Beyond These Stars Animals Guide: Cows, Chickens & New Livestock

Livestock turns a struggling Peep settlement into a self-sufficient colony, and this Beyond These Stars animals guide shows exactly which animals are available, which planets host them, and how to put them to work. Cows, chickens, and sheep are the only named livestock in the developer's official posts so far, and each one gates a different downstream product — milk, eggs, and Wool. Because most of these animals are tied to outposts rather than the back of Kewa, the path to a functioning ranch runs straight through the Galaxy Map, the Scout Ship, and the Settlement Ship. Because most of these animals are tied to outposts rather than the back of Kewa, the path to a functioning ranch runs straight through the Galaxy Map, the Scout Ship, and the Settlement Ship, and our walkthrough on deploying and piloting the Scout Ship to chart habitable outposts breaks down exactly how that scouting leg feeds into the ranching build chain.

Beyond These Stars Livestock at Launch: What the Developer Has Actually Confirmed

The game shipped to version 1.0 on October 16, 2026, skipping Early Access entirely, so the official documentation of animals is still very thin. According to the the official press kit page and the developer's own news hub at Balancing Monkey Games articles, only three animal types have been named so far: Sheep, Cows, and chickens (cows and chickens appear together in a single reference inside the Neutral Sector). A fourth slot in the resource list is reserved for additional livestock, but the developer has not published what fills it.

That thinness is worth flagging up front. The launch window is barely open, and the Steam Community guides hub for app 2295060 only carries the developer's own Official Beginner's Guide plus a small handful of player-written entries. Hard numbers — carrying capacity, wool yield per shift, milk output per cow, egg-laying cadence, sickness rates, pasture cost, or build time for the Pasture structure — are all not published as of October 17, 2026. This guide therefore works at the type level, describing mechanics the studio has confirmed without inventing the per-tile rates a working economy depends on.

The Pasture is the only verified building that interacts with livestock directly. According to the verified buildings list, the Pasture "produces Wool on a planet with sheep; Cotton seeds can be found" — which makes the Pasture the bridge between the planet-side animal economy and the textile chain that ends in Cold Weather Clothing and Warm Weather Clothing at the Tailor. The Weaver sits between them, converting raw fibres into fabrics.

For players planning around animals, the practical implication is that "getting cows" or "getting chickens" is really two questions stacked on top of each other: where the animals live, and what they produce. The first question is now well-mapped; the second is still partly open.

Beyond These Stars How to Get Cows and Chickens on a New Planet

The clearest path to cows and chickens in this colony sim runs through the Galaxy Map. Dev Blog #28 describes the Neutral Sector as a named region of the galaxy holding a moderate-climate planet with chickens and cows — and that one line is currently the only public confirmation that these animals exist. There is no mention of cows or chickens being available on the home whale, Kewa, or on any other specific named planet.

Reading the Galaxy Map Correctly

The Galaxy Map in Beyond These Stars is "partially visible at first" and unlocks over time, which means a node containing cows and chickens is not visible on day one. The Scout Ship is the early-game vehicle used to investigate nodes; you launch it with Jose, the character aboard, and only after a Scout Ship investigates a node do you learn whether it holds a barren planet, space junk, a strange object, a trade station, an alien encounter, or a settleable world with livestock. Until the Scout touches a node, the icon stays unidentified. Players who rush straight for visible planets will often bypass the moderate-climate one that hosts cows and chickens, because the Galaxy Map does not label animal planets with a tag before the Scout arrives.

Picking a Planet That Supports Animals

Climate is the gate. The home whale, Kewa, is described as a "sentient giant Space Whale who carries your people across the galaxy," with their own health, happiness, and dialogue — but Kewa is not on the published list of animal habitats. The verified planet-side resources include Wool, Cotton seeds, and top soil, alongside Shell from the Trawler, which all read as planet drops rather than whale drops. Sheep are the only animal whose habitat the developer describes in detail: the Pasture produces Wool on a planet that has them. Cows and chickens are described collectively as living on a moderate-climate planet in the Neutral Sector, which is itself a named region on the Galaxy Map rather than a single specific planet name.

