With a few Sims 4 Cottage Living tips under your well-worn belt, the rolling hills of Henford-on-Bagley will be yours to roam as you please. Cottage Living is a thriving addition to the The Sims 4's litany of game pack expansions, introducing us to not only a new countryside-themed neighborhood but new lot traits, wild animals, and foraging opportunities to boot.
You'll be reunited with a famous Sims 2 face when a young Agnes Crumplebottom comes to call, get to know the local Creature Keeper, and even take your finest llama to the county show. Here's how to get to the Finchwick Fair if you're keen to do just that, and if you're looking to up the ante, try the Simple Living Lot Challenge. We've got more great Sims 4 Cottage Living tips below, so roll your sleeves up and muck in.
Make sure you also check out what Sims 4 Cottage Living cheats are available, and get details on how to buy animal clothes in Sims 4 Cottage Living.
Sims 4 Cottage Living tips: How to get Cottage Living
The Sims 4 Cottage Living Expansion Pack can be bought directly on Origin on PC or on your respective platform's stores. It's available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4 and PS5 for around $40/£35. Once you download the Sims 4 Cottage Living, simply boot up your Sims game and click on the Henford-on-Bagley world. Boom, you're there.
Get the Sims 4 Cottage Living animal shed
In order to get a cow or a llama, you'll need an animal shed. Simply head to Build/Buy mode and navigate to the gardening section - or type 'animal shed' into the search bar. Buy an animal shed for 500 Simoleons and place it on your lot. When you jump into the live mode, you can click on the shed and buy a cow or a llama. Cows cost 400 Simoleons and you can choose between a brown cow and a spotted cow. Llamas cost 350 Simoleons and you can pick either a beige llama or a white llama.
You can only have one animal per shed, so if you want a few cows and llamas roaming about, you'll need to make sure you have enough space for multiple animal sheds. They're quite large, so plan accordingly!
How to change animal colors in Sims 4 Cottage Living
You can change the color of both cows and llamas in the Sims 4 Cottage Living - you can even make them rainbow! In order to do that, however, you'll need to feed them animal treats. Your cow or llama will change colors based on the animal treat you give them, and their products will match their color, so a rainbow llama will produce rainbow wool. Llamas will always take on the color of the wool they're producing, but cows don't always change color despite producing different flavored milk.
Sims 4 Cottage Living animal treat recipes
If your Sim has purchased animal treats from the shops in Henford-on-Bagley or won them in some manner, they'll have the recipe for those treats and can make them in the kitchen. Here are all the animal treats, their ingredients, and the animal treats' effects in one easy spot for you:
- Animal Party Treat (Any berry + any mushroom): Fills animal's social need
- Chocolatey Treat (Chocoberry + custard): Cows will produce chocolate milk, hens will lay chocolate eggs, llamas will produce brown wool
- Fishy Protein Treat (Any fish): Each animal will produce +1 extra harvest
- Flirty Treat (Strawberry jam + sugar): Cows will produce strawberry milk, hens will lay more hatchable, pink eggs, and llamas will produce pink wool
- Friendly Treat (Any fruit or veggie): Increases your Sims' relationship with an animal
- Fruity Treat (Apple jam + blueberry jam): Cows produce enriched milk, hens will lay blue eggs, llamas produce blue wool
- Golden Treat (Cowberry jam/honey + golden egg): Cows produce golden honey milk, chicken will become a golden chicken, hens will lay golden eggs, llamas produce golden wool
- Healthy Treat (Any fruit/any vegetable + any lettuce): Increases the lifespan of an animal
- Midnight Treat (Cowberry jam + obsidian egg): Cows produce obsidian milk, chickens become evil, hens lay obsidian eggs, llamas produce black wool
- Pumpkin Treat (Any pumpkin + sugar): Cows produce pumpkin spice milk, hens lay orange eggs, llamas produce orange wool
- Rainbow Treat (Blue egg + green egg + orange egg): Cows become rainbow cows, produce rainbow milk, hens lay rainbow eggs, llamas produce rainbow wool
- Spicy Treat (Spicy mushroom + any veggie): Cows produce fire milk, hens produce obsidian eggs (but don't become evil, thankfully), llamas produce red wool
- Veggie treat (Any aubergine + any lettuce): Cows produce plant milk, hens lay green eggs, llamas produce green wool
How to befriend wild animals in Sims 4 Cottage Living
Sims 4 Cottage Living also has several wild animal types roaming around Henford-on-Bagley. There are birds, rabbits, and foxes darting about the green grasses or flitting amongst the trees, and you can build relationships with all of them. In order to build a relationship with wild birds, you'll need to interact with tree stumps gathered around Henford-on-Bagley labeled 'Flock of Wild Birds'. You can offer gifts at these stumps, discuss Flock Politics, or simply watch them. If you become close enough with them, you might have a Disney Princess moment where you all sing together - or they might poo on you.
Wild rabbits have little homes as well, which are shorter tree stumps, but they're also more easily found wandering about in the wild. You can befriend them and talk to them like you would any other Sim, and even give then names. You can purchase both bird and rabbit homes in build mode after you've befriended both animal types.
Foxes are the same as rabbits, you'll find them wandering around Henford-on-Bagley - but beware, as they may try and steal your eggs or eat your chickens. Befriending them should help, so chat them up, too.
How to get to the Finchwick Fair
Sims 4 Cottage Living has a lovely town gathering called Finchwick Fair, where your Sim can submit their pies, animals, or oversized crops and be judged against other community members' entries. You can win ribbons and other prizes if your entry is chosen, so obviously you'll want to attend. The Finchwick Fair happens every Saturday in the Sim world, so open up the calendar at the bottom of your screen or check out the fair flyer at each Henford-on-Bagley community information sign for details and to confirm attendance. If you do so on a Saturday, you'll be able to selected 'travel to Finchwick Fair' directly from the calendar or the community information sign.
How to find Agnes Crumplebottom in Sims 4 Cottage living
Legendary NPC Agnes Crumplebottom finally comes to The Sims 4 with Cottage Living, and she's pretty easy to find. Just head to the Finchwick area in Henford-on-Bagley. If Mrs. Crumplebottom's stall isn't open (the hours of operation are 9am to 7pm), she may still be wandering around the town. But if it's between those hours, just head to her garden shop stall (it's the one with the green awning). You can buy things like animal treats, llama wool, and food items from good ol' Crumplebottom, but you can also engage in some conversation with her, as well. Just don't try to flirt with her, as she'll close up shop temporarily to whoop your ass with her handbag.
The Sims 4 Simple Living Lot Challenge
The latest free Sims 4 update introduced Lot Challenges to gameplay. Lot Challenges are just what they sound like: they add a layer of difficulty to wherever your Sim is living, and there's three challenges that came with the base game and Sims 4 Cottage Living: Off-the-Grid, Simple Living, and Wild Foxes.
To turn on a Lot Challenge, simply head to build mode and click on the house icon, then select one from the Lot Challenges menu. Off-the-Grid was once a Lot Trait, but now it just requires you to live without typical water or electricity. Wild Foxes means your lot will have a heckuva lot of the little devils, but it's Simple Living that makes the best use of the new Cottage Living expansion.
Simple Living makes cooking cheaper, but it means that all of your recipes depend entirely on what you have in your inventory - so there's no longer an infinite fridge. That means you'll need to forage in the woods for mushrooms, get milk and eggs from your cows, and harvest your crops - or just head into town and buy it all.
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