Cowplants in The Sims 4 are as demanding as any other Pet. Here’s everything you need to know about their needs (and dangers)!

If you’re a fan of weird pets, you need to give raising a Cowplant a try. They’re very high maintenance plant/cow hybrids and require a lot of attention to stay alive and healthy but they’re very rewarding companions for your Sims and you’ll find yourself getting emotionally attached to your Cowplant quite quickly. If they don’t eat you…

Not sure how to get your hands on a Cowplant? Do your Cowplants keep dying on you in spite of your best efforts to care for them? We’ll give you all the info you need to raise a happy, healthy Cowplant that becomes a lifelong part of the family so fear not!

Sims 4 cowplant
Finding a Cowplant Berry
A baby Cowplant
Cowplants are in the base game so all Sims 4 players can find a Cowplant Berry and raise it into a Cowplant. There are numerous ways to obtain a Cowplant Berry both in the base game and through additional DLC packs.

The main way to get a Cowplant Berry involves grafting plants. Grafting a Dragonfruit plant with a Snapdragon plant will produce a Cowplant Berry. This sounds simple enough, except Dragonfruit cannot be found out in the world. At least not in the base game. You will need to graft that, too. The grafting combo for Dragonfruit is Strawberry+Snapdragon.

So to get a Cowplant Berry, you’ll have to go through the following process:

Find Snapdragons out in the world (All Willow Creek neighbourhoods; Spring or Autumn)
Find Strawberries out in the world (All Willow Creek neighbourhoods; Spring)
Graft a Strawberry with a Snapdragon to get Dragonfruit
Graft Dragonfruit with Snapdragon to get a Cowplant Berry.
Of course, this is a pretty time-consuming method of obtaining a Cowplant Berry. If your Sim likes to fish, Cowplant Berries can also be caught while fishing in the Desert Bloom park in Oasis Springs at the tiny fishing hole located at the very back of the area, nestled between rocks. There are other fishing spots that yield Cowplant Berries, especially in DLC packs but this spot has a particularly high Cowplant Berry catch rate.

The Cow Berry fishing location is circled in red
There is also a small chance of finding a Cowplant Berry while exploring space in a rocket ship.

If City Living is installed, Dragonfruit can sometimes be found in the planter boxes at the Spice Festival. Vendors may be selling Cowplant Berries at the Flea Market so it’s worth checking there if you’re having bad luck finding one.

If Seasons is installed, Cowplant Berries and Dragonfruit also have a chance of appearing in Rare Seed Packets. Snapdragons and Strawberries can sometimes be found inside their respective Seasonal Seed Packets.

Raising The Beast
Once you have a Cowplant Berry in your possession, you need to plant it. Cowplants require a LOT of space so if there isn’t enough room around it when you plant it, the seed won’t germinate. Cowplants should have a minimum of a 2×5 clear area around it.

The highlighted tiles need to be completely clear of obstacles for a Cowplant Berry to germinate.
Water your Cowplant Berry and care for it like any other plant. It should take about 2 days for your Cowplant Berry to mature into a full-grown Cowplant.

Cowplants require more specialized care than other types of plants. In fact, they’re more like pets than plants when fully grown. Sims can even give their Cowplant a name to make them an even more unique addition to the family. Sims can feed, play with, and pet their Cowplant. All of these things will keep your Cowplant happy and healthy.

A Sim playing with a Cowplant
The trouble most Simmers have with keeping their Cowplant alive is remembering to feed it. Cowplants need to be fed every 12 hours like clockwork. You may think you’re keeping your Cowplant well-fed but it’s easy to lose track of your Cowplant’s feeding schedule while juggling work, relationships, children, and other goals your Sim has.

The best way to ensure that you will remember to feed your Cowplant on schedule is to place your Cowplant somewhere easily visible on your home lot. Somewhere you are focusing your attention most of the time and would be impossible to miss. The front yard, close to the front door is a good place for most people, especially if they have Sims who leave the lot daily for work.

A hungry Cowplant sticking out its cake tongue
You will know your Cowplant is hungry when you see it sticking out its tongue with a slice of cake on the end of it. When your Cowplant does this, you should drop everything you are doing and feed it immediately. Your Cowplant will only have its tongue out for a maximum of 24 hours before it dies and becomes a very sad-looking skeleton in your garden. Make sure you also pet it and play with it whenever you feed it just for good measure.

A dead Cowplant
Rushing to feed your Cowplant as soon as it becomes hungry is not only good for your Cowplant, but also necessary for your own safety…

The Dangers
You might have noticed that when your Sims feed their Cowplant, they feed it a package of raw meat. This is because Cowplants are carnivorous and have a particular taste for… Sims. Including you and your family.

When kept well-fed, Cowplants are perfectly harmless. But a hungry Cowplant is a dangerous Cowplant. When a Cowplant becomes hungry, it will stick out its cake tongue. This cake tongue serves a very specific purpose; to lure Sims into trying to take the slice of cake. When a Sim does fall for the trap and go for the cake, the Cowplant will pull the Sim into its mouth and swallow them whole!

A Cowplant swallowing a Sim
The first time this happens, it will regurgitate your Sim back up, sparing their life, but if this happens again while the Sim still has a negative moodlet from the Cowplant, it will eat them for good and your Sim will Die by Cowplant.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on what kind of Simmer you are), Cowplants only seem to lure household members into its mouth. NPCs and townies walking by won’t be autonomously drawn to the cake like your active household members so random passersby are safe.

A Cowplant regurgitating a Sim
It’s not all bad, though! Eating Sims will satisfy your Cowplant’s hunger until the next feeding time even if it regurgitates the Sim. And if you want to benefit further from your Cowplant’s menacing appetite, you can milk the remains of digested Sims from its udders.

Yep. It’s as weird as it sounds.

Milking Your Cowplant
A Sim milking a Cowplant
Your Cowplant will partially digest any Sim they eat, even if they regurgitate the Sim. This will result in its udders filling with milk. You’ll know your Cowplant can be milked when its udders look heavy and hang down lower than usual.

If a Cowplant successfully digested the Sim, it will produce the Essence of Life, which your Sim can drink to extend their lifespan and boost their mood. If the Cowplant regurgitated the Sim, it will produce a special drink that puts the drinker in whatever emotional state the Cowplant’s victim was in when they were eaten.

So for the more diabolical Simmers out there… Yes, you can keep yourself immortal by sacrificing other Sims to your Cowplant. That is an actual thing.