Learn how to care for your large farm friends; cows and llamas!
Presented by EA Game Changers
Looking for help with caring for your Sims 4 cows and llamas? You’re in the right place! In The Sims 4 Cottage Living, your Sims can own a wide variety of animals, including llamas, cows, and chickens! These animals will provide your Sims with high quality products they can use in cooking, cross-stitching, and more as long as you keep them healthy and happy.
Read on to learn how to take the best care of your new animal friends!
Table of Contents
Caring for The Sims 4 Cows and Llamas
There’s more to making the most of your Sims 4 cows and llamas than just feeding and brushing them. They need a clean place to live, lots of love, and for the most ambitious ranchers, they also enjoy a range of animal treats and being dressed in stylish clothes! Oh, and they definitely appreciate some upgrades to their sheds, too.
Animal Sheds
To obtain Sims 4 cows or llamas, you must first purchase an Animal Shed from Build/Buy, or purchase a lot with an Animal Shed already on it. Each shed only houses one animal, but there is no limit to the number of sheds you can have on your property. If you want multiple cows and llamas, you will need to have a shed for each individual animal.
Once placed, you can click on the shed to purchase either a cow or a llama to inhabit it. You can choose between two types of Sims 4 cows (brown and spotted) and two types of llamas (white and beige). Other colours can be obtained through feeding your cows and llamas animal treats.
Animal Sheds have to be cleaned regularly and stocked with feed for the animal living in it. You can see your shed’s status by hovering over it with your cursor. When the animal shed is dirty or needs more feed, make sure you clean it and refill the feed so your animal will stay happy and healthy.
Animal Sheds can also be upgraded to require less maintenance. Sims can install an auto-feeder in their sheds to ensure their animal always has enough to eat even if you forget to restock the feed. They can also install an upgrade that makes the animal more relaxed, leading to a longer lifespan. Animal Shed upgrades require a new type of upgrade part, called Livestock Upgrade Parts. Sims can obtain Livestock Upgrade Parts by running errands for Sims in Henford-on-Bagley.
ComfortCare Life Extender
- Description: This upgrade extends the lifespan of the animal living in the shed.
- Requires: 3 Livestock Upgrade Parts
Livestock Auto-Feeder
- Description: This upgrade keeps the feed in the shed full forever! Your Sims never need to refill the feed again!
- Requires: 6 Livestock Upgrade Parts
Taking Care of Your Sims 4 Cows & Llamas
There are two types of Sims 4 cows you can purchase for an animal shed; one traditional black and white spotted cow and one brown and white cow. Both types of cow only give normal milk but will produce other kinds of milk if given specific animal treats. For more information about animal treats, see our guide, The Sims 4 Cottage Living: All About Animal Treats. Milk can be used in cooking recipes and given as gifts to wild animals. It can also be useful in running village errands and be entered into the Finchwick Fair.
For llamas, there are white and beige llamas you can purchase for your shed. White llamas give white wool and beige llamas give beige wool, but more colours of wool can be sheared from them if you give them specific kinds of animal treats. Llama wool can be used for cross-stitching, wild animal gifts, and given to the Creature Caretaker in exchange for animal clothes to dress your animals in. For more information about dressing your animals, see our guide, The Sims 4 Cottage Living: All About Animal Clothes! Wool can also be useful in running village errands and be entered into the Finchwick Fair.
Sims 4 cows and llamas need to be kept clean, full, and happy in order to give the highest quality produce. You can view your animal’s stats by hovering over them with your cursor.
- Age: This tells you how old your animal is. You cannot breed your cows and llamas; there are no baby cows or llamas. Only Young Adult and older animals, but this will tell you how close your animal is to passing from old age.
- Happiness: This is a cumulative stat that takes into account both the shed’s condition and the animal’s condition. Keep both the shed and the animal clean. Restock the shed’s feed and socialise with the animal often to keep the animal happy.
- Hygiene: If your animal is dirty, it will be obvious. They will be covered in dirt. Dirty animals become unhappy very quickly so make sure to keep your animal clean. They will usually need to be cleaned at least once a day.
- Hunger: This shouldn’t be a problem if you keep the shed’s feed well-stocked but you can also feed your animal by hand for an extra relationship boost. Hungry animals are grumpy animals so don’t forget to feed them.
- Attention: Socialise with your animal to keep its attention need satisfied. Hugging, petting, and talking to your animal daily will build relationship and keep them from getting lonely.
- Next Harvest: This tells you what you can expect to receive from your animal the next time you milk or shear it. Cows will typically produce Normal Milk and llamas will produce either white or beige wool depending on their natural colour but feeding them different treats can cause them to produce different types of specialty milks and different colours of wool.
Depending on your relationship with your animal and what mood they are in, they might not be so receptive to being milked or sheared. Sims 4 cows will sometimes kick your bucket of milk over and llamas may bite the clippers out of your hands and toss them. Hugging and petting can also sometimes fail. Llamas in particular are fond of spitting in your Sim’s face if they aren’t in the mood to be hugged. Happy animals who have a high relationship with your Sim will do these things less frequently.
Sims 4 cows and llamas do have a lifespan and will eventually grow old and die. When this happens, the Grim Reaper will come and give the animal a hug before escorting it to the afterlife. There are treats and shed upgrades that can extend your animal’s lifespan but if the idea of ever having to say goodbye to your animal friends is too sad for you, you can disable animal aging in the Game Options.
Animals can be called in and out of their sheds but this isn’t typically necessary. Unless something prevents them from doing so, Sims 4 cows and llamas will go into their sheds for the night at around 6pm all on their own and come back out in the morning at around 6am.
Trading Your Animals
If your farm is struggling to make ends meet or if you’re just looking to downsize the number of animals you have, you can trade in your animals for various rewards. If you click on a cow or llama and select the Actions option, you’ll see a Trade For option in the pie menu.
You can trade your animals for simoleons, animal treats, ingredients and produce and even… meat. Yes, you can send your beloved Sims 4 cows and llamas off to be slaughtered in exchange for their delicious meat. It’s not something I would ever have the heart to do, but hey, if your Sim’s really gotta eat… I’m just saying it’s an option.
Make sure you really want to get rid of that animal because once you trade it, it’s gone forever. If you want another animal, you’ll have to click on an empty shed again to purchase a new one.
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