How To Get A Coop in Stardew Valley

By Ambar Jimenez | 2025-04-25 17:47:39

Learn how to get a coop in Stardew Valley with our step-by-step guide. Build your farm and raise chickens for fresh eggs today!
A chicken coop is often the savvy farmer's first major investment in Stardew Valley, offering a more affordable entry into animal husbandry compared to a barn. Once you've built your coop, a multitude of methods exist to transform your feathered friends into a reliable source of income, paving the way for lucrative upgrades and an ever-expanding cycle of profit.

Stardew Valley: How To Get A Coop

How To Get A Coop: Your First Poultry Palace

Stardew Valley provides you with a couple of initial pathways to acquiring your first coop:

Buying from Robin's Carpenter's Shop: Located north of Pelican Town, Robin's shop is your go-to for farm buildings and upgrades. It's typically open from 9 AM to 5 PM. Purchasing the initial Chicken Coop will cost you 4,000 gold, along with 300 wood and 100 stone. Early game, wood is readily obtained by chopping down trees and branches with your axe, while stone can be gathered through mining with your pickaxe. This initial coop can house a maximum of four chickens. Don't fret, larger and more advanced coops become available later!
Choosing a Suitable Farm: While less direct, certain farm maps might offer a pre-built coop as part of their layout. However, the standard method is purchasing from Robin.

Utilizing The Regular Coop: Egg-cellent Beginnings

Once your coop is erected, the next crucial step is populating it! Chickens can be purchased from Marnie's Ranch for 800 gold each. These clucky companions require regular care. Ensure you have a sufficient supply of hay in your silos or provide them with an outdoor area where they can graze on grass (though grass won't grow during winter). Hay can be bought directly from Marnie or harvested by using your Scythe on grass (you'll need a silo to store harvested hay).Each happy chicken will lay one brown or white egg every morning, which can be sold for a base price of 50 gold each. Remember to pet your chickens daily to increase their friendship level. Higher friendship eventually leads to them producing large eggs, which fetch a significantly better price of 95 gold each.To truly maximize your egg profits, aim to acquire a Mayonnaise Machine. This invaluable piece of equipment transforms your regular eggs into mayonnaise, which sells for a whopping 190 gold – nearly four times the value of a standard egg! When considering cooking, it's generally more profitable to sell your eggs raw or as mayonnaise rather than using them in cooked meals to sell. Often, the selling price of a cooked dish is less than the combined value of its raw ingredients. For instance, an omelette sells for 125 gold and requires a milk and an egg, but milk alone already sells for 125 gold.

Upgrading The Coop: Expanding Your Poultry Empire

As your egg and mayonnaise sales accumulate, you'll eventually have thefunds to upgrade your initial chicken coop. This upgrade is highlydesirable as it unlocks the ability to house ducks and rabbits,accommodates a larger number of animals, and crucially, provides an incubator to hatch your own animals from eggs.

The Big Coop unlocks ducks and dinosaurs (which can only be hatched from a Dinosaur Egg, not bought), increases your animal capacity to eight, and includes an incubator.
The Deluxe Coop unlocks rabbits, features an auto-feed system (automating the hay distribution), and provides space for twelve animals.

Here are the material requirements for each upgrade:

Requirements For A Big Coop:

10,000 gold
400 wood
150 stone

Requirements For A Deluxe Coop:

20,000 gold
500 wood
200 stone

Getting Animals Other Than Regular Chickens: Diversifying Your Flock

With your coop upgraded, you gain the exciting opportunity to introduce newanimal species to your farm beyond the standard chicken. Some of thesecan be purchased, while others require more unconventional methods.

Void Chicken: This unique black chicken lays Void Eggs. They cannot be bought directly and can only be obtained by incubating a Void Egg. There are three ways to acquire a Void Egg without alreadyowning a Void Chicken:
- Purchase from Krobus in the Sewers for 5,000 gold.
- Purchase from the Traveling Cart on Fridays or Sundays for a price up to 1,200 gold.
- A random night event can occur where a witch flies over your coop and leaves behind a Void Egg.
Ducks: Ducks become available for purchase at Marnie's Ranch for 4,000 gold once you've upgraded to the Big Coop.
Rabbits: Rabbits can be purchased from Marnie's Ranch for 8,000 gold after upgrading to the Deluxe Coop.
Dinosaurs: Similar to Void Chickens, a Dinosaur must be obtained by hatching a Dinosaur Egg. The Dinosaur Egg is both an artifact and an animal product. You can find it by:
- Digging up artifact spots in the Mountains.
- Opening fishing treasure chests.
- Foraging on prehistoric floors of the Skull Cavern.
- Winning the Crane Game in the Movie Theater.
- As a rare drop from a Pepper Rex in the Skull Cavern.Once you acquire a Dinosaur Egg, simply place it in your coop's incubator to hatch a baby dinosaur!

How To Profit With Gold: The Artisan Advantage

To truly maximize your coop's profitability, consider your farming skill progression. At farming level five, choose the Tiller profession. Then, at farming level ten, select the Artisan skill. This powerful skill boosts the selling price of all artisan goods (including your precious mayonnaise) by a significant 40 percent.

Assuming you achieve maximum affection with all your coop animals and have theArtisan perk, here's a breakdown of the potential daily profits peranimal:

Animal	Product	Base Sell Price	Artisan Sell Price	Daily Production	Potential Daily Profit (Artisan)
Chicken	Egg	50g	70g	1	70g (196g as Mayo)
Large Egg	Large Egg	95g	133g	1 (eventually)	133g (266g as Large Mayo)
Void Chicken	Void Egg	65g	91g	1	91g (266g as Void Mayo)
Duck	Duck Egg	95g	133g	~1 every 2 days	~66.5g (392g as Duck Mayo)
Rabbit	Wool	340g	476g	~1 every 3 days	~158.7g
Dinosaur	Dinosaur Egg	350g	490g	~1 every 7 days	~70g

Based on this data, chickens, when their eggs are processed into mayonnaise by an Artisan farmer,emerge as the most consistently profitable coop animals due to theirdaily production. While other products like Wool and DinosaurEggs sell for more individually, their less frequent production ratemakes chickens the reliable income generators. Therefore, the mostprofitable coop setup is often one filled with well-loved chickenstended by a farmer with the Artisan profession.

How To Profit With Gifts: Feathered Friendships

Beyond selling their products, some Stardew Valley residents have a fondnessfor items produced by your coop animals, making them valuable gifts forincreasing friendship. Here are some characters to keep in mind:

Characters that Like (plus 45 affection) coop products:

(None specifically listed in the provided text)

Characters that Love (plus 80 affection) coop products:

Character	Product
Sebastian	Void Eggs
Krobus	Void Eggs and Void Mayo
Elliot	Duck Feathers
Leo	Duck Feathers
Emily	Wool

By strategically managing your coop, investing in upgrades, and leveraging the Artisan profession, you can transform your initial poultry ventureinto a significant cornerstone of your Stardew Valley farm's success.Happy farming!

Tags: Farming simulator, Harvest Moon, Indie game, Pixel art, Crops and livestock, Stardew Valley mods, Pelican Town,

Platform(s): Microsoft Windows PC, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4 PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Android

Genre(s): Simulation, role-playing

Developer(s): ConcernedApe

Publisher(s): Chucklefish Games

Mode: Single-player, multiplayer

Age rating (PEGI): 7+

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