What are your guys' opinions on which barn animal is the 'best'/more profitable? I personally like the goats because the iridium goat cheese seems to sell for a lot, but the pigs are great too.
Cow. Cows produce milk daily, while goats will only produce every other day if that, so cows come out ahead of goats. Pigs produce truffles that can be quite profitable (particularly if you have the Botanist perk to make sure they are iridium quality), but won't do so in the winter, and requires the final tier upgrade to obtain. So... go ahead, have a cow, man.
That depends partially on how many Artisan things you produce, I think. If you make refined products regularly, Artisan probably nets you more than Shepperd, but if you keep your sheep happy you can sheer them every day. Comparing Wool and Cheese, Wool sells for more assuming the same quality. Thing is, if you make enough other stuff that Artisan buffs that'll make up the difference there instead. As someone pointed out to me earlier, only regular and silver quality Wool should be spun into cloth, if you're looking for maximum profit in that fashion. I think it sort of depends on how large of a scale you look at it. Investing into a full truffle farm will take the most time, but probably net you the most money long-term. I can't truly be sure, because truffle spawning can't be accurately predicted and, as previously mentioned, isn't available during winter.
Cows are definitely best in the early game, particularly when you consider not only the daily production, but also the much lower purchase cost compared to all the other barn animals. Cows "pay for themselves" incredibly quickly compared to goats, pigs, and sheep. I'd like to do a comparison of cows vs. sheep (with Shepherd, not Artisan) during the second year and beyond, though. I haven't run the numbers or tested it yet (though I think my current play-through may eventually be a good farm for trying it), but I wouldn't be surprised if a dozen sheep at full hearts could outperform the dairy barn next door.
Sheep, no contest. With Rancher/Sheperd a single cow produces one milk a day. If it's anything less than iridium quality it gets turned into cheese for a profit of either 240g or 360g. If it's iridium quality it sells straight for either 260g or 380g. Sheep produce once a day with Sheperd and make a minimum of 564g (converted to Cloth) and a max of 816g (raw iridium quality). That doesn't count aging the cheese but an iridium quality cheese sells for 480g Rancher price. Goats are even less profitable than cows because they only produce every other day without their products being worth twice as much.
I happen to like cows because Cheese is an amazing food item for diving into the mines and skull cave. Also, there's only four people in town who do not at least Like cheese, so it also makes a handy universal gifting option. So, for me, the utility is more important than the cash. Also, I universally go Artisan. Fun fact: Cheese Presses will process in a mere three and a half hours, meaning you don't need many cheese presses to keep all your milk turned into yummy cheese. However, practically, I like to have one press for every two cows. I process half of them in the morning, while I am feeding and petting them, and store the other half in a nearby chest, then in the evening when I am wrapping up the day, I collect the first batch of cheese and set the second batch working overnight so it is available when I wake up in the morning. So this way, even for a Deluxe Barn full of 12 cows, you only need 6 cheese presses to keep up with them. Even if you don't see your barn as a, if you'll pardon the expression, 'cash cow', Cheese is an amazing food item that can keep you going into the very bottom-most depths of the mines and keep you alive in the dangerous skull cave. With Rancher/Shepherd, you can probably get more profit out of a barn with sheep instead of cattle, and if you have Botanist, Pigs can be an extremely lucrative option as well (since you'll also have Gatherer for a 20% chance of a second truffle). But I am fond of cows. Cows keep me in enough cheese to keep me going through my mining, and enough left over to give as gifts all over town, and still be able to make a tidy little profit from the leftovers.
Early in the game get cows, which are cheap and productive. If the cart doesn't sell a truffle by fall 14 then get one pig from Marnie on fall 16 to guarantee getting the one you need for the chef's bundle. If we're talking about money in the long run, and you want animals, it's pigs and not close. A pig will earn more than a cow, a goat and a sheep combined. Under optimum conditions, with artisan, and aging cheese in the cellar, a cow can earn just under 62k for a year, a goat just under 59k. The goat only needs to be milked half as often though, so the double energy and every day attention needed for collecting from cows might not be worth the extra 7% or so. Sheep are a double edged sword. Their earnings are maximised when you choose the rancher>shepherd profession, when a five heart sheep can produce wool every day and earnings under optimum conditions are just over 83k per year, comfortably beating cows and goats. The massive downside is that you don't get the 40% bonus from the artisan profession on everything else. With artisan they can only produce every other day, and the adjustment to the prices sees their potential earnings slashed to a miserable 37k. Pigs produce truffles, which are forage, so you can get a 20% chance of double harvest from choosing Gatherer on the Foraging professions, and pigs also get the chance of digging up more than once. And with artisan profession, truffle oil sells for a king size whopper price of 1,491 each. Long story short, a five heart pig can earn over 200k per year, even though they don't produce in winter or on rainy days. Pigs don't even cost energy to harvest, unlike milking or shearing. Just pet and forget. You don't even need to collect every day from pigs, the truffle will stay there. You don't lose the revenue if you miss a day, unlike the others. Of course, the best thing to have in a barn is more Kegs
In my opinion Pigs are the best animals to have if you want lots of gold. Right now I have 14 pigs and I've been getting up to 35 iridium grade truffles everyday. I used to make them into oil but the iridium ones are more valuable than the oil,(unless you choose the artisan profession) even if you use iridium truffles. Just make sure to pet them everyday to keep them super happy and they find tons of truffles for you. I used also have 2 goats, 1 cow and a sheep but I got rid of the sheep and one goat. I get more than enough wool from my one rabbit to make any cloth I need and I wanted to make room for another pig without getting another barn (already have 2 deluxe barns) so bye bye goat. In my coop I have 2 lizards, 1 rabbit, 1 duck, 1 brown chicken and 4 blue chickens. I only recently got a slime hutch and I only did for completion sake because I think there kind of useless.
