It’s no surprise that having the option to own, raise, and care for horses is the main draw in The Sims 4 Horse Ranch expansion, but the task itself can be more than a little daunting. With care, training, and socializing all to worry about when raising horses, you’ll have your hands full with ranch duties more often than not!
In this guide, we’re walking you through all the important info you’ll need to get started on caring for your horses in The Sims 4 Horse Ranch. It’s hard work, but a peaceful life on the ranch is worth it.
What Do I Need To Care For Horses?
Like with all animals in The Sims 4, horses have a few specific requirements to make caring for them a smooth process.
Find Horse Care Items In The Outdoor Room Section Of Build Mode
If you've loaded into a lot that doesn't already have a horse stable, you'll need to build a functional horse stable if you'd like your horses to be happy and healthy.
There are four things the game suggests you purchase if you hope to raise horses:
- Animal Feeder
- Horse Water Trough
- Horse Bed
- One Big Ball
These can all be located in the Outdoor room section of Build/Buy Mode, under the chicken coop icon in the center of the menu for the Outdoor room.
If you're playing in Chestnut Ridge, then you'll have plenty of options for pre-made houses that contain these items. If you're building a new house, though, just remember that you'll need these four essentials.
Choose Either Jumping Or Agility, If You're Low On Funds Or Space
While it's incredibly helpful for the competitions in The Sims 4 Horse Ranch, and overall makes your horse more valuable and well-rounded, training items for horses take up a lot of space.
Thankfully, most of the new lots in Chestnut Ridge offer plenty of wide open spaces on the property, offering ample room to ride and train your horses.
However, you'll need separate equipment for Jumping and Agility training, both of which are rather large items in terms of their space consumption on your lot.
You can train your horse in Endurance and Temperament from wherever, but to train for Jumping or Agility, you'll need special equipment.
For more info, check out our Horse Training Guide.
How To Tend To Your Horses
Assign Your Horse To A Bed, And Then Keep It Clean
Horses have an energy need, and will become Fatigued after too much training. Whenever they need to sleep, they'll need a place to do it.
When you first place stables on your lot, much like the human Sims when they move someplace new, you'll need to assign a horse to a bed if you'd like them to reliably go to the same place to sleep.
You can only assign one horse per bed, so if you're raising multiple horses on your ranch, you'll need that many beds. When the bed is placed, you'll see piles of hay in each bed.
As time passes, the hay will shift in the bed and eventually even begin to stink, meaning it's time to change your horses' bedding.
To do so, click on the horse's bed and choose to clean it. Horses will grow grumpy before long if kept in squalor, so stay on top of your horse hygiene!
Part of cleaning is that you need to watch out for manure piles around the ranch, which you'll need to manually clean up.
You can either throw it away, or keep it and use it to fertilize crops.
Keep The Feeders Full, And Hand-Feed Your Horses
When buying the items you'll need for your ranch, it's best to allow one Animal Feeder per horse, at the rate these guys consume their feed.
Each feeder costs 30 simoleons to refill, so keep an eye on the food levels in your barn to ensure everyone is fed and in good health.
Additionally, if you have fruit or vegetables in your Sim's inventory, you'll even be able to hand-feed produce to the horses. Doing so not only refills their hunger need, but it's a bonding moment for you and your horse as well.
Horses can also be led to Graze on Prairie Grass to enjoy a more natural snack while out and about.
Talk To Your Horses And Respond To Their Moods
Making friends with your horse is critical - the more you and your horse trust one another, the better behaved your horse will be.
This helps in situations of all kinds, from training at home in skills like Endurance, all the way to seeing your horse perform well under pressure in competitions.
And as part of this, as part of their social need, you'll notice that your horse has plenty of different moods, just like human Sims.
You can't open the needs panel like you can for human Sims, but by hovering the cursor over your horse, you'll see a pop-up menu with its needs, displaying how the horse is currently feeling.
Additionally, you'll see that, also like human Sims, horses have colored backgrounds on their portraits that correspond to their mood.
Each mood has unique socializations that either advance or fix the horse's current mood. For example, if your horses get spooked and end up feeling afraid, you can calm them down in various ways with different socialization options.
You'll gain and lose relationship points with horses just like other Sims and animals, so be sure you're paying attention to your horses and making socializing a priority.
Care For The Horses Regularly
Like any creature, your hoses will get dirty progressively throughout the day.
To increase your horse's hygiene need, you'll need to brush your horse regularly, which you'll find in the menu when socializing with your horse.
You also need to clean their hooves fairly often as well, which can also be found in the same Horse Care menu. Horses seem not to enjoy this, but it's a necessary evil to keeping them clean.
Additionally, be sure they've got food in their Feeder, and that their bed is clean to keep them in the best mood.
Confident, happy horses perform better when training or competing.
Check Your Horse's Skills And Behavior In The Relationship Panel
Though you're not able to control your horses directly in The Sims 4 Horse Ranch, you'll need to check in on them and their skill progression fairly often.
To do this, find your horse in the Relationships panel - when you click its portrait, you'll have the option to Open Profile for your horse.
Here, you can keep track of several important pieces of information about your horse, which include:
- Biographical information, like their sex, age, and value.
- Your horse's traits.
- A log of competitions and prizes they've won.
- Their skills and the current progression of each.
- Their relationship to your Sim.
This tab makes it much easier for you to track your horse's training progress and important event information, so keep your eye out for new information added as you continue raising your horses.