Hay is a priceless resource necessary for running any sort of livestock farm. It is mainly used as feed for your farm animals. The larger your animal farm is, the more Hay you will need.
The good thing is that there are many different methods to get Hay in Stardew Valley. These can range from long-term ones to quick ones giving a small amount of Hay. Let’s get right into the methods.
How To Get Hay In Stardew Valley?
Build A Silo
A silo is definitely not necessary for getting Hay if you plan to just buy it from Marnie.
It is probably even the quickest way to get your hands on a few pieces of Hay because you can buy it as soon as you have sufficient gold for it.
Buying Hay will however lack in the long run because your livestock farm continues to grow, and the gold you spend on hay will be way more than it’s worth.
You will need a means of harvesting your own Hay if you intend to construct a cattle farm. For this, you need to build a silo first and foremost.
Once a silo has been added to your farm, you can use a scythe to harvest the hay by cutting the grass that grows naturally all around your farm.
It should be noted, however, that there is a 50 percent chance of getting a Hay drop upon using the basic scythe on grass.
Also, cutting grass without a silo does not give you any Hay, which makes it necessary.
Unlike other items, Hay from grass cannot be gathered from the ground.
This is recommended more than buying Hay from Marnie because you will want to build a silo before you build any barns for your animals.
This will help you stack up a decent amount of Hay before you need to really spend a lot of it.
If you decide to do otherwise and set up your barns and livestock farm first, you will soon realize that you have a lot more animals and not as much feed.
Visit Robin, the town carpenter, to build a silo. On days other than Tuesdays, she is accessible at her shop from 9 AM to 5 PM. (She also closes early on Fridays; at 4 PM).
Once you interact with Robin, select “Construct Farm Buildings” from her shop menu. Scroll through the menu until you find the Silo.
The crafting materials that you need for a silo:
- 100 Gold
- 100 Stone
- 10 Clay
- 5 Copper Bars
If you have all the materials in your inventory, press build.
Next, choose where you want the silo to be located on your farm. The silo takes up a space of 3×3 tiles on your farm. The squares will become green if the silo can be built on the chosen pieces of land. Otherwise, they will be red.
Robin will then start building it the next day, and it will take her 2 days to complete.
The maximum capacity for one silo is 240 Hay. Cutting the grass will stop producing hay as soon as a silo is filled to its maximum capacity. It won’t do it till you remove the saved Hay.
Buy From Marnie
If you do not have a proper livestock farm and are not planning on setting one up, setting a silo up would be a waste as expected. Marnie can sell you hay for 50 gold a piece if you appear to be in dire need of it.
Located in the Cindersap forest is Marnie’s Ranch, her store. The hours of her store are 9 AM to 4 PM. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and major holidays, she doesn’t open her store.
Once you enter her shop, interact with her and go over the dialogue and then choose the “Supplies Shop” option from her shop menu. Hay should be the first item on the list of items she is selling.
Self Harvest
You can also buy an item called “Grass Starter” from Pierre’s shop. You can plant this item on your farm, and then later harvest it with your scythe, which will in return give you Hay (Silo required).
This saves you a lot of money because you will not have to buy Hay directly, from Marnie.
Pierre’s shop is located in the northern part of the town square. It is open from 9 AM to 5 PM every day except Wednesdays.
Interact with him after entering his shop, and skim through the dialogue until you have access to the shop menu.
Scroll through it and select “Grass Starter” to purchase it for 100 gold. Grass Starter has many benefits over just buying Hay, for 50 gold a piece.
At first, it may seem a downgrade to just buying it as this costs 100 gold and one piece of Hay directly costs 50 gold.
However, Grass Starter has the property to spread. It is available for harvest the second it is placed (Cannot be placed on the tilled ground), but waiting for a bit and letting it spread is always better.
This is a way to grow your own grass and harvest it, unlike the method mentioned earlier which was to harvest only the grass growing naturally.
A silo is required for this method as well so this is technically a part of the first method.
During sunny days you can save it from being harvested at all, by simply letting your animals graze in the grass without needing to feed them!
Conclusion
In Stardew Valley, there are a few other ways to obtain hay. But because they either require too much gold or too much time, they are all quite impractical.
In comparison to any of the aforementioned techniques, they also offer significantly less Hay as a reward.
To sum it all up, it is recommended to go for a silo and harvest your own hay if you have even a small barn of animals set up.
Buying Hay can work but the 50 gold price is a mirage to its actual weight on your wallet as you definitely do not need just one piece. This is especially the case during the early game when earning gold is not so easy.
But in the end, the choice is yours as all of them can work through some better than others.
