Animal Item Production
Livestock and chickens will typically produce one item per harvest. You can increase the number of products collected from your animals by feeding them treats. Each animal type has a treat preference that will increase the amount of products they produce:
- Treats are the basic kind. All of the animals need to be fed a certain number of regular Treats as well as their animal family treats. Feeding the animals just their animal treats and not feeding them a regular Treat will not increase their productivity numbers. You need both types of treats.
- Cow Treats are for Cows, Jersey Cows, and Yaks.
- Sheep Treats need to be fed to Sheep, Suffolk Sheep, White Alpacas, Brown Alpacas, and Llamas.
- Chicken Treats go to the Chickens and Silkie Chickens.
All of the treats are purchased at Neil's Animal Booth. A regular Treat is 10 G and the animal treats are 30 G each. The Treats and Cow Treats will be in his shop automatically, but you'll need to buy a Chicken to unlock Chicken Treats, and buy a Sheep to unlock Sheep Treats.
Giving the Necessary Treats
Every day you can give an animal a snack treat. Feeding a normal Treat will earn you +1 Friendship Point with the animal, and feeding an animal treat (Cow, Sheep, or Chicken Treat) will earn you +2 FP. If you have placed enough objects on your farm to trigger one of the animal friendship combinations, then you'll earn an additional +1 FP per treat.
Don't give the wrong treat! All of the animals like the regular Treat, but the animal treats should only go to the specific animal family. You'll earn -2 FP to the Chicken, Cow, and Sheep if you give them the wrong treat, -3 FP with Yaks and Llamas, and -4 FP for the Jersey Cows, alpacas, and Suffolk Sheep.
An animal can produce a maximum of five items per harvest. Each production level will require you to give a certain number of treats:
- Chickens: 2 Treats and 29 Chicken Treats per level
- Silkie Chickens: 1 Treat and 30 Chicken Treats per level
- Cows: 7 Treats and 24 Cow Treats per level
- Jersey Cows: 4 Treats and 27 Cow Treats per level
- Yaks: 4 Treats and 45 Cow Treats per level
- Sheep: 2 Treats and 29 Sheep Treats per level
- Suffolk Sheep: 1 Treat and 30 Sheep Treats per level
- Alpaca: (white or brown) 1 Treat and 35 Sheep Treats per level
- Llama: 1 Treat and 40 Sheep Treats per level
The treats don't need to be given in sequential order. For example, if you had given a Chicken a Treat, then 35 Chicken Treats, and finally one more Treat, the next day the Chicken will lay two eggs instead of one even if you've given more than necessary. The extra six Chicken Treats will count towards the next level up. As long as you give the right number of treats, the animal's productivity will increase.
The game won't indicate to you when an animal has increased in level; there's no sparkles, action sound, or mailbox letter. You can see what level your animal is by checking the notebooks instead of the animal barns and then looking at the animal's profile. The "Products Produced" number will indicate the animal's current production level.
You can keep track of your treats by using the Game Notes in your Nintendo 3DS console, or buy just enough treats per level. Once you've run out of treats, you know you've given enough to level up. Another way is to give the number of normal Treats that you need to reach level 5 (e.g., you need 8 Treats total to reach level 5 with a Chicken), and then when you're all out, simply give the animal specific treats until you've given the required amount.
For the Yaks and Llamas, you don't have any extra requirements to reach the maximum production level of five per harvest. You just will need to give enough treats. However, for the other animals they will need to be super-sized before they can produce the fifth item.
To make a cow, sheep, alpaca, or chicken into a big beasty, the animal will need to have at least 9 hearts of friendship, have been given enough treats to reach level 5 productivity, and have spent at least 1000 hours outside on your farm. All three of these requirements need to be met before the animals will reach the maximum productivity level.
An animal will never lose its productivity level. An offspring produced from the leveled-up animal will not carry over its mother's level. The baby animal will be at level 0 until it is an adult, when at that time it will start at level 1. You can start to give the necessary number of treats to the baby animal even if it can't produce anything until it is older.