As you continue to grow your farm in Stardew Valley, you begin to need more space in your chicken coop. Instead of buying a second chicken coop, it is much faster to upgrade it to a Big Coop! This upgrade allows more space within the coop, including a wider variety of livestock that can be housed. With this comes the ability to sell more animal products for higher profit to help with farm building, create more artisan goods, and give more gifts to characters to raise their affection with you.
How to get a big coop
Much like where you purchased your first coop, the Big Coop upgrade can be acquired from Robin’s Carpenter Shop located North of Pelican Town. For this upgrade, you need 10,000 gold, 400 wood, and 150 stone. The required building resources can be gathered from the trees and stones around your farm, using an ax and pickaxe respectively.
Where the chicken coop takes 3 in-game days to be completed, the Big Coop is quicker and only needs 2 in-game days to be finished. The Big Coop takes up the same amount of space on your farm as the chicken coop, so you don’t need to plan for a larger area of space when thinking about upgrading to as high as the Deluxe Coop.
How Many animals fit in the big coop
With this upgrade, you can now house up to 8 animals at a time compared to the 4 chickens you could only house in a standard chicken coop. To fill up the extra space you now have, chickens can be purchased from Marnie’s Ranch, located directly south of your farm, for 800 gold each. Chickens can lay Chicken Eggs by the next day that can be sold for 50 gold each. If you raise the friendship of your chicken high enough, they will lay large eggs that can be sold for 95 gold each.
The Big Coop upgrade also allows you to now house coop animals beyond chickens, such as Ducks, Void Chickens, Dinosaurs, and Golden Chickens. Rabbits become available with the Deluxe Coop upgrade. You can mix and match these animals within the same coop, and you don’t need a separate coop for each type of animal.
Duck
Once you have upgraded to the Big Coop, ducks will be available to purchase from Marnie’s Ranch for 4,000 gold each. You will be given the option to name the duck before it is automatically placed in your Big Coop. Ducks will lay Duck Eggs every 2 days, which can be sold for 95 gold each. If you reach a high enough friendship level with them, they have the chance of dropping a Duck Feather, which can be sold for 250 gold.
Void Chicken
Void Chickens can only be hatched from Void Eggs using the Incubator, which can be first obtained in the three following ways:
- Purchased from Krobus, who can be found in the sewers at all times, for 5,000 gold each
- Purchased from the Traveling Cart, located in the Cindersap Forest, on Fridays or Sundays for 100 – 1000 gold each
- When a random event occurs during the night, where a witch flies over the coop and leaves behind a Void Egg
Void eggs take 4 in-game days to hatch from the Incubator, and once the Void Chicken is fully mature, it can start laying Void Eggs every day. The Void Egg can be sold for 65 gold.
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs can only be obtained through hatching Dinosaur Eggs, similar to Void Chickens. Dinosaur Eggs can be found:
- By digging up artifact spots in the mountains or around the floor in the Skull Cavern
- As an item drop from the enemy, Pepper Rex, in the Skull Cavern
- In a treasure chest while fishing
- By winning the Crane Game in the Movie Theater, which is unlocked after completing the Community Center
Dinosaur Eggs take 12 in-game days to hatch from the Incubator, and mature Dinosaurs can lay an egg once every 7 days. The Dinosaur Egg can be sold for 350 gold.
Golden Chicken
Golden chickens, like Dinosaurs and Void Chickens, can only be obtained from hatching Golden Eggs. In this case, however, they are much more difficult to get. To purchase Golden Eggs, you must complete all the tasks on the perfection tracker in Qi’s Walnut Room, located on Ginger Island. Once completed, you can purchase the eggs for 100 Qi Gems in his shop. The Golden Eggs also become available to purchase from Marnie’s Ranch for 100,000 gold.
After reaching Perfection, the Golden Egg can also be acquired from:
- A random event that occurs at night, when a golden witch flies over the coop and leaves behind a Golden Egg
- In a treasure chest while fishing
Golden Eggs take 6 in-game days to hatch from the Incubator, and mature Golden Chickens can lay an egg every day. The Golden Egg can be sold for 500 gold.
Using the Incubator
One of the many parts of the Big Coop upgrade is the Incubator, located just left of the hay hopper and feeding bench. It is used to hatch eggs, which can become useful when you need most other coop animals, as well as saving money when purchasing ducks or normal chickens. Once an egg is placed in the Incubator, it cannot be removed, nor is it able to hatch if the Big Coop is currently at full capacity.
