4 Reasons Why Your Cows Aren’t Giving Milk in SoS: FoMT

All 3 specialty cows lounging on the farm in SoS:FOMT

To harvest milk from your cows, you’ll need to keep your cows happy.

And sometimes they won’t give you anything when you try to milk them after your daily feeding routine.

So why does milking fail every once in a while? There are many factors that determine if your cow will produce milk or not, along with the product’s quality.

The farmer equips the milker in the barn / SoS: FoMT
The farmer equips the milker in the barn.

You can figure out if your cow can produce milk each day by checking their profile in the Animal Relationships menu.

The third icon will be crossed out if milk is not available.

The animal relationships tab showing each cow’s feeding, milk production, heart level, etc / SoS: FoMT
The animal relationships tab where you can check the status of the cow’s feeding, milk production, heart level, etc.

It can get confusing because sometimes the issue can be as simple as forgetting to feed them, or an in-game bug that can’t be explained.

But we’ve made this list to clarify the most common issues for why cows won’t give milk in FoMT – and solutions on how to fix each problem!

1. You Aren’t Feeding Them Every Day (Or You Missed a Feeding)

The farmer hand feeds a strawberry cow with fodder / SoS: FoMT
The farmer hand feeds a strawberry cow with fodder.

From the time you buy your first cow, you’ll be reminded that they need to be fed every day with fodder. This ensures that they’ll grow up and mature into cows that will ideally produce one jug of milk daily.

However, you might forget to feed them with the stress of keeping up with all your farm chores! Sometimes, leaving them out in the field to graze isn’t enough.

A cow will not produce milk if they haven’t eaten at least one piece of fodder the day before.

The farmer prepares to harvest fodder from grass / SoS: FoMT
The farmer prepares to harvest fodder from grass.

A couple of things can prevent your cow from grazing.

  1. The grass patch might be blocked off by boulders or debris that the cows can’t get through. Try optimizing your field layout before letting your cows outside.
  2. Another possibility is that you’ve run out of grass, and they can’t find enough to eat for the day.

During Summer and Winter, you’ll get a message at the start of the day when you try to go outside. It will say that it’s too windy or snowy to work on the farm, and you can’t do anything but go back to sleep.

A message explaining that the farmer can’t go outside during windy summer days / SoS: FoMT
A message explaining that the farmer can’t go outside during windy summer days.

In this case, it’s inevitable that you won’t be able to feed your cows. You won’t be able to harvest milk the following day, but you can continue to feed them as normal.

The day after you start feeding them again, they’ll be able to produce milk.

The farmer places fodder in the barn’s feeding troughs / SoS: FoMT
The farmer places fodder in the barn’s feeding troughs.

The best way to ensure that your cows are fed is to simply hand-feed them.

Or if that takes up too much time, you can also place the fodder in the feeding troughs and they’ll eat it automatically.

2. You Aren’t Petting or Brushing Them

A coffee cow reacts with a heart when the farmer pets it / SoS: FoMT
A coffee cow reacts with a heart when the farmer pets it.

Increasing your friendship level with your cows is always a must!

If your cow is unhappy, it won’t give you any milk.

Regularly brush your cows and talk to them to make sure you’re keeping those friendship points up. Having more hearts with your cows will also let you harvest higher quality products, so they sell for a higher price.

3. Your Cow Isn’t Mature Enough

The relationship profile of a young fruit calf / SoS: FoMT
The relationship profile of a young fruit calf.

Just to cover all the bases here, it might be possible that your cow hasn’t fully matured yet.

Calves that were just born or freshly bought from Mugi won’t be able to give you milk until they grow up.

Raising them can take anywhere between 9-14 days, so just be patient and give them attention every day!

To check if your cow is fully mature, just look at their profile in the Animal Relationships tab again. A cow will have different descriptions depending on their age.

  • Immature calf: “A young cow. Once fully mature, it’ll produce Milk.”
  • Mature cow: “A mature cow. The more it likes me, the larger size Milk it produces.”

Or you could always just look at how big they are! A young calf is already pretty big and round, but adults are even bigger.

An immature fruit calf next to an adult coffee cow / SoS: FoMT
An immature fruit calf next to an adult coffee cow.

4. Your Cow Turned Into a Turnip Machine

The farmer holds up a turnip on the farm / SoS: FoMT
The farmer holds up a turnip on the farm.

This sounds like a joke, but it can actually happen.

Reddit user u/justboughthisthing posted a video clip on the Story of Seasons subreddit, asking why their cows were producing turnips.

They were milking their cows, as usual. But to their surprise, instead of the cows dropping a jug of milk, a turnip started popping up from the floor instead!

A frame showing the cow turnip glitch from u/justboughthisthing’s video / SoS: FoMT
A frame showing the cow turnip glitch from u/justboughthisthing’s video / Source

This baffled a lot of players in the community, but later on it was discovered that the glitch only happens if you’re using a certain mod.

Apparently, using the “Fast Tool Charging” feature in this trainer cheat mod is the culprit. Equipping the milker while it’s enabled will cause the turnip bug.

If you don’t have any mods installed, you’ll probably never experience this bug anyway. But if you find that your cows have turned into turnip machines overnight, just turn off any mods you have running and they’ll be back to producing milk as they should.

The farmer holds up a bottle of milk while standing outside the barn / SoS: FoMT
The farmer holds up a bottle of milk while standing outside the barn.

Kal S.

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Kal S. is a part-time med student and full-time nerd. Connect with them over all things fantasy, science fiction, and art!

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