: Cottage Living cam with a ton of new animals for your sims to care for and interact with, and make The Sims a genuinely more enjoyable experience because you can have your sims bonding with these little cuties.

One of the most sought after animals was the cow, and taking care of cows is a little complicated and there’s a lot to know to ensure that you keep your cow extra happy. So, let’s discuss everything you need to know about cows in The Sims 4.

How to Get Cows

The first thing you need to know if you want to start raising cows in The Sims 4, is what you need on your lot. You are going to want to purchase the Animal Shed object which can be found in Activities and Skills, or you can just go ahead and use the search bar to find it.

This item can house either a cow or a llama but only one animal at a time, they are also sold separately so you will need to click on the shed to purchase a cow once you have placed it on your sim’s lot.

How to Care for Cows

Your cows are going to spend the nights inside of their animal shed and will normal coming out at 6 o’clock in the morning and will return to their shed at 6 o’clock at night, so you’ll be able to hang around with and take care of your cows for 12 total hours in game each day.

The relationship your sim has with their cow actually impacts your sim’s ability to care for them, a cow who doesn’t love your sim and isn’t being well cared for will have a chance of just knocking over your sims milk bucket as they try to milk them which is a slight annoyance.

There are a few things you need to do to make sure your cows are happy is to keep the animal shed clean and stocked. You’ll want to stock the food in the shed all the time and make sure to keep the shed clean by choosing the clean action when it becomes available.

There are a few different things you can do by clicking on the cow as well, you’ll want to keep your cow clean by choosing the clean interaction. If you hover over your cow you will see their stats which shows how happy they are, how clean they are, and if they are okay with hunger and attention.

If you want to make sure your animal is well fed, you have the option of feeding them by hand as well. This isn’t necessary if your shed is full and stocked with food, however, it can give your a quick relationship increase that can be valuable in the long term.

Finally, you want to make sure you are spending quality time with your animals doing consistent interactions to make sure your relationship increases and your animal’s attention stays high. You can even unlock a cow tipping interaction when you have a high enough relationship with them (it’s not what you think).

Milking Your Cows

Every day in game you need to make sure you are milking your cow. This is important and is the only way to earn a consistent income from your cows, so you’ll definitely want to do this each day, plus your cows get annoyed if you don’t.

When you click on the milk interaction your sim will have a small stool appear and a bucket and will sit and get the job done and it’s quite cute! You will get the milk added directly into your sim’s inventory during this process.

There are even special kinds of milk that you can get from feeding your animals a few of the animal treats.

• Flirty Treat makes Strawberry Milk
• Chocolatey Treat makes Chocolate Milk
• Fruity Treat makes Enriched Milk
• Midnight Treat makes Obsidian Milk
• Golden Treat makes Golden Honey Milk
• Pumpkin Treat makes Pumpkin Spice Milk
• Rainbow Treat makes Rainbow Milk
• Spicy Treat makes Fire Milk
• Veggie Treat makes Might Plant Milk

Once you have milked your cows you have a decision to make, will you sell this milk for a profit or will you choose to put it in your sim’s fridge and use it for your own consumption?

Upgrading Your Cow Shed

With most things in The Sims 4, there are upgrades you can make to your cow shed to have a better experience in the game. The chicken coop has three upgrades, but the cow shed only has two. These upgrades require livestock upgrade parts which you can get from doing the errands for special sims like Agnes or the Mayor in Henford.

The first ugprade is called Livestock Auto-Feeder this is an incredible upgrade because it will keep your animal shed full of feed forever, without having to have your sims ever fill it so your animals can stay happy with less effort. This upgrade will cost you 6 of the livestock upgrade parts.

The other upgrade is the Comfort Care Life Extender which is a nice one if you get attached to things in the game (like me) and want your animals to live longer because it extends the life of your animals in this shed. This will cost you 3 livestock upgrade parts!

Trading Your Cows

If you no longer wish to have your cow (for whatever reason) you have the option of trading your animals for resources. This is under the actions menu when you click on either the animal shed or on the cow itself. There are a few options for trading your animals, including the following:

• Ingredients and Produce
• Animal Treats
• Simoleons
• Meat

When you trade these you won’t get the rewards immediately (except for simoleons) the rest will appear in your mail the next morning. Be careful because this is a permanent thing and you can’t get that specific animal back and will have to start from 0 with a new cow.

Animal Treats

There are a whole bunch of animal treats that you’ll encounter as you play through Cottage Living and each will have a different impact on your cows. Let’s go over what each one will do!

• Flirty Treat: Strawberry Milk
• Rainbow Treat: Rainbow Cow, Rainbow Milk
• Pumpkin Treat: Pumpkin Spice Milk
• Midnight Treat: Obsidian Milk
• Veggie Treat: Mighty Plant Milk
• Healthy Treat: Increases Cow’s Lifespan
• Friendly Treat: Increases Your Relationship With The Cow
• Golden Treat: Golden Honey Milk
• Spicy Treat: Fire Milk
• Animal Party Treat: Fills Up Your Cow’s Social Motive
• Chocolatey Treat: Chocolate Milk
• Fruity Treat: Enriched Milk
• Fishy Protein Treat: Increases Milk Yield at Next Milking

These treats are fun to hunt down (you can get them at the garden stall or by doing errands for your villagers) and are a fun aspect of raising these animals and can change up your yield which is always a good time.

The End of a Cow’s Life

Just like most things in life, cows in The Sims 4 don’t last forever. They are on a life span and they will pass on and be taken by Grim. When this happens Grim will appear and give your cow a hug (a very wholesome death) and take them away, be sure to give them extra hugs when they’re an elder because their days are numbered.

Final Thoughts

Cows are a really fun addition to The Sims 4 and will make the game so much more full for so many players, hopefully we continue to get fun gameplay aspects like cows and chickens in The Sims 4 in the coming months. Happy playing!