Ultimate Animal Husbandry Guide – Society: Sunlit Valley

Welcome to the complete Animal Husbandry guide for Society: Sunlit Valley.

This covers every animal, how affection works, feeding, harvesting, breeding, automation, artisan processing, meat-cutting, cheese-making, mayonnaise production, truffles, wool, and more — from early game straight to endgame setups.

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1. How to Get Animals

You’ve got two options:

1.1 Manually Collecting Animals

You can easily pick up most animals in the overworld.

Shift + Right-Click an animal → you carry it.
Walk it home to your farm.
Cheap, fast, and available from day one.

Some animals (like goats) require more care because they jump — rope them in or build higher fencing.

1.2 Buying Animals from the Shepherd Villager

Find a Shepherd Villager (workstation: Loom).

He sells:

Animal Feed
Feeding Trough
Diamond Lasso (inventory animal storage; 16,000 gold)
Milk Pail (for cows, goats, sheep)
Miracle Potion (breeding)
Magic Shears (harvesting meat/wool)
Spawn Crates

Chickens – 128 gold
Ducks, Cows, Sheep – 500 gold
Rabbits – more expensive
Pigs – very expensive

Tip:

Instead of buying 10 pigs for 5,000 gold, buy two and breed them using Miracle Potions.

2. Affection System (The Most Important Mechanic)

Animals will not let you harvest from them unless they trust you.

Affection increases by:

Feeding them daily (fastest method)
Hand-feeding (more affection than troughs)
Petting once per day (empty hand → right-click → love hearts)
Name-tagging the animal
Husbandry skill perks (Keybind K)

You can check affection by right-clicking the animal.

2.1 Feeding

You can feed by hand using animal feed or place a:

Feeding Trough

Purchased from Shepherd
Has a huge radius (roughly 11×11×11)
Automatically feeds nearby animals
Shows sparkles when feeding triggers
Needs refilling

Automatic, but slower affection gain than hand-feeding.

2.2 Petting

Empty hand → Right-click
Gives husbandry XP
Boosts affection
Once per day per animal

3. Housing & Behaviour Notes

All animals:

Don’t like being in groups larger than 4 per pen
Split into multiple small pens for maximum affection

Goats:

Jump very high
Can escape normal fences
Use leads/ropes or secure fencing

Chickens & Ducks:

Use nests for eggs
Eggs also drop naturally

4. Harvesting from Animals

Once affection is high enough:

Chickens/Ducks: Raw chicken, feathers, eggs
Cows: Beef (via shears), milk
Sheep: Wool + raw mutton
Pigs: Pork + truffles
Goats: Milk + goat meat (chevon)

Tools:

Magic Shears → harvest meat/wool
Milk Pail → manually milk cows/goats/sheep

Harvesting is once per day per animal.

5. Husbandry Skill Tree Explained

Gained via:

Feeding
Petting
Harvesting animals

Notable Skills:

Faster affection gain
Double drops using Magic Shears
Double milk production
Golden eggs from birds
Triple truffles from pigs
Friendship necklace → small chance for Prismatic Shard (endgame item)
Spending gold coins for affection
Converting affection → Heart of Diamond (money item)
Stabilizing affection so it never decreases
Painful magic shears → extract Sparkstone (endgame resource)

Choose your path depending on whether you want:

Profit
Production, or
Late-game resources.

6. Processing Animal Products

This is where the money is made.

6.1 Eggs → Mayonnaise

Manual:

Use eggs in recipes directly
Craft into cracked eggs
Use eggs for pancakes, cakes, etc.

Automated (Mid → End Game):

Use:

Artisan Hopper (needs Sparkstone fuel)
Barrel above
Mayonnaise machines around

How it works:

Eggs go into the hopper.
Hopper distributes them to mayonnaise machines daily.
Output collects underneath.

Extremely powerful once automated.

6.2 Milk → Cheese

Milk comes from:

Cows
Goats
Sheep

Processing:

Use the Cheese Press.

Important Cheese Tip:

Large Milk → Cheese Wheel in 2 days → 4 cheese pieces
Small Milk → 1 cheese piece in 2 days

→ Always craft milk into Large Milk (combine four small).

→ MASSIVELY more efficient.

Same automation as eggs using artisan hoppers.

6.3 Wool → Merino Wool (Huge Profit)

Shear sheep (Magic Shears recommended).
Process wool in a Loom:

5x Wool → Fine Wool
Fine Wool → Merino Wool

Merino wool sells extremely well — great income.

Automation possible using automatic looms or refined storage.

6.4 Meat Processing (Beef, Pork, Chicken, Mutton)

Using Farmer’s Delight Cutting Board for doubling outputs.

Beef → Beef Patties

Off-hand: Raw beef
Main hand: Knife
Right-click the board
1 raw beef → 2 beef patties

All recipes that use “any raw beef” accept patties.

Your beef output doubles.

Mutton → Mutton Chops

Same process:

1 raw mutton → 2 mutton chops

Chicken → Chicken Cuts

Use cutting board:

1 raw chicken → 2 chicken cuts

Acceptable in almost all chicken recipes.

Pork → Bacon

Use Mincer:

1 raw pork chop → 3 bacon

Warning:

Some recipes use pork directly
Some use bacon

Don’t convert all your pork

Duck & Goat

Duck has limited recipe support.

Goat meat (chevon) mainly used for stew.

7. Automating Harvesting – Auto Grabber

The Auto Grabber:

Placed in animal pens
Requires Sparkstone
Automatically harvests:

Eggs
Raw chicken/duck
Feathers
Pork
Beef
Milk
Truffles
Wool

You can upgrade it with Magic Shears for more output.

This is essential once your farm grows.

8. Late-Game Automation Overview

Combine all the above:

Auto-grabbers collecting daily animal products
Artisan hoppers feeding:

Mayonnaise machines
Cheese presses

Cutting boards & mincers for meat doubling
Automatic looms
Refined Storage importers/exporters (endgame)

This lets you mass-produce:

Mayonnaise
Cheese wheels
Loom/fine wool/merino wool
Patties, bacon, cuts
Milk
Wool
Feathers
Truffles

All nearly hands-free.

9. Final Tips & Recommendations

Always feed and pet daily for max affection
Buy only a few animals, then breed using Miracle Potions
Use Large Milk only — never small
Keep pigs in groups of 4
Use artisan hoppers as soon as you reach mid-game
Use auto-grabbers everywhere as soon as you can afford Sparkstone
Upgrade husbandry tree early for double drops