When it comes to livestock in Stardew Valley, there’s a lot you’ll need to do to keep your animals healthy, happy, and productive. However, this can very quickly begin to feel like a chore, especially if you have a large number of animals. Fortunately, there are ways to overcome this struggle, and the Auto-Petter (and other auto machines) can be incredibly useful. In line with this thought, today, we’re looking at the Auto-Petter and Auto-Grabber devices in Stardew Valley to help you decide if these are worth investing in for your farm.
What is an Auto-Petter / Auto-Grabber in Stardew Valley?
As a development of Joja Co, the Auto-Petter is a specialist piece of equipment that is designed to automatically pet your animals each day, reducing the need to go around and manually stroke your animals each day. Given the amount of time that caring for your animals can potentially take, this is definitely a useful product to have around.
While an Auto-Petter can automatically pet your animals on your behalf, an Auto-Grabber automatically harvests their produce. Auto-Grabbers work on all barn and coop animals, meaning that they can harvest the following items:
- Chicken eggs
- Large eggs
- Duck eggs
- Duck feathers
- Dinosaur eggs
- Ostrich eggs
- Rabbit feet
- Wool
- Regular milk
- Large milk
- Goat’s milk
- Large goat’s milk
- Truffles
The Auto-Grabber in Stardew Valley will store all collected items within a chest, allowing you to quickly retrieve them as needed.
With that being said, it’s worth noting that there are many factors aside from just automations that impact how quickly you can collect produce. For example, if your game keeps lagging, it’s likely that going around each barn to collect your animals’ produce will be quite tedious. Luckily, a ScalaCube server helps address this problem, so lag becomes a thing of the past.
Where Can I Get a Stardew Valley Auto-Grabber / Petter Tool?
Given their ability to rapidly collect all of the products made in a barn and coop each morning, it’s easy to see why so many people choose to use these rather than collecting products manually. But where can you get hold of one?
Well, the Auto-Grabber is the easier of the two tools to get, as this is available foe 25,000g at Marnie’s Ranch. However, it is locked until you reach Farming Level 10, so you’ll need to do quite a bit of work to get to this stage. If you don’t want to wait that long, though, you can potentially also find them in the Skull Cavern treasure rooms.
Meanwhile, an Auto-Petter is mainly sold by JojaMart as part of their Community Development Form. However, if you have gone down the Community Center route for your game, don’t panic; while not guaranteed, you can also find Auto-Petters as a world drop if you’re lucky. These can be found in golden mystery boxes, in Skull Cavern treasure chests, and as a special drop by killing monsters during certain quests and challenges (Danger in the Deep and the Shrine of Challenge).
Is it Worth Investing in an Auto-Grabber / Auto-Petter?
If you have a lot of animals and are struggling to keep up with the daily need to collect their produce and pet them to keep friendship up, investing in an Auto-Grabber or Auto-Petter could be well worth considering. Indeed, they might be expensive, but these tools never need replacing so can be a really useful option to consider if you’ve been struggling to keep up with your daily responsibilities.
Do Stardew’s Auto-Petter and Auto-Grabber Tools Work as Well As Manual Care?
Unfortunately, Stardew Valley’s Auto-Petter and Auto-Grabber tools are not quite as effective as manually doing the job. As such, the amount of friendship you gain with animals from using an Auto-Petter will be less than if you had petted them manually. However, if you get a chance, you can always “top up” the friendship by manually petting them as well.
Meanwhile, when thinking about the Auto-Grabber, it’s worth noting that you will miss out on the friendship that comes with manually milking or shearing cows, goats, and sheep. As a result, if you use an Auto-Grabber, it’s highly important to make sure your animals are petted with either an Auto-Petter or manually to prevent them from losing friendship gradually over time.
FAQs
An Auto-Petter is only available to buy from JojaMart, and costs 50,000g to purchase. This makes it a relatively expensive tool, although it can be worth it for many people to help maintain your friendship
An Auto-Grabber in Stardew Valley costs 25,000g and can be purchased from Marnie’s Ranch once you reach Level 10.
An Auto-Petter still gives your animal friendship points, but not as many as manually petting them would provide.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve been looking to invest in livestock in Stardew Valley, it’s important to recognise that things can very quickly become quite time consuming. In line with this thought, making sure you have a clear plan in place to make accessing your barns and coops easier is important—as is deciding whether or not to invest in an Auto-Grabber or Auto-Petter. But remember, this decision is entirely up to you, and if you don’t feel that you need auto equipment then there is no pressure to do so.