In Farming Simulator 25, you can also take care of animals besides taking care of your fields. And what essential animal is there for a farmer besides cows? You can use cows to create all sorts of products and byproducts to churn out a profit.
But to make the most of cows, you’ll need to take care of them and ensure their health is optimal. If you’re having trouble with this part, we’ve got you covered! In this guide, we’ll show you everything you need to do to take care of your cows. Let’s dive in!
Guide to Cows
Caring for cows in Farming Simulator 25 doesn’t just involve feeding them and getting milk. There are many factors to consider, which includes providing the best infrastructure, caring for them and getting products for them.
It’s important to note that neglecting your cows does not lead to them dying. It just means that they will not be productive.
Now, let’s go over the entire process step by step. You might also want to check out our how to use trains guide as we go into detail on how to make profits with them too!
Animal Pens And Grazing
The first thing you need to do is provide the cows with a place for grazing. This means that you’ll need to build an animal pen for them.
To do this, go to the Build mode. Here, select the Animals tab and navigate to the Cows section. Here, you’ll see six structures that can be used as pens for your cows. Let’s see what makes each of them different for your cows:
- Cow Pasture
- Cheapest possible pen
- Milk production is not possible here
- You will need to manually refill the water and food
- Normal Cow Barn and Cow Barn (large)
- Water is filled automatically here
- Food will need to be filled manually
- Milk production is not possible
- Hormann Cow Barn and Cow Barn (large)
- Water is filled automatically here
- Food will need to be filled manually
- Milk production is possible here
- Cow Barn with Feeding Robot
- Milk production is possible here
- Both water and food are filled automatically.
Your choice of barn will depend on your budget. If you’re just starting out, we recommend using the cheaper pens and slowly upgrading from there.
When you decide to place a barn down, you will be given two prompts asking you whether you want to customize the fence and plant a meadow. The fence size will decide how big the meadow area will be and how much capacity there is for the cows.
So, if you want to hold more cows, you can certainly increase the fence size. For example, below we were able to increase the capacity to 461 compared to the default 50.
On the other hand, placing a meadow will provide a food source.
By default, we recommend not to customize the fence but to place the meadow. This is because customizing the fence costs extra money. While the extra length will help you add more meadow and cows, your capacity for other food will be the same.
This can be a problem if you decide to place too many cows in the pens as there won’t be enough high quality food for them.
Since meadow is only 40% effective as a food source, you’re better off not increasing the fence length for it. Adding the meadow is still not a bad idea as the green grass texture looks better for the farm, while also providing a backup food source.
Keep in mind that your pens will not populate immediately. You will need to wait overnight, which is where sleeping can help.
Buying Cows
Now that you have the pens set up for your cows in Farming Simulator 25, it’s time to buy some cows. There are two ways in which you can purchase cows: get them delivered or transport them yourselves.
We recommend transporting them yourselves as this will save you more money in the long run. To transport them, you’ll first need to purchase an animal transport.
Head to the Vehicles menu and look for the Animal Transport category. Here, you can purchase any of the transports that have the cow icon in them. It will also say how many cows it can hold at a time.
After that drive the transport to the Animal Dealer. Here, you can purchase whatever cows you want and load them into the transport. There will be no additional fee if you purchase them in this way.
From here, drive the transport all the way to your farm. When you reach the animal pen, drive the transport over to the icon in front of the pen. When you do so, you’ll see the option for Animal Dialog appear in the top right.
Press the R button to open this menu.
From here, you can unload the cows into your animal pen. After that, you will be able to see them grazing in the pen.
However, getting them delivered is certainly more convenient but will cost you more because of a delivery fee. To get this done, you can interact with the animal icon in front of the barn. Over here, you will be able to purchase the cows directly.
The more cows you purchase, the higher the delivery fee will be.
Caring For Cows
Once you have your cows in Farming Simulator 25, it’s time to start caring for them. This means that you will need to provide them with food and water. Our how to give water to cows guide can help you out here!
