Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea animal feed comes down to one feed per animal per day, and there are two ways to do it: buy it, or make it free. The Feeder Machine in the Animal Center turns weeds and grass into feed, which is the cheapest long-term answer to a large herd.
Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea animal feed and the daily requirement
| Method | Cost |
|---|---|
| Bought feed | Money, per bag |
| Grazing | Free — one hour in the sun feeds an animal |
| Feeder Machine | Free — weeds and grass become feed |
| Favourite food | Hand-fed, raises product quality |
Basic care is simple: one feed per animal per day, or grazing in the sun for an hour. Because your farming tool selection is automatic, caring for animals does not mean juggling a tool belt the way older Harvest Moon games did.
Grazing for free
Grazing outdoors for an hour on a sunny day feeds an animal, which is why your starting horse and calf cost nothing to keep.
There is one region where this stops working: animals moved to Tidewind cannot graze at all and must stay indoors on feed, because the island is so wet. Plan for that when you move your farm — the region rules are on the town plots page.
And remember that grazing has a second effect on your fields: letting animals eat a little of your crops restores soil quality faster. That trade-off is explained on the soil and fertilizer page.
The Feeder Machine
The machine in the Animal Center turns weeds and grass into animal feed, and from Summer 1 it also accepts Fodder Corn. It can be set to refill your feed bins automatically, so planting grass early and running the Feeder Machine is the cheapest long-term answer to feeding a large herd.
You also need to plant grass as soon as you can, because mowing weeds only goes so far. That is a day-two priority in the first week, alongside the fence Mayor Doug asks for.
Favourite food raises product quality
Animals have gift preferences, and hand-feeding an animal its favourite food increases the quality of the product it produces — so the same item that a villager will love is also the one to feed your cows and chickens.
That makes the DocPad's resident directory useful for livestock as well as for people. The gift list and where it lives is on the gift guide page, and the animals themselves are on the animal list page.
Feeding inside a tidewind barn
If your farm is in Tidewind, your animals are on store-bought feed for the whole stay, which makes the Feeder Machine even more important there: the grass you plant is the only thing keeping the herd fed without spending the money on every bag.
The other side of the same topic is the barn upgrade. Jimmy's Animal Barn Upgrade in Maplehill takes 15 Material Stone, 15 Palm Square Lumber, 10 Grass and 15,000 G, and it doubles the effective herd size by adding 8 more chicken spaces.