Animal Feed

[DarkenVixen]

There should be a feed machine where you can turn excess low value crops into animal food. I have grass growing all 3 seasons, plant wheat to get some hay at harvest, and still have to drop $50,000 at Marnie’s for hay, yet I’m still struggling to get enough food for my animals.
I have 2 void chicken coop, 1 coop with blue chicken/ duck/ bunny, 1 coop of Dinos, 1 cow barn, 1 goat barn, 2 pig barn, and 1 ostrich barn (a lot of them aren’t full capacity). My farm is setup to work with my artisan perk but the only snag is the hay/ food.
If not a machine to turn crops into feed, then halving the cost of hay from Marnie or being able to access her store when she’s still in the house would be great.

 

[Freizeitfarmer]

There should be a feed machine where you can turn excess crops into animal food. I have grass growing all 3 seasons, plant wheat to get some hay at harvest, and still have to drop $50,000 at Marnie’s for hay, yet I’m still struggling to get enough food for my animals.

Could be a nice addition in the later game.

I have 2 void chicken coop, 1 coop with blue chicken/ duck/ bunny, 1 coop of Dinos, 1 cow barn, 1 goat barn, 2 pig barn, and 1 ostrich barn (a lot of them aren’t full capacity). My farm is setup to work with my artisan perk but the only snag is the hay/ food.
If not a machine to turn crops into feed, then halving the cost of hay from Marnie or being able to access her store when she’s still in the house would be great.

I always cut so that a few individual tufts of grass remain everywhere and replace the cut ones more quickly. This way you can cut more often and have more in the end than if you cut almost everything.

 

[Lew Zealand]

An open Farm even half full of Grass and well-managed throughout the year will not be enough to feed 9 Farm Buildings with Animals in them (even if not completely full). But I don't know if gathering more Hay is really a good answer, in terms of the time spent.

On a Farm with at least half open space for Grass alone and thinned out regularly still only gets me about 3 Silos full of Hay by mid-Fall (pre-Golden Scythe), and that takes care of only 2 Farm Buildings full of 24 Animals through the Winter. 24x28 days = 672 Hay. Triple or Quadruple that is not doable with Grass, I think 4 Silos (960 Hay) is manageable with Golden Scything the remains on Fall 28, while enjoying playing other parts of the game for the other 3 months. But that's not even 3 Coop/Barns full of Animals. Doubling the Hay gather rate still only gets you to 6 Buildings.

More Barn/Coops than that requires Marnie and at that point, if you're going that all-in on Animals it's likely that you'll be losing more money (vs. selling), and importantly time, on processing Crops into Animal feed than is worth it. 50,000g is 34 Truffle Oil, that is easily cleared in 3 days with 6 Oil Makers and you have all the Hay you need for the rest of the Winter. That takes very little time and IMO is an easy tradeoff.

Heck, I may never grow Grass for Hay again now that I know it's just a couple days of Truffle processing, most of which is just in the background while doing other things, to pay for the Hay. I'll just grow it for the Animals to graze on for 3/4 of the year and maybe Scythe it on Fall 28. If I have nothing else to do. I mean, Scything doesn't take Energy in the game, but that just pales compared to a nice snooze in the Secret Woods.

 

[Lenora Rose]

An open Farm even half full of Grass and well-managed throughout the year will not be enough to feed 9 Farm Buildings with Animals in them (even if not completely full). But I don't know if gathering more Hay is really a good answer, in terms of the time spent.

On a Farm with at least half open space for Grass alone and thinned out regularly still only gets me about 3 Silos full of Hay by mid-Fall (pre-Golden Scythe), and that takes care of only 2 Farm Buildings full of 24 Animals through the Winter. 24x28 days = 672 Hay. Triple or Quadruple that is not doable with Grass, I think 4 Silos (960 Hay) is manageable with Golden Scything the remains on Fall 28, while enjoying playing other parts of the game for the other 3 months. But that's not even 3 Coop/Barns full of Animals. Doubling the Hay gather rate still only gets you to 6 Buildings.

More Barn/Coops than that requires Marnie and at that point, if you're going that all-in on Animals it's likely that you'll be losing more money (vs. selling), and importantly time, on processing Crops into Animal feed than is worth it. 50,000g is 34 Truffle Oil, that is easily cleared in 3 days with 6 Oil Makers and you have all the Hay you need for the rest of the Winter. That takes very little time and IMO is an easy tradeoff.

