One of the most important aspects of Stardew Valley (and cozy gaming itself, really) is raising and making friends with your farm animals. While there are other ways to earn money (and some may even be better than animals), no one will say no to a bit of side income with little to no effort.
This is the case with ducks and their respective products, the Duck Feather and the Duck Egg. The Duck Egg is great for making Duck Mayonnaise. However, today we’ll be taking a look at the Stardew Duck Feather in particular.
The Duck Feather seems like a relatively unpopular and useless product. However, just like pretty much everything else in the game, it has its own purpose. In fact, Duck Feathers is a great source of passive income for your Stardew Valley farm.
We’ll cover the whole process from obtaining the Duck Feathers to making a profit from them. Keep reading to possibly find the next best side hustle for your save file!
Where can you find Duck Feather | Stardew Valley
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There are three main ways to obtain the Stardew Duck Feather.
The first way, obviously, is to get a duck. You can buy ducks from Marnie’s Ranch for 1200g. Alternatively, if you find a duck egg, you can place it into an incubator to hatch your very own duck. The process takes 9000 in-game minutes to finish up. If you feed it every day, in 5 game days you’ll have a grown duck that can produce Duck Feathers.
The second way to get a Duck Feather is by purchasing it from the Traveling Cart for 750 – 1250g. However, this isn’t a very solid way to get Duck Feathers, as the Traveling Cart only appears on Fridays and Sundays and the feathers are not guaranteed to appear in the catalog.
Finally, you can occasionally get a Duck Feather by marrying Emily, one of the villagers. Again, this isn’t the most effective way to get Duck Feathers, but it’s very low on investment. This requires you to obtain ten hearts with her and give her a bouquet.
However, there is another secret way of obtaining Duck Feathers that not many players know about. Once a year, on Leo’s birthday, the Statue of Endless Fortune will produce a Duck Feather. This requires the player to have bought the statue from an NPC in the Casino. It’s unclear if you need to meet Leo for the statue to produce the Duck Feather on his birthday.
The most effective way to get Duck Feathers consistently is probably the first method of buying a duck. However, you may combine these three methods to generate a more consistent income of Duck Feathers.
How often do ducks produce feathers in Stardew Valley?
To have a duck produce a feather in Stardew Valley, you’ll first need a mature duck. Baby ducks cannot produce anything and that includes Duck Feathers.
After your duck has matured, you’ll need to have a sufficient friendship level for it to produce feathers. However, this isn’t the only factor that comes into play.
It also depends on the duck’s mood. There are three moods animals can be in, which are determined by a value from 0 to 255. You can use the game’s tooltips to determine the value of the animal’s mood.
For example, if your duck “looks really happy today”, its mood is at least 200 and 255 at most. Similarly, if your duck “looks fine”, the mood value can range from 30 to 200. Finally, if the duck “looks sad”, the mood value ranges from 0 to 30.
Ducks producing feathers also depends on your daily luck, which you can check using the “Fortune Teller” program on the Television. Obviously, the highest luck value gives you the biggest chance of getting a Stardew Duck Feather that day.
Can you increase your chances to get a Duck Feather?
You can play with most of the conditions to increase the chances of getting a Duck Feather.
Having a good friendship level with the duck is the easiest one to alter. Certain actions will boost your friendship, while others may hinder it. Petting your ducks and letting them eat grass outside will give you friendship points.
However, not feeding them, trapping them outside overnight, and not petting them will hinder your friendship.
It’s also possible to affect the animal’s mood to have them produce a Duck Feather. Just like friendship, certain actions will improve the duck’s mood while others may spoil it. Eating grass outside, petting them, providing them with Heaters in the winter, and feeding them are good ways to improve their mood.
In contrast, leaving them outside in the rain, during winter, or past 7 pm, letting them sleep outside, not petting them, and not feeding them worsens their mood.
Unfortunately, luck buffs won’t increase your chances of getting a Duck Feather. You’ll just have to pray the spirits are in a good mood often. On the upside, it should drastically improve other gameplay aspects, as well.
The moral of the story is to just treat your animals like living beings. They may be digital but they have feelings too!
What are duck feathers useful for in Stardew Valley?
Duck Feathers don’t really come up in any recipes or quests in the game. However, you need a Duck Feather to complete the Dye Bundle on the Bulletin Board in the Community Center. If you don’t choose capitalism and let JojaMart take over Pelican Town, that is.
In tailoring, you can place a Duck Feather in the spool of Emily’s Sewing Machine to create a Lime Green Striped Shirt. If you put a dyeable item in the feed of the Sewing Machine, Duck Feathers act as a green dye. Finally, you can place it in the green dye pot at Emily’s to use it in dyeing, too.
However, Stardew Valley Duck Feathers can make for a great gift when it comes to certain villagers. You’ll find that Elliott and Leo love Duck Feathers. This makes them a perfect and easy gift choice if you want to raise your friendship with these two villagers and eventually marry Elliott.
Other than that, Harvey is the only one who likes receiving Duck Feathers. Pretty much all of the other villagers have a neutral reaction to receiving a Stardew Duck Feather, and Penny even dislikes receiving them.
Still, even neutral reactions to gifts are great, as they can give a 20 to 160 friendship increase. This also depends on the day you give the gift, whether it’s a regular day, the Winter Star, or the villager’s birthday.
What can you use Duck Feathers for?
Other than dyeing, tailoring, and gifting, there’s not much else you can use Duck Feathers for in Stardew Valley. However, that doesn’t make them useless by any means.
If you consistently get Duck Feathers by loving and cherishing your ducks, you can actually create a sort of passive income. Drop them off in the Shipping bin for a bit of extra gold every day!
How much are Duck Feathers in Stardew Valley
As always, the price of the product is determined by the quality of the product. It also depends on any professions you may have gained from raising your skills.
The base worth of a Stardew Duck Feather is 250g. This number rises up to 312g at silver quality, 375g at gold quality, and 500g at iridium quality. If you have at least 4 ducks, this can mean up to 2000g a day, provided the ducks are happy and you’re lucky enough.
However, the profits become even better when you select the Rancher profession upon reaching level 5 Farming skill. Regular quality Duck Feathers start to go for 300g, silver quality becomes 374g, gold quality is 450g, and iridium quality goes for 600g. It may not seem like much, but spread across 4 ducks producing Duck Feathers it can net you 2400g per day!
Overall, Stardew Valley Duck Feathers are a great thank-you note from your ducks for giving them all the love and affection these cute animals deserve. I mean, just look at their sprites. They’re one of the cutest Stardew Valley animals.