Water will not be a main concern unless you purchased a Cow Pasture. This is because with the other animal pens, water is provided automatically and you just need to pay a small water bill for that.
To provide water for cows in the Cow Pasture, you will need to do it manually. The first thing you need is a Water Barrel. You can purchase any Water Barrel in the Barrels section of the Vehicles tab. Each of them is capable of carrying water.
After you purchase it, simply connect it to your truck.
To fill the water barrel, you’ll need a water source. You can do this by going into the Build menu and going to the Containers tab. Here, you can build a simple Water Tank where you can fill the barrel.
After you’ve filled the water barrel with water, drive it to the Water icon in front of the pasture. Make sure that you have the water barrel actually over it. After you have it in the right spot you can start dumping the water in the Cow Pasture.
Now, let’s turn our attention to feeding the cows. Feeding cows is a lot more complicated as you have different types of cows and different types of feed.
First let’s look at the different types of feed that you can give your cows. The below image shows all the types of food you can give cows, with an effectiveness linked to them. Cows will typically eat the highest effective food that is available for them first before moving down the ladder.
As you can see, Meadow and Grass have a 40% effectiveness, so they are practically useless.
The best feed by far is Total Mixed Rations (TMR) because of its 100% effectiveness. The more effective the food is, the higher the productivity. Additionally, the more effective food will allow your cows to reach 100% health first.
So, this can have different results depending on whether you have a breeding cow or milk cow. Let’s see which feed you should use for the specific types of cows:
- Milk producing cows (Brown Swiss, Holsteins)
- Give them TMR because this allows them to produce 20% more milk
- Breeding cows (Angus, Limousin)
- TMR will only help them create more Slurry and help them reach high reproduction faster
- So Hay and Silage are more than sufficient.
To provide the cows with their feed, you will need to use the appropriate vehicle to haul the food in. For example, you can use a Forage Mixer to bring in TMR.
After that, simply drive the vehicle in over the icon shown below when you enter the pen. Over here, you will be able to unload the feed inside.
Waste Products
There are two byproducts that cows will produce in the barn: slurry and manure. The water product will depend on the fact if you’ve put straw inside or not. If you put straw in the pen, they will produce manure. Otherwise, they will produce only slurry.
You can place straw in the same way that you unload feed into the animal pen.
You can take out the waste product from the pipe on the side of the pen. After that, you can use it to fertilize your fields, sell it or even process it. Check out our how to fertilize guide if that’s what you choose to do with it.
Depending on the type of waste product it is, you can purchase either a Slurry Tanker or a Manure Spreader to collect it.
If you do want to collect Manure, you’ll need to build an additional building. Start by going into your Build menu and selecting Silo Extensions. Here, you’ll need to purchase the Manure Heap Extension.
You won’t be able to place it too far away as it ties to the nearest barn. Once you give the cows straw, manure will start to appear here. You can then refill your vehicle with it and do whatever you need to do with it.
Getting Milk
If you’re taking care of dairy cows, then you can get milk as a product for them. Of course, you will need to have built a barn that can produce milk.
To be able to get the milk out, you will need to go to the milk icon near the barn as shown below.
After that, you’ll need to take a barrel so you can fill it with milk. Unlike the water, not all the barrels can be used to carry milk. The barrels that you need will be marked by a milk icon at the bottom.
From there, you can go into the Prices menu and sell it. Alternatively, you could also build a production that uses raw milk and converts it into bottled milk, cheese and other products.
Selling Cows
As with buying cows, you have two options. You can sell them directly from the barn or you can transport them to the Animal Dealer. If you go for the first option, it will cost you an additional fee.
So it’s always best to transport the cows if you plan to sell them.
Keep in mind that the value of your cows is tied to their Health. So, selling a cow that is at 100% health will give you the most profit.
That’s everything you need to know for the guide to cows in Farming Simulator 25. Hopefully, this should help the complicated process seem much simpler than it actually is. Now you’ll be able to take care of cows and generate as much profit as possible.
If you found this guide useful, we have comprehensive guides for other mechanics in the game. Why not check out our field prep guide?
