Not enough hay!

[Sharron]

I'm a pretty new player - Y6, and I'm running out of hay. I was just getting the hang of it until this year. I have 13 animals and 2 silos. I filled both silos and had enough hay for winter, but then I ran out. in spring there's hardly any grass, not enough to keep up. I scythe grass and make grass starter from fiber, I buy hay from Marnie. And I'm always out. Do people just stop feeding their animals sometimes? I know they won't die, but still... it just seems wrong. Do I sell some of my animals? help!

 

[Ereo]

I buy grass starters.

Year one, I keep emptying the silos (through the hopper) and store hay in a chest. Gets a bit harder when you're buildings are upgraded, but you can still destroy a couple of hay in the feeding bench (cherry bomb or explosive ammo).

It depends on how much space you have, but animals need quite lot of space if you want to grow your own food. Put a couple of fenceposts, lightning rods or statues on a patch of grass to have a starter that won't be eaten.

When the grass is thick, cut it patchy with the scythe and empty silos as needed.

You can plant grass on the last day of winter and it will kind of explode in spring.

I use around 50 on a ranch with 4 coops and 2 barns (3 of the 4 corners are just animals and grass).

If you rather use the space to farm, you'll need to buy hay. Even though it's 50G, you'll still make a profit.

 

[Lew Zealand]

You can plant grass on the last day of winter and it will kind of explode in spring.

This here is the key for Spring Year 2 and later if you want loads of grass, and Hay by extension. I buy or make about 20 Grass Starters and plant them evenly spread on the Farm on Winter 28, and the next day on Spring 1, the open parts of the Farm are almost completely covered in grass. It'll spread over the next few days to cover the gaps and you will have super happy animals and be able to start refilling those Silos.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

The biggest thing I'd emphasize is, don't full clear grass if you're farming hay. Don't let animals do so either, have at least one grass field apart from them entirely. Grass begets grass, so the key to efficiently harvesting it is to cut out little chunks all over the place, so there's plenty left spread out which can quickly fill in the gaps. Large fields of nothing but grass won't spread anywhere but at the edges, so instead, make it like swiss cheese, and repeat the process as the holes fill in.

Of course this only applies if you care about them eating fresh grass at all. As indicated, at 50g per animal per day, just buying it certainly works as well, and leaves the rest of your farm clear to do other things. If money isn't an issue, you can do what I do, and have a chest full of hay (hundreds or thousands of hay) next to a silo, and shove more in there once every X days (once per week per silo is my typical schedule, so if I had 2 silos, once every other week). That way you can just buy a few hundred or thousand more hay from Marnie when convenient, shove it in the chest, and not worry about it.

Whatever you do, I'd definitely not recommend just letting them starve, the animals output more than enough money to cover the cost of hay, so they've definitely earned a meal every day! Hope everything gets sorted out!

 

[One More Day]

Legend has it that there are some incredibly rare days when Marnie is actually running her shop. If you are lucky enough that such a day happens, then just buy whatever hay you need. Even if they never eat grass at all, every single animal still produces stuff that is worth more than the cost of hay to feed it every day

 

[Honeywell]

Gets a bit harder when you're buildings are upgraded, but you can still destroy a couple of hay in the feeding bench (cherry bomb or explosive ammo).

I never thought of that. So clever!

And I do what @Lew Zealand does--plant grass starters around the farm in winter to take advantage of the Spring growth spurt and then will fill in the with a few grass starters in just the barnyard areas on the 28th each season to fill in the bare spots.

 

[Sharron]

Wow! I've been playing this amazing game for 1 month, and this is my first post here, and I've gotten so much response and good advice! I didn't know you can plant in winter, I have plenty of $ (2 mil g) so I can buy hay from Marnie, and starter from Pierre. When spring starts, I'll plant starter sporadically, some on my farm far away from them, and buy more silos for it to go into. so the auto-feeders will do the work, right?

I'm trying to make my farm as self-running as possible so I can go do the fun stuff - like mine. My greenhouse is full of ancient fruit, forever I think. And I'm 2 fish away from finishing the CC. And I hear there's another island! And I'm having so much fun! :) Thanks again!