A practical read is that the Neutral Sector moderate-climate planet is the highest-confidence target for an animal ranch on day one, and other planets may host animals in ways the developer has not yet documented. Until the studio publishes per-planet animal tables, treat the Neutral Sector moderate-climate planet as the reference case and any other settleable world as a possible-but-unconfirmed source.

Landing the Settlement Ship Without Breaking the System

The Settlement Ship is the only way to put boots on a new planet, and it is not a player-built vessel. According to the developer diary on the ship layer, the Settlement Ship is "an upgraded Home Spaceship that trades its resource production for larger storage and a Landing Pad attachment so it can act as a Space Port. It is the only ship that can land without a Landing Pad, and once landed it cannot take off again until you build at least one Space Port in the area." That last clause is the easy one to miss: settle a planet and you are committed to building at least one Space Port there before the Settlement Ship will move again.

Space Ships cannot land on Kewa or on a planet without a Landing Pad, and a Space Port can hold up to four Landing Pads, each taking one ship at a time. Plan accordingly — the first thing a new outpost needs is not a Pasture, it is a Space Port with at least one Landing Pad so the Settlement Ship can be released and Trade Ships can dock. Once that infrastructure is in place, a Pasture and the rest of the animal economy become buildable.

Beyond These Stars Sheep Guide: The Pasture Chain in Practice

Sheep are the only animal in the game whose full pipeline the developer has described in detail. A Pasture produces Wool on a planet that has sheep, Cotton seeds can be found on such planets as a separate resource, the Weaver converts those raw fibres into fabrics, and the Tailor turns fabrics into Cold Weather Clothing and Warm Weather Clothing. That is a four-building chain from animal to wearable, and it is the most fully-documented animal economy in the game.

Building the Pasture the Right Way

A Pasture is a planet-side building, not a Kewa-side one, because its description explicitly names "a planet with sheep" as the precondition for Wool production. The Adjacency bonuses system documented in the verified mechanics list means layout matters: place the Pasture near the Space Port to shorten Peep travel time, and keep it close to the Weaver so raw Wool can move into textile production without crossing the whole settlement. The developer has not published the bonus formula, the building's footprint, or its Upkeep cost, so any specific number a player reads elsewhere should be treated as community testing rather than developer fact.

Turning Wool into Something Useful

Raw Wool is not the end of the chain. The Weaver is the only building in the verified list that "converts raw materials into fabrics," and the Tailor is the only building that "makes Cold Weather and Warm Weather Clothing from fabrics." Clothing feeds back into Peep wellbeing: a Peep without appropriate clothing in a cold or hot biome will accumulate discomfort, which over time drags down happiness and can interact with the Sickness / Death / Mourning system from Dev Blog #25. Dev Blog #29 explicitly links planet temperature to outcomes: "a hot galaxy drags Kewa's happiness down; if it falls far enough, Kewa starts emergency travel somewhere cold." Clothing is therefore not a luxury — it is a buffer against an environmental drag that can snowball into a forced move.

Common Sheep-Planet Mistakes

Three pitfalls come up again and again in early-game colony sims like this one, and the official Dev Blog material lines up with the warnings: landing your Settlement Ship on a wool-rich world without first scanning for a Space Port candidate, dropping a Pasture and expecting Wool to flow straight into finished coats, and forgetting that Peep happiness is driven by shift length and travel time. Each mistake triggers a cascading resource failure — stranded colonists, overflowing Wool stockpiles, or sudden three-shift strikes from exhausted Weavers — so the safest early layout always pairs a Landing Pad-adjacent Pasture with a tightly clustered Weaver and Tailor.

• Settling a sheep planet without a Space Port first. The Settlement Ship stays grounded until a Space Port with at least one Landing Pad exists, and your Peeps are effectively stranded.

• Building a single Pasture with no Weaver nearby. Raw Wool will pile up; without a Weaver it does not become fabric, and without a Tailor it does not become clothing.

