Stardew Valley is a beloved farming sim that’s near and dear to us all. While many players stick
to farming as their main source of income, there are many other ways to earn money quickly
and easily. Barns for instance are a fun and simple way to bring in more income aside from just
farming.
What are Barns?
Barns in Stardew Valley are a type of farm building that allow players to purchase and take care
of barn-dwelling animals. They can be purchased from Robin at the Carpenters Shop, located
North of town. While building a barn may seem quite simple and straightforward, there is a bit of
prep you need to do before you will be ready to make your first barn.
Barn Prep
These four simple steps will help you prepare yourself and your farm for your first-ever barn in
Stardew Valley!
- Gather Resources – All farm buildings in Stardew Valley require resources in order to construct them. In order to build a barn you need to provide at least 350 wood and 150 stone to Robin. Players can easily gather wood from their farm and stone from the mines or the quarry. If for some reason you decide that you don’t want to chop trees or mine, you can purchase both materials from Robin before building your barn.
- Wood will cost 10g each in year 1 and then 50g each in any year after.
- Stone will cost 20g each in year 1 and 100g each afterwards.
- Make Money – Barns aren’t cheap, not only do barns require tons of wood and stone but they also require 6,000g minimum to construct plus the cost of the barn animal you want to buy. This may sound like a lot for new players but Stardew Valley offers tons of unique ways to make money quick. Farming, mining, fishing, and foraging are all great ways to make more than enough gold in no time at all.
- Clear Land – One of the final steps you need to take before building your first barn in Stardew Valley is making sure you have the space for it. Each barn takes up a 7×4 plot of land on your farm, keep that in mind when deciding on where you want to place it. Farm buildings can’t be placed on land that has any debris at all so make sure that you clear out all rocks, grass, and wood before you try to build the barn.
- Build a Silo (Optional) – This step is totally optional but I recommend building a Silo well before you start gathering resources for your barn. Silos are farm buildings that can be purchased from Robin for 100g, 100 stone, 10 clay, and 5 copper bars. Each silo you build stores up to 240 pieces of hay and allows players to turn grass into hay. Hay is vital in keeping and caring for farm animals as each animal requires a single piece of hay daily to eat. This may not sound like much but it adds up when you have a full barn of animals.
Types of Barns.
There are three types of barns available in Stardew Valley; the barn, the big barn, and the
deluxe barn. Each type of barn comes equipped with its own special features and additions that
will aid you in your farming endeavors.
Barn
The simplest and cheapest barn in the game is the basic barn which can be purchased from
Robin for 6,000g, 350 wood, and 150 stone. It will take three days to construct this barn, but
once it’s built it can hold up to 4 animals and adds the ability to purchase cows from Marnie for
1,500g. This barn comes with the Hay Hopper and Feeding Bench as its special features.
Big Barn
The big barn is the first of two barn upgrades offered by Robin. This upgrade costs 12,000g, 450
wood, and 200 stone. Unlike the basic barn, Robin will only take two days to construct this
upgrade for you. This upgrade comes with the Hay Hopper, the Feeding Bench and it enables pregnancies. This will allow baby barn animals to be born if you have an empty space in the barn. Not only that but it allows you to purchase goats from Marnie for 4,000g.
Deluxe Barn
The deluxe barn upgrade is the final and best type of barn the player can own. This upgrade
can be purchased from Robin at the Carpenters shop for a whopping 25,000g as well as 550
wood, and 300 stone. Similar to the big barn upgrade this barn also takes just two days to
construct. Not only that but the animal capacity is increased from 8 to 12 and adds the ability to
purchase pigs and sheep from Marnie for 16,000g and 8,000g respectively. This upgrade
includes all the previous features, with the addition of the Autofeed System which fills the
feeding bench every morning making sure that no animal goes hungry.
That explanation may be confusing for a first-time player of Stardew so I have created a small
and simple chart below for your convenience.
| Barn | Big Barn | Deluxe Barn | |
| Image |  |  |  |
| Cost | 6,000g | 12,000g | 25,000g |
| Material Cost | 350 Wood  150 Stone  | 450 Wood 200 Stone | 550 Wood 300 Stone |
| Animal Unlock |  Cow |  Goat |  Sheep Pig |
Barn Placement
Now that you have the materials ready all you need to do is build your barn. To construct the
barn head to the North of town and visit Robins shop, once inside you will be able to speak with
her to purchase the barn. Scrolling to the barn and selecting the construct farm building option
will prompt you to place your barn on your farm, it should look like the image below.
As discussed earlier the barn needs a clear space to be placed, in the image above there is
simply no space to place the building. Note that there are three red squares in the overall green
barn space, Stardew Valley will not allow players to put any farm buildings down unless the entire area
appears to glow green.
Barn management
Now that you’ve found the space for your barn and had Robin build it for you, there is just a few
steps left to make your barn fully functional.
Purchasing animals is the next big step in having a working barn in Stardew Valley. Animals can
be purchased from Marnies Ranch directly south of the players farm. We’ve briefly discussed
the animals already but here is a quick rundown once again. Barn-dwelling animals include; cows
which Marnie sells for 1,500g, goats which she sells for 4,000g, and Sheep which are sold for
8,000g, and Pigs which sell for 16,000g (note: ostriches are only obtainable after reaching
Ginger Island). While cows can be placed in the base level barn, goats require the Big Barn
upgrade and both the sheep and the pigs require the Deluxe Barn Upgrade in order to purchase
them.
Taking Care of Animals
Now that you have your animal of choice in the barn, it’s not all fun and games. All animals
require food and love in order for your friendship and production to increase. Affection in
Stardew Valley is quite simple, every day simply go up to the animals and click on them. After clicking a short petting animation should play and hearts should appear above their head if they are happy. If they are unhappy then there will be squiggles indicating their mood instead of hearts.
Animal moods are important as it affects the quality of the product that they make.
Keeping your animals happy is a two-part effort, step one has already been discussed, pet your
animals daily. Step two is a little more work, but to put it simply, feed your animals every day.
Each animal in a barn requires one hay daily to be considered happy and fully fed. Hay can be
purchased from Marnie for 50g each or farmed by planting Wheat in the summer or fall. If you
built a silo however there is a third and much easier way of obtaining hay. Silos allow players to
turn grass that they cut into hay to feed their animals. No matter what way you obtain hay it’s
important to always remember to feed your animals.
Another way to make your animals happier is to let them roam the farm. Barns can be opened
by clicking on the large barn door next to the player door, this allows for any animals inside to start roaming around freely. Don’t let your animals wander far though, if they get locked out of the
barn at night there is a chance that they get attacked. Attacked animals are “removed” from the
game and an animal attack will cause all the animals in that barn to have a decreased mood for
a short time afterwards. This is where fences come in handy, fences are a simple way to keep
farm animals close to their respective buildings in order to make sure they all get back inside
before night comes. While fences aren’t required in keeping animals, they help stop your farm
animals from meeting an untimely “removal”. For more information about your animals friendship and mood levels, check out this other article that goes into more detail!
There you have it, a complete rundown of all things barn related in Stardew Valley. I have
always found barns to be an underrated part of the game as many players tend to stick to
farming for their main source of income. Remember though that Stardew Valley is a game with so
many ways to make money it’s a loss to simply treat it as a basic farming sim. Explore the map,
go mining, find secrets, or just take a break from farming and spend time with your cows. In the
end, Stardew Valley is a game that’s shaped by you, so spend your time how you want.
