Hay
| Hay | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Collection |
| Location | Grass; Wheat; Marnie's Ranch; Desert Trader |
| Sell Price | 0g |
Hay is dried grass, and it is what keeps the animals fed on every day they cannot graze. Cutting grass with a scythe makes it, but only while a silo on the farm still has room, and everything cut that way drops straight into storage rather than the backpack. Wheat gives hay as a by-product of its own harvest, and Marnie sells it over the counter for anyone caught short. The real reason it matters is Winter, when the grass stops growing and the barns stay shut: a farm that filled its silos through Fall keeps its animals happy, and one that did not ends up buying feed at a loss. Ten pieces also settle the Fodder Bundle, and the Sewing Machine turns a handful into a Grass Skirt.
The in-game description reads: Dried grass used as animal food.
Overview
A silo has to come first. Without one, grass cut on the farm simply vanishes, so Robin's cheapest outbuilding is usually the first thing on the list, ahead of the coop. Once it stands, clearing a tile of grass with a scythe has a fair chance of producing a piece, and the better tools improve on that: the Golden Scythe is noticeably more reliable and the Iridium Scythe never misses. Blue Grass is worth seeking out because each cut tile gives two. Cutting grass with a sword or blowing it up with a bomb clears the tile and wastes the crop entirely.
Wheat behaves differently. Scything a field of wheat drops hay alongside the grain for roughly two swings in five, and that hay lands in the inventory, or in the Junimo Hut when Junimos did the harvesting. A weapon carrying the Haymaker enchantment adds a third route, turning cut weeds into hay anywhere in the valley.
Getting it back out is the part that catches people. Each silo holds a few hundred pieces, and the only door into that store is the hopper standing inside a coop or barn. Right clicking it dispenses enough hay for the animals in that building, limited by the free space on the feeding bench, and holding a stack of hay and clicking the hopper pushes the whole lot back into storage. A deluxe coop or barn fills its own bench overnight, which is convenient but locks the hopper, since there is never an empty slot to dispense into. Bombing the bench is the odd workaround for that, and pulling hay out through a hopper into ordinary chests is how farmers store more than the silos themselves can hold.
Buying is the safety net. Marnie's Ranch sells it by the piece, the Desert Trader swaps three for an Omni Geode on Mondays, and Marnie's stall at the Desert Festival takes a single Calico Egg. The Stardew Valley Fair sometimes puts a large bundle on its prize wall, Marnie occasionally posts a parcel of it out of kindness, and a farm started on the Meadowlands begins with a small pile courtesy of Mayor Lewis.
Winter is the deadline everything points at. Animals stay indoors through the cold season, so every mouth needs a piece a day from storage. Grass cut in Winter gives far less than usual and does not grow back, which makes Fall the season to be ruthless with the scythe. A greenhouse or the island farm growing wheat is the only renewable supply once the snow is down.
Uses
The Community Center asks for Hay in these bundles.
| Bundle | Room | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Fodder Bundle | Bulletin Board | 10 |
Notes
An unfed animal does not come to harm, but it does go unhappy, and mood is what the barn runs on. One missed bench is cheap; a week of them undoes a season of petting.
Hay is useless as a present and the whole valley says so. It does earn its keep at the Sewing Machine, where the spool turns it into a Grass Skirt, and the dye pots at 2 Willow Lane read it as a yellow dye.
All Collections
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