• Ignoring shifts and strikes. Dev Blog #23 describes strikes as lasting around three shifts and being tied to a goal that addresses the root cause. Pasture and Weaver Peeps can and do strike; laying out the buildings to minimise travel time reduces friction and therefore strike risk.

Beyond These Stars Milk and Eggs: Reading Between the Lines

Here is the honest, slightly uncomfortable part of any animals guide written at launch: milk and eggs have not been named in the official resources list as of October 17, 2026. The verified resources the developer names are Wood, Wood Waste, Food Waste, Water, Chemicals, Wool, Cotton seeds, Shell, top soil, potatoes, soup, Sheep, Cows, Cold Weather Clothing, Warm Weather Clothing, and Advanced Goods. "Milk" and "Eggs" are not on that list.

What the developer has said is that a moderate-climate planet in the Neutral Sector hosts cows and chickens. In every real-world and colony-sim context that phrase implies dairy and eggs, and the Kitchen is described as the building that "turns ingredients into meals" with no published list of what counts as an ingredient. It is therefore reasonable to expect that cows produce milk and chickens produce eggs as inputs to the Kitchen, but until the developer publishes those resource names, treat the chain as inferred rather than confirmed. This is the same caution the studio itself takes in its Official Beginner's Guide — the dev diary style leans toward describing systems as they ship rather than promising future ones.

How the Kitchen Closes the Loop

A Kitchen is named in the verified buildings list, and it is the only confirmed food-processing structure. The verified resources that feed it are potatoes and soup (which is itself an output of the Kitchen rather than a raw ingredient, so this is a small documentation gap). Wood Waste and Food Waste are also on the verified list and are the kind of by-product the Kitchen can absorb. If milk and eggs do become named resources after a future patch, the Kitchen is the building that turns them into meals — that is its documented job. Until then, the Kitchen's role in the animal economy is best framed as "the place where any animal-derived food inputs would land."

What Is and Is Not Confirmed About Animal Products

The honest summary is that the wool pipeline is documented, the milk/egg pipeline is plausible but not yet published, and the rest of the animal economy will need a future dev blog or patch note to be fully spelled out. Players who want a working ranch on day one should treat sheep as the confirmed starting point, and treat cows and chickens as a high-confidence bet whose downstream recipes the developer is still rolling out.

Beyond These Stars Planet Resources: How to Read the Galaxy Map for Animal Nodes

Because animals are planet-tied rather than Kewa-tied, picking the right planet is the entire game. The developer has named the Neutral Sector as a region holding "a moderate-climate planet with chickens and cows," and the Galaxy Map is the entry point to it. Reading that map well is the difference between a working ranch and a stranded Settlement Ship.

Tools You Need Before You Settle

Three ships and one building chain carry the entire outpost economy, and the developer has been explicit about which one does what: the Scout, Trade, and Settlement vessels each handle a single link in the supply pipeline, while the Space Port and its four Landing Pads form the planet-side handoff that converts a landed Settlement Ship into a working colony — the layer every animal guide later depends on for milk, eggs, and wool production.

• Scout Ship — investigates Galaxy Map nodes with Jose aboard. Without a Scout visit, you do not know what a node holds.

• Trade Ship — ferries supplies between Space Ports. The developer diary states: "Trade Ships ferry supplies to and from Kewa. Ships shuttle between Space Ports rather than between planets, which gives players more control over destinations."

• Settlement Ship — the only ship that can land on a planet without a pre-built Landing Pad; cannot take off again until a Space Port exists.

• Space Port + Landing Pad — the planet-side infrastructure the Settlement Ship hands off to. Four Landing Pads per Space Port, one ship per pad.

Matching Planet to Product

The developer has not published a per-planet animal table, but the climate hint is enough to make a useful shortlist. "Moderate-climate" lines up with the conditions sheep need to produce Wool (the only documented animal product), and it is the same phrasing used for the planet that hosts cows and chickens. Hot or cold-biome planets are more likely to need Cold Weather Clothing or Warm Weather Clothing to keep Peeps healthy — which actually increases the value of a working Tailor chain and therefore of a sheep planet in the supply network.

