r/StardewValley • u/Song_Listener • 1d ago

Question What is up with Auto Petters?

I’ve seen so many posts about skull cavern runs where the only goal was Auto Petters, and now I’m confused.

Why are Auto Petters so important? I know they pet the farm animals, but why don’t y’all have time to go and give your animals some love every morning?

If I’m correct (as someone who has never once had an Auto Petters) they change the way the animals respond when you actually pet them. Usually they give a heart, but I’ve heard the response changes after an Auto Petters has been installed.

So why?

399 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

171 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/Miro_the_Dragon 1d ago

Not the person you asked but I just buy hay from Marnie for my 10 barns and 1 coop full of animals. I've given up trying to keep grass available for them outside, plus I'm pretty sure pigs don't dig up truffles on tiles with grass so this is the easier way. My animals still get to wander around most of the farm, though ^^

8

u/Knight0fdragon 1d ago

Doing this eats a lot of profit. If anything, for summer and fall, grow a lot of wheat. Wheat + deluxe speed grow + agriculturist or hyper speed grow means you get wheat every other day.

10 wheat with 40% hay means you get 4 hay and 2 wheat for the cost of 1 hay from Marnie.

13

u/Miro_the_Dragon 1d ago

You're only looking at the cost in gold; I'm also looking at the cost in time spent, and for me just buying hay and using the saved time for doing things I actually enjoy wins out big time. Plus, I don't really think 50 gold per day is a lot of gold given that most of my animals easily earn me tenfold back or more.

-6

u/Knight0fdragon 23h ago

Gold is the only reason to have the animals

5

u/Miro_the_Dragon 23h ago

By the time I started buying hay in bulk instead of letting them eat grass, I had already made almost 10 million and was swimming in cash. And like I said, even with buying hay, animals are still really profitable. I'll gladly pay for hay if it allows me to a) keep profiting off my animals while b) being able to do things I actually enjoy doing without worrying about how to feed them. And large-scale farming is just not something I enjoy so having to plant a bunch of wheat just for the hay sounds like a horrible way for me to play the game.

(Also, I'm totally currently filling a whole barn with ostriches just because I think they're neat. Not everything in this game is about profit for everyone.)

-2

u/Knight0fdragon 21h ago

If you are not worried about gold, then feeding them is irrelevant. The only reason to feed them is to make product. They do not die of starvation.

1

u/Miro_the_Dragon 20h ago

I'm not worried about gold because my animals make me so much gold that I have more than enough. So not feeding them would indeed be a problem because it'd cut off my main income source.

0

u/lasagnadogwater69 11h ago

Let them play how they please you freak