Heck, I may never grow Grass for Hay again now that I know it's just a couple days of Truffle processing, most of which is just in the background while doing other things, to pay for the Hay. I'll just grow it for the Animals to graze on for 3/4 of the year and maybe Scythe it on Fall 28. If I have nothing else to do. I mean, Scything doesn't take Energy in the game, but that just pales compared to a nice snooze in the Secret Woods.

For the record. Lew, my current farmer is such a workaholic (I'm processing a LOT of tea, which is like twice daily, and working with limited chests so it's very easy to end up with a full backpack, so lots of running about to sell extra stuff). I'm already planning for a future farmer to take after your lazy farmer model and just... not.

 

[Jayamos]

There might need to be a Lazy Farmer guide. But that would be work.

 

[Lew Zealand]

There might need to be a Lazy Farmer guide. But that would be work.

Hmmm... A guide to doing the least but still making it worth it. I can't know all the lazy techniques, that would mean trying a lot of things, which is against The Code. Yet helping other Farmers to do it the Wazy of the Lazy would encourage a reduction in collective perspiration which is always desirable.

I'll ponder this but I assume that a Lazy Handbook would read a lot like Stereo Instructions erm, uh... the Min part of a Min/Max guide, but while in those guides the point is doing the minimum work to achieve the maximum result, instead out goal is the minimum work to get to bed early. Or siesta by the Mountain Lake with the frogs. Or Slingshot Blueberries at Lewis.

Quality of Life is what we're looking for here. I will think of this.

 

[Jayamos]

See, I would never have thought of slingshotting blueberries at Lewis. I think there’s real potential here.

 

[DarkenVixen]

Could be a nice addition in the later game.



I always cut so that a few individual tufts of grass remain everywhere and replace the cut ones more quickly. This way you can cut more often and have more in the end than if you cut almost everything.

That’s how I usually do the grass, but it’s not enough hay yield. Especially not enough to get through winter

 

[DarkenVixen]

An open Farm even half full of Grass and well-managed throughout the year will not be enough to feed 9 Farm Buildings with Animals in them (even if not completely full). But I don't know if gathering more Hay is really a good answer, in terms of the time spent.

On a Farm with at least half open space for Grass alone and thinned out regularly still only gets me about 3 Silos full of Hay by mid-Fall (pre-Golden Scythe), and that takes care of only 2 Farm Buildings full of 24 Animals through the Winter. 24x28 days = 672 Hay. Triple or Quadruple that is not doable with Grass, I think 4 Silos (960 Hay) is manageable with Golden Scything the remains on Fall 28, while enjoying playing other parts of the game for the other 3 months. But that's not even 3 Coop/Barns full of Animals. Doubling the Hay gather rate still only gets you to 6 Buildings.

More Barn/Coops than that requires Marnie and at that point, if you're going that all-in on Animals it's likely that you'll be losing more money (vs. selling), and importantly time, on processing Crops into Animal feed than is worth it. 50,000g is 34 Truffle Oil, that is easily cleared in 3 days with 6 Oil Makers and you have all the Hay you need for the rest of the Winter. That takes very little time and IMO is an easy tradeoff.

Heck, I may never grow Grass for Hay again now that I know it's just a couple days of Truffle processing, most of which is just in the background while doing other things, to pay for the Hay. I'll just grow it for the Animals to graze on for 3/4 of the year and maybe Scythe it on Fall 28. If I have nothing else to do. I mean, Scything doesn't take Energy in the game, but that just pales compared to a nice snooze in the Secret Woods.

But that’s only if your pigs give full amount of truffles. Mine only give me about 20 or less a day, and not counting rainy days where they give none. Technically I could go full pig for profit but I like my animal variety and with all the animal options, there should be a better way to get food for them than spending 50g per 1 piece of hay. Or getting a few hay for every 10 wheat harvested, or relying on grass to feed or turn to hay. As someone who grew up on a farm, harvesting wheat and grass should give far more hay than it currently does anyways.

 

[Lew Zealand]

But that’s only if your pigs give full amount of truffles. Mine only give me about 20 or less a day, and not counting rainy days where they give none. Technically I could go full pig for profit but I like my animal variety and with all the animal options, there should be a better way to get food for them than spending 50g per 1 piece of hay. Or getting a few hay for every 10 wheat harvested, or relying on grass to feed or turn to hay. As someone who grew up on a farm, harvesting wheat and grass should give far more hay than it currently does anyways.