The strategic shape that emerges is a hub-and-spoke: Kewa as the political and population centre, a sheep planet feeding the textile chain, and a Neutral Sector moderate-climate planet feeding the dairy and egg chain (once those recipes are published). Trade Ships move finished goods back to Kewa so the Tailor and Kitchen can keep working even when a planet is dedicated to one resource.

Beyond These Stars New Animals: What to Watch For After Launch

The launch is one day old at the time of writing, and the developer has signalled in the article index at Balancing Monkey Games articles that there are dev blogs, developer diaries, and an official beginner's guide still being referenced — but no Dev Blog #30 or Hotfix #2 has shipped yet. Anything in the "new animals" slot is, at this moment, a matter of inference and patience rather than data.

Signals That an Animal Is Being Added

After a new build, patch, or Dev Blog drops, three concrete signals tell you whether the Beyond These Stars animal roster is about to expand beyond the current sheep, cow, and chicken baseline — and tracking them early lets you pre-stage Pasture capacity and stockpile the right raw resources before the new livestock actually goes live.

• New named resources in patch notes. The verified resources list is the source of truth for what exists. If "Milk" or "Eggs" appear, the corresponding animals already work.

• New named buildings in the verified buildings list. The Pasture is currently the only livestock structure, and a "Dairy" or "Henhouse" would expand the chain.

• New Galaxy Map nodes or regions. Dev Blog #28 names the Neutral Sector explicitly; future dev posts may name other sectors with their own animal populations.

Why the Developer Will Probably Add More

The studio's previous title, Before We Leave, also featured Peeps as the player's people and is a city builder in the same lineage. That history suggests the team is comfortable iterating on a Peep-economy game over time, and the launch-day article index already lists "Outposts and settleable planets" as a topic. A live-service-style stream of new planet types, new animals, and new recipes is plausible, but anything beyond sheep, cows, and chickens is a forward-looking bet, not a current feature. Players who plan around confirmed animals first and add speculative ones only as they ship will avoid the trap of optimising for content that does not yet exist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I find cows in Beyond These Stars?

Cows live on a moderate-climate planet inside the Neutral Sector, which is a named region on the Galaxy Map. Send a Scout Ship to investigate a node in that region with Jose aboard, confirm the planet is settleable, and then send your Settlement Ship to land. The developer has not published any other planet that hosts cows, so the Neutral Sector moderate-climate planet is the only confirmed source at launch.

How do I unlock chickens on a new planet?

Chickens share a habitat with cows on the same Neutral Sector moderate-climate planet, so the unlock path is identical: Scout the node, settle with the Settlement Ship, build a Space Port with at least one Landing Pad, and then construct a Pasture if you also want Wool. Pasture does not yet have a published chicken-specific mode, so treat chickens as a planet feature you settle near rather than a Pasture upgrade.

What does a Pasture actually produce?

The Pasture produces Wool on a planet that has sheep, and Cotton seeds can be found on the same kind of planet as a separate gatherable. Wool feeds the Weaver, which feeds the Tailor, which produces Cold Weather Clothing and Warm Weather Clothing. The developer has not published per-shift yields, building cost, or carrying capacity, so the rates you see in any community guide are player testing rather than official numbers.

Are milk and eggs real resources in the game?

Not as named resources in the developer's verified list as of October 17, 2026. Cows and chickens are confirmed animals, and the Kitchen is the only confirmed food-processing building, but "Milk" and "Eggs" do not appear in the official resource list yet. The pipeline is plausible rather than documented, so plan your ranch around confirmed outputs (Wool from sheep) and treat milk and eggs as a high-confidence bet that needs an official resource name before it counts as a known system.

Can I run a ranch on Kewa the whale?

No confirmed animals live on Kewa. Every documented livestock source is planet-side, tied to the Galaxy Map, the Scout Ship, and the Settlement Ship. Kewa has its own health and happiness and is the home of your Peeps, but the Pasture and the other animal-economy buildings all need a planet with the right climate and animals. Keep Kewa for population, research, and clothing distribution, and use outposts for the actual ranching.