 

[Kirito]

I'm a pretty new player - Y6, and I'm running out of hay. I was just getting the hang of it until this year. I have 13 animals and 2 silos. I filled both silos and had enough hay for winter, but then I ran out. in spring there's hardly any grass, not enough to keep up. I scythe grass and make grass starter from fiber, I buy hay from Marnie. And I'm always out. Do people just stop feeding their animals sometimes? I know they won't die, but still... it just seems wrong. Do I sell some of my animals? help!

You can buy the grass starters from Pierre after that I believe you automatically learn how to make the starters

 

[Kirito]

I'm a pretty new player - Y6, and I'm running out of hay. I was just getting the hang of it until this year. I have 13 animals and 2 silos. I filled both silos and had enough hay for winter, but then I ran out. in spring there's hardly any grass, not enough to keep up. I scythe grass and make grass starter from fiber, I buy hay from Marnie. And I'm always out. Do people just stop feeding their animals sometimes? I know they won't die, but still... it just seems wrong. Do I sell some of my animals? help!

Also it's a good idea to put a chest in your barn or Coop stock up on hay and put in chest then you have spare hay

 

[MissDandy]

Also it's a good idea to put a chest in your barn or Coop stock up on hay and put in chest then you have spare hay

That is actually a really good idea since you probably will run out when you least expect it.

 

[Worblehat]

A standard technique for grass management is to have a few tiles with a statue or fencepost on top of grass. That way the animals can't eat from that tile, but the grass can still spread from it to regrow on neighboring tiles. You can see an example in imnvs's Amethyst Farm.

I'll also mention another technique - sell all your animals! Advantages include: 1. Don't have to worry about hay. 2. Much less work (partial exception if you're fully equipped with autograbbers and autopetters). 3. You can repurpose those barns and coops as supplementary shed space for your kegs, preserves jars, chests, crystalaria, or whatever else you please. 4. Did I mention much less work?

 

[Sharron]

worblehat, I don't understand the statue thing. Can't the animal go past the statue and eat the grass on the other side?

 

[Giant Octopodes]

worblehat, I don't understand the statue thing. Can't the animal go past the statue and eat the grass on the other side?

Yes but they can't eat the grass Underneath the object, and the grass under there continues to grow or spread.

 

[Boo1972]

I use the potted flowers you can buy at various festivals. They look pretty in the grass.

 

[Sharron]

Yes but they can't eat the grass Underneath the object, and the grass under there continues to grow or spread.

I see..,

 

[Sharron]

I also see that I can't take hay from the hay bench, but I can take it from the hay hopper if the hay bench is not full - as many times as I want. I'm learning... ;)

This is not the place to post this, but I ran and caught the train and caught 22 geodes!! red ones and brown ones...

 

[imnvs]

You can better see what @Worblehat was talking about if you go to the most updated picture of the farm, as I was getting ready for Spring 1. You can find that here: Amethyst's Purple Farm. You can see the statues pretty well, and also how I planted the grass starter elsewhere.

 

[Zen_the_Ogre]

Nobody has mentioned the golden scythe. Or planting backup grass on the floors inside the Barns and hutches just in case you need to limp until Marnie is in her shop

 

[nerdie21]

I'm a pretty new player - Y6, and I'm running out of hay. I was just getting the hang of it until this year. I have 13 animals and 2 silos. I filled both silos and had enough hay for winter, but then I ran out. in spring there's hardly any grass, not enough to keep up. I scythe grass and make grass starter from fiber, I buy hay from Marnie. And I'm always out. Do people just stop feeding their animals sometimes? I know they won't die, but still... it just seems wrong. Do I sell some of my animals? help!

I have 18 animals and the amount thier going through seems about right. Are you occupying most of the space on your farm? I know that was kind of an issue with mine because I have so many animals that I just couldn’t keep up with feeding them without having to pay money for some hay. so if you don’t have a lot of room for the hay to grow then you might have to kind of adjust around that. The animals do go through it pretty quickly though I do agree with that.