Pigs are famously known as one of the biggest money makers in all of Stardew Valley. You’ve most likely already seen all of the videos online of just how lucrative they can be as players find ways to make thousands and thousands of gold every day. Not only do they look adorable with their wrinkles and snout, but are very skilled at finding truffles; a gourmet type of mushroom with a unique taste that can be made into profitable truffle oil with the help of certain professions. In this guide, the process of unlocking pigs, how they work, and how to best utilize them will be gone over. While earning them can prove to be quite an expensive grind, these little piggies will make up for that in a heartbeat!
How To Unlock Pigs
Pigs are available to purchase at Marnie’s Ranch after you have upgraded to have a deluxe barn. They cost 16,000g which seems intimidating, but considering how much truffles are worth, the future profits will make up for it. Try to save up to buy at least two or three pigs at once. If you have other animals on your farm already, make sure you keep turning your goat milk into goat cheese and duck eggs into mayonnaise to sell as well as other animal products to help rank up your funds!
How Do Pigs Work?
After you buy your cute piglets, be sure to take good care of them and keep them well-fed for bonus friendship points. A pig’s friendship level will affect how many truffles they can find in a day. At max friendship, there is a 66% chance that an extra truffle will be found!
Once your pigs reach adulthood, open up the little gate to your barn in order to let them out to graze. Make sure that there is plenty of space and free terrain with uncovered tiles. A pig has a 0.02% with every frame of ground to find a truffle, however, it is practically guaranteed that every adult pig will generate at least one truffle per day. That is if the pig is fed and it isn’t the Winter season or raining outside. If you fail to pick up all found truffles in a day, they will still be there the next morning. However, if any truffles are left out on the last day of any season, they will, unfortunately, be gone the next day, so be sure not to miss out on any potential gold!
| Image | Name | Sell Price | Sell Price w/Artisan (+40%) |
 | Truffle | 625g 781g  937g  1,250g  | __ |
 | Truffle Oil | 1,065g | 1,491g |
Useful Professions
Once you see your first truffles popping out of the ground, you can go ahead and interact with them to pick them up. However, before you do so, it is a wise idea to check with your professions, as picking them carefully is crucial to making the most out of your pigs and the truffles they find.
- The Artisan Profession – All artisan goods are worth 40% more, making truffle oil worth more than iridium-quality truffles.
- The Gatherer Profession – There is a 20% for the double harvest of all foragables, including truffles!
- The Botanist Profession – All forged items are picked up at iridium quality, making all truffles always at their top-selling price
Truffle Oil
In order to make truffle oil, whether to make more profit with the artisan profession or finish up the community center, you’re going to need an oil maker. These machines are unlockable at farming level 8, but they can be pretty expensive to craft requiring 50 slime, 20 hardwood, and one gold bar, but they will give the valuable oil that you need with its hefty price tag of 1,065g or 1,491g with artisan! (Tip: Try planting mahogany trees using tree fertilizer to earn hardwood quickly. You can also kill Big Slimes in the Skull Cavern)
Crafting
While truffles themselves cannot be crafted into anything, truffle oil is very useful for crafting one specific item: The Rain Totem.
Rain Totems are an item that instead of teleporting you like the other totems, it causes the chances for there to be rain or thunderstorms the next day to greatly increase. They are consumed on use and are unlocked at level 9 foraging. They sell for 20g and are made using 1 hardwood, 1 truffle oil, and 5 pine tar.
After you have your pigs and at least one oil maker, these totems become rather easy to make. This is great when you don’t wanna water your crops the next day or you need to catch certain fish such as eel or catfish who only show up when it rains. These totems are always good to keep around and use at any point in the game, so it’s best to have a decent stock prepared!
Consumption
The amount of energy and health is dependent on the quality of the truffle/truffle oil. Below is a table listing each stat:
[Table with truffle/truffle oil quality and its energy/health]
Quests
- Truffles are used for the Community Center for the Chef’s Bundle on the Bulletin Board.
- On the 21st of Summer in year 2, Mayor Lewis will request for one truffle oil in the mail (“Mayor’s Need” Quest). The reward is 750g and 1 friendship heart. Simply gifting the oil to Lewis will complete the quest.
Gifting
Truffles work as a neutral gift for all villagers except for Leah who loves them, and Maru who hates them.
Meanwhile, truffle oil is a liked gift with all villagers but are loved by Harvey and hated by Jas, Vincent, and Sebastian.
Tailoring
Truffle and truffle oil can both be used to tailor a Dark Bandana Shirt at Emily and Haley’s house at 2 Willow Lane. They can also be used to create dyes using Emily’s dye pots. Truffle makes orange dye while truffle oil makes yellow dye.
The Traveling Merchant
On rare occasions, one truffle can sometimes be purchased from The Traveling Merchant every Friday or Sunday from a range of 1,878g-3,125g. Unless you are speed-running, it would be wise to simply wait to get pigs due to the ludicrous price tag.