When looking at other people's Farms in the Valley Showcase section and elsewhere, you seem to be raising more animals than most people and are running up against a limiting factor in the game balance when it comes to Animal Feed. The way the game is set up now, the Farm doesn't support direct self-sufficiency for large numbers of Animals, as you have said. You could try looking for Mods for this if you play on a moddable platform like PC or Android.

It would be interesting if @FilthyGorilla or some other Min-Maxers have other ideas for optimizing Hay production.

That said, 20 Truffles processed to Truffle Oil delivers enough g in 4 days for Hay for 7 full Barns/Coops of Hay for a Season. 16 days of Truffles for the entire year if one didn't want to spend even a minute Scything Hay or generating it in any other way. That of course is the opposite of what you're looking for but seeing as Truffle gathering and processing aren't time-consuming tasks, at least the financials of buying from Marnie are viable.

The real problem is tearing her away from The Most Interesting Microwave in the Valley.

 

[MissDandy]

The idea of turning 'extra crops' into hay is also a little bit problematic if you ask me. Like has been mentioned here, there are quite a few simple, efficient ways (basically the Farming For Dummies Lazy, Wise Farmers of Stardew Valley [Written and published by Lew Zealand]) to get that money for the hay. If you're doing serious farming and focusing on any other objectives in the game seriously, you just need to buy the hay and deal with the price. Focusing on it is too time consuming, you just need a good number of silos and you're off to the races.
'Excess crops' can be made into wine, juice, jelly or pickles, and then they really won't be excess anymore because depending on the crop, you'll be making a good chunk of cash off them. Much better than turning them into hay, which practically depreciates their value to nothing except in the name of practicality. Cold hard G is pretty practical too, though. Then you could buy more hay.

The real problem is tearing her away from The Most Interesting Microwave in the Valley.

We could never do that to her. Could you imagine, the trauma? The heartbreak? Separating her from that microwave would be like separating a dog from its owner. Devastating. And there might be repercussions to doing so that we couldn't imagine, like an explosion in the space-time continuum. The collision of realms. Who knows. I think it's best just to leave the two of them alone, happy and at peace.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

When looking at other people's Farms in the Valley Showcase section and elsewhere, you seem to be raising more animals than most people and are running up against a limiting factor in the game balance when it comes to Animal Feed. The way the game is set up now, the Farm doesn't support direct self-sufficiency for large numbers of Animals, as you have said. You could try looking for Mods for this if you play on a moddable platform like PC or Android.

It would be interesting if @FilthyGorilla or some other Min-Maxers have other ideas for optimizing Hay production.

That said, 20 Truffles processed to Truffle Oil delivers enough g in 4 days for Hay for 7 full Barns/Coops of Hay for a Season. 16 days of Truffles for the entire year if one didn't want to spend even a minute Scything Hay or generating it in any other way. That of course is the opposite of what you're looking for but seeing as Truffle gathering and processing aren't time-consuming tasks, at least the financials of buying from Marnie are viable.

The real problem is tearing her away from The Most Interesting Microwave in the Valley.

Honestly there really isn’t any optimizing hat production, just buying it really.

No matter what you do, it’ll basically never be possible to be a less profitable use of a tile than letting grass grow.

No animal makes less than it needs to eat in bay too, one pig makes enough on average in a day to feed the entire barn for a week.

For other animals it’s less though you never really lose profit buying hay, you need to feed them anyway and those grass tiles can be used for crops which could be used to buy more hay and at a more effective hay per tile ratio.

Those are my thoughts, on challenge farms where I have had to use hay I try to have a field which I periodically create more “surface area” in by using my scythe a bit in and around all of the grass which makes the grass grow the fastest overall.

 

[imnvs]

I've never been able to have a self-sustaining hay supply for my animals with more than 3 barns/coops and it required large swathes of grass be grown. As the dirty ape (You maniacs! You blew it up!) said, after that you pretty much have to rely on buying hay.

 

[DarkenVixen]

The idea of turning 'extra crops' into hay is also a little bit problematic if you ask me. Like has been mentioned here, there are quite a few simple, efficient ways (basically the Farming For Dummies Lazy, Wise Farmers of Stardew Valley [Written and published by Lew