The Sims 4 Cottage Living: How to change animal and produce colours
Green eggs, rainbow cows, and golden llamas.
Brightly coloured animals and produce featured heavily in the trailers for The Sims 4 Cottage Living. But now that the pack's out, you might be wondering how to turn your undeniably cute but still ordinary-looking chickens, cows, and llamas into the amazing technicolor fantasy creatures you were promised.
In this Sims 4 Cottage Living animal and produce colours guide, we explain how to buy farm animals in this new pack, as well as what you need to do to change their coat and produce colours.
There are reasons beyond aesthetics to want to change your animals' colours in The Sims 4: Cottage Living pack. Colour-changing livestock can produce special eggs, milk, and wool that are needed for special recipes, or can be sold for a few extra Simoleons.
How to buy animals in The Sims 4: Cottage Living
The new animals introduced in Cottage Living work a little differently to pets from the Cats & Dogs expansion pack. While they're still independent creatures you can befriend, they're not counted as family members in the same way that house-pets are — which also means that you can't create and customise them in Create-A-Sim, or adopt them from animal care services.
In order to populate your Sims' barnyard, you need to buy either an Animal Shed or a Chicken Coop, both of which can be purchased in Build Mode. Interacting with these objects will then give you the option to purchase cows or llamas (from the Animal Shed) or chickens (from the Chicken Coop). The animal you just bought will be magically transported to their new home, and pretty soon they'll wander into the yard to say hello.
How to change animal and produce colours in The Sims 4: Cottage Living
Farm animals aren't exactly cheap, but there are actual material benefits to owning them. The three buyable farm animals introduced in Cottage Living each produce a different harvestable item: chickens make eggs, cows make milk, and llamas make wool.
Your Sim will be able to harvest this produce at regular intervals (if you're caring for them well, around once per in-game day). Eggs and milk can be used for cooking, while llama wool keeps your yarn costs down when cross-stitching or knitting.
Some recipes or patterns call for very specific colours or flavours of this produce. This is an especially big deal if you're doing the new Simple Living Lot Challenge, which disallows your Sim from cooking any recipes they don't have all the ingredients for. For example, if you want a Matcha Tea Cake anytime soon, you'll need to know how to get green eggs.
Put simply, produce colour and flavour is determined by the animal's emotional state — and the best and most reliable way to influence this is by feeding them animal treats.
Your Sim will gain their first treat recipe — for Friendly Treats — after buying their first animal. Subsequent recipes are unlocked by getting to know your neighbours, both human and animal: new treat recipes are gifted to you by NPCs from Henford-on-Bagley when you do favours for them, and wild animals (such as birds and foxes) when you befriend them.
After eating treats, llamas always take on the colour of the wool they're going to produce. Cows and chickens can also transform under the effects of a few of the treats, as noted in the table below. So if it's your dream to own an amazing technicolour barnyard, this is how to make it a reality.
The transformative effects of treats on your animals are temporary, and will last until the next time you harvest produce from the animal. The critter will then return to their normal state until the next time you feed them a treat.
Animal treats list: recipes and effects
| Treat Name | Effect on chickens | Effect on cows | Effect on llamas | Ingredients |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Party Treat | Fills chicken's social need | Fills cow's social need | Fills llama's social need | Any berry & any mushroom |
| Chocolatey Treat | Produces chocolate eggs (hens only) | Produces chocolate milk | Transforms llama into brown llama, produces brown wool | Chocoberry & custard |
| Fishy Protein Treat | +1 egg at next harvest (hens only) | +1 milk at next harvest | +1 wool at next harvest | Any fish |
| Flirty Treat | Produces pink eggs & more hatchable eggs (hens only) | Produces strawberry milk | Transforms llama into pink llama, produces pink wool | Strawberry jam & sugar |
| Friendly Treat | Increases relationship with animal | Increases relationship with animal | Increases relationship with animal | Any fruit or vegetable |
| Fruity Treat | Produces blue eggs (hens only) | Produces enriched milk | Transforms llama into blue llama, produces blue wool | Apple jam & blueberry jam |
| Golden Treat | Transforms chicken into golden chicken; produces golden eggs (hens only) | Produces golden honey milk | Transforms llama into golden llama, produces golden wool | Cowberry jam or honey & golden egg |
| Healthy Treat | Increases animal's lifespan | Increases animal's lifespan | Increases animal's lifespan | Any fruit or any vegetable & any lettuce |
| Midnight Treat | Transforms chicken into evil chicken; produces obsidian eggs (hens only) | Produces obsidian milk | Transforms llama into black llama, produces black wool | Cowberry jam & obsidian egg |
| Pumpkin Treat | Produces orange eggs (hens only) | Produces pumpkin spice milk | Transforms llama into orange llama, produces orange wool | Any pumpkin & sugar |
| Rainbow Treat | Produces rainbow eggs (hens only) | Transforms cow into rainbow cow, produces rainbow milk | Transforms llama into rainbow llama, produces rainbow wool | Blue egg, green egg & orange egg |
| Spicy Treat | Produces obsidian eggs (hens only) but doesn't cause evil transformation | Produces fire milk | Transforms llama into red llama, produces red wool | Spicy mushroom & any vegetable |
| Veggie Treat | Produces green eggs (hens only) | Produces plant milk (suitable for Sims with the Lactose Intolerant trait) | Transforms llama into green llama, produces green wool | Any aubergine & any lettuce |
That's all we have on animal and produce colours for now, but be sure to check back over the next few days as we continue to dive into what Cottage Living brings to the table! In the meantime, why not check out our comprehensive guide to Sims 4 cheat guide? Or take a look at our page explaining Sims 4 skills — including the cross-stitch skill added with Cottage Living.