would it be enough to feed my farm animals with my current layout?

[Kuronaive]

Hi all!! So I'm currently in year 3 and already planning to decorate my farm. I looked for farm layout references in Google and Pinterest and I noticed that most of them were making quite a limited space for the barn or coop, thus there are not many tiles that are overgrown by grass. so I got three questions regarding to that:

1. does it actually depends on the number of animals you have, so you don't need as much of grass to feed them if they are only a few?
2. I currently have 12/12 animals in both building. do you think the grass will be enough to feed them for the whole years before the next winter is coming? or do I need to reduce the number of my animal if it's really not enough? I still got other empty and larger spaces too so maybe I can move the buildings instead.

3. if you're going to covered up the whole farm with floor, it means there are no space for grass to grow. where do you getting the hay and grass to stock up the silo?

that's all I wanted to ask. sorry if my words are confusing english is not my main language.

 

[Lew Zealand]

So I'm currently in year 3 and already planning to decorate my farm. I looked for farm layout references in Google and Pinterest and I noticed that most of them were making quite a limited space for the barn or coop, thus there are not many tiles that are overgrown by grass. so I've got two questions regarding to that:

1. does it actually depends on the number of animals you have, so you don't need as much of grass to feed them if they are only a few?

Yes, each tile with Grass on it will feed 1 animal for 1 day, so more animals means more Grass will be eaten.

2. I currently have 12/12 animals in both building. do you think the grass will be enough to feed them for the whole years before the next winter is coming? or do I need to reduce the number of my animal if it's really not enough?
View attachment 25069

No, unfortunately that's not nearly enough for a whole year with a full Coop and Barn of 12 animals each. I usually design my farms to do just that as I'm all about doing it the lazy, uh efficient! way and they will clear out about 1/4 of all the tillable space filled with Grass in those 9 months outside. It's crazy how hungry they are!

Edit: You have Grass outside in the Winter, suggesting that you're playing v1.6 which has a "better" grass option (Blue Grass) that takes more Animal munches to eat. So it cuts down the amount needed by roughly half, maybe a bit more. You still won't be able to feed all of them with your current pen but it will last longer, maybe close to a whole season.

And you have a great follow up question:

3. if you're going to covered up the whole farm with floor, it means there are no space for grass to grow. where do you getting the hay and grass to stock up the silo?

Buy 720 Hay from Marnie once a season and keep 3 Silos full (720 Hay total). The animals will eat: 24 animals x 28 days = 672 Hay per season. And don't worry when you don't see Marnie there waiting to sell you Hay as it's amazing how the game anticipates your need, and then arranges for Marnie to need that Burrito in her microwave so much more. She's unavailable on Mondays and Tuesdays, the first days of a new season, so that's why I suggested to get a little extra Hay to get you to Wednesday when you'll actually be able to buy food for your Animals that she pretends to love so much.

that's all I wanted to ask. sorry if my words are confusing. english is not my main language.

Your words made perfect sense, I wouldn't change anything

 

[LRangerR]

You can always supplement the feeding with shopping trips to marnies

 

[Kuronaive]

Mondays

I'm forgot to add that I need the grass to stock up the silos for winter only, but thank you for pointing this out! guess I have no other choice but to buy hay from Marnie if the animals turns out eating the whole wild grass. either that or I have to sell some of them

 

[MogBeoulve]

You can also craft/buy and plant grass starter. Note that you can use this as an alternate source of emergency food if Marnie is closed, because Pierre is generally always open when Marnie is not.

 

[LRangerR]

I'm forgot to add that I need the grass to stock up the silos for winter only, but thank you for pointing this out! guess I have no other choice but to buy hay from Marnie if the animals turns out eating the whole wild grass. either that or I have to sell some of them

I have had to buy grass in the middle of summer before because my pasturage wasn't big enuff. You could always rotate fields with the use of gates, or even grow your own Hay, which provides feed when harvested as well as the crop. That's one of the things I like the most about Stardew, is that there are often multiple options to solve the same problem...unless we're talking about evil mechanical parrots that aren't even real anyways