How To Use Gardens In Sims 4 Ps4

Sims 4 Cottage Living tips you need to go full farm fantasy

(Image credit: EA)

The chance to live your full farm fantasy in The Sims 4 is finally here, and we've got all the Sims 4 Cottage Living tips you need in order to ensure you'll have the best farm in Henford-on-Bagley.

The Sims 4 Cottage Living adds cows, chickens, llamas, wild birds, rabbits, and foxes - all of which offer new gameplay options. While you can raise cows, chickens, and llamas on your farm, you can only interact with wild birds, rabbits, and foxes roaming freely around Henford-on-Bagley, and you'll need to be well-versed in both animal relationships. You can even change some animal colors in Sims 4 Cottage Living, but you'll need to get your hands on animal treats in order to do that.

How to buy animal clothes in Sims 4 Cottage Living

We've also got all the details on the new NPCs in Sims 4 Cottage Living, from the return of the iconic Agnes Crumplebottom to the mysterious Creature Keeper. We'll also tell you how to get to the Finchwick Fair, and how to complete the new Simple Living Lot Challenge. Check out our Sims 4 Cottage Living preview for more of what you can expect with the highly anticipated expansion pack.

Read on for all of the Sims 4 Cottage Living tips to help you get the best crops, cutest animals, and more.

How to access Sims 4 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 $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

How to find animal clothes in Sims 4 Cottage Living - Alyssa the cow — (Image credit: EA)

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 will 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

How to buy animal clothes in Sims 4 Cottage Living — (Image credit: EA)

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 bve judget 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 Challengs 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 lick 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.

Alyssa Mercante is an editor and features writer at GamesRadar based out of Brooklyn, NY. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.