How to Get the Auto-Petter in Stardew Valley

Throughout the time playing Stardew Valley, you’ll discover all about Joja and how the player once worked for this faceless corporation. Even if the player was able to start anew on a quiet old farm, Joja Corp’s shadow still lingers whenever the villagers express their distaste for its unethical values and overpriced products. Would you be surprised if you discover that they also patented a product that lets you give synthetic love to animals?

The Auto-Petter is one of the latest items that were added in the 1.5 update. Unlike the more well-known new items like the Mini-Obelisk or the Ostrich Incubator, the Auto-Petter’s existence came as a total surprise to some. The tool wasn’t widely recognized because it could only be purchased from Jojamart. Not many players preferred completing the JojaMart Warehouse over reviving the Community Center — but more on that later.

The Auto-Petter and its Function

An Auto-Petter does what any convenient tool does best; it automatically pets your animals while you go about your other daily tasks. However, even if you have one of these cold machines in your farm buildings, it still won’t measure up to the warmth of a real rancher’s touch. The Auto-Petter only gives you half the friendship points compared to manually petting the animals one by one.

Keeping your animals happy by constantly feeding and interacting with them will raise their hearts, thus, increasing the quality of the products they provide every day.

How to Acquire an Auto-petter

If you would like to have one of these on your farm, an obvious way to get the item is by purchasing it from JojaMart, but there are also other means to acquire an Auto-Petter.

Funding the JojaMart Warehouse

Morally, it isn’t easy to get an Auto-Petter. You will have to lose the Community Center along with some minor bundle rewards in exchange for renovating it into the JojaMart Warehouse. If you did go through the JojaMart route, you can purchase an Auto-petter from the Joja Store for 50,000 gold each.

Treasure hunting in Skull Cavern

The Skull Cavern has Treasure Chests that may sometimes contain an Auto-Petter. These Chests can only appear in Treasure Rooms, on which you’ll only be able to get into it if you have a high luck stat.

Completing one of Mr. Qi’s quests

For players who haven’t been on Ginger Island yet, there will be spoilers ahead. On that island, you’ll find an area called Qi’s Walnut Room, which is on the west side of the island. Getting into that room requires you to have 100 Golden Walnuts.

Inside the Walnut Room, you’ll find Mr. Qi facing his otherworldly-looking monitor. There’s a special order board on the left side of that monitor where you’ll get random requests from Mr. Qi every week. You may come across a quest called Dangers in the Deep, where you’ll be asked to go to the bottom of the Mines for seven days.

If you can complete the quest, you’ll unlock the Shrine of Challenge located on the 120th floor of the Mines. Activating the Shrine of Challenge will tweak the difficulty of the enemies in the Mines, making them more dangerous than usual.

These dangerous monsters have a chance of dropping Auto-Petters. Moreover, destroying barrels and crates while The Shrine of Challenge is toggled on will also sometimes give you these items.

How to Use an Auto-Petter

Set up your Auto-Petter in your Barn or Coop and let the item work its magic. You can remove it using an ax or a pickaxe if you no longer want it or if you would like to move it into another building.