Stardew Valley is filled with loads of items which players can craft and create to help make their farm the best it can be. One item that players will need a lot, especially heading into Winter, is Hay. It’s essentially dried grass that serves one purpose: feeding your animals.
Of course, when it comes to putting together your farm, it’s easy to skip over some vital notes about what to acquire within a specific amount of time. In addition to the caution with Winter, it’s only available elsewhere if you don’t know where to look. This guide will explain exactly how to make, get, and work with Hay in Stardew Valley.
How to Get Hay
To make yourself some Hay in Stardew Valley, you’ll need to build a Silo and then harvest grass using either a Scythe or a Golden Scythe. As you harvest the grass, Hay will be stored in your Silo, continuously filling up. From there, you can use it to feed your animals.
If you’ve found yourself running low on it in the colder months, then you’re probably trying to figure out the best way to make and store your some away so that you don’t run out. It seems that the best thing to do is horde as much as you can in the warmer months, and store it in a Silo until Winter, when your animals won’t be able to graze on grass.
So, as you might guess, you won’t be able to make and store Hay if you don’t have a Silo. Which brings us to our next question, how do you get a Silo?
How to Get a Silo
If you have some grass storage, then you’re well on your way to making grassy feed for your animals. However, if you don’t have this particular farm building, then you’re going to be stuck until you’re able to make one for your farm.
To get a Silo, you can either visit Robin’s store or craft one for yourself. A Silo can be bought from Robin for 100g and will take two days for her to build. On the other hand, you can build one with the following materials:
- Stone (x100)
- Clay (x10)
- Copper Bar (x5)
Your best bet is to build a Silo as soon as possible. There is a good chance that Winter will sneak up on you, and you’ll find yourself under-prepared and lacking food for your animals. If you go ahead and build Silo or two now, you can begin storing food for the animals as soon as possible, assuring you’ll have plenty of feed for the cold months.
Additionally, a Silo can hold 240 units, which should be enough to last eight animals through the Winter. This means that if you have more than eight animals on your farm that you’d like to keep alive throughout Winter, you’re going to need to get more than one of these for your farm.
How to Get Hay Out of a Silo
Now that you know how to make Hay, as well as how to build the necessary farming equipment, you’re probably wondering how to go about getting Hay out of a Silo. It’s not as if we’re given instructions on how to operate some of the equipment we own, though the process is fairly straightforward.
To get Hay out of a Silo in Stardew Valley, you’ll need to have a Hay Hopper. Essentially, you’ll place the hopper in your barn/coop, and you can walk up to it and grab pieces of dried grass to give to your animals.
Expert Tip
If you have a Deluxe Barn or Deluxe Coop, you’ll have an auto-feed system built in, which will allow the resource to be manually moved to the feeding bench as needed. Thus, you won’t actually have to worry about getting Hay out of your Silo. To increase production, we recommend getting yourself an Auto-Grabber to maximize harvesting capabilities without you being near the barn.
In the end, to keep your farm thriving, do not allow your animals to suffer from starving. Store as much Hay as you can while the warm seasons are around. Winter is coming…eventually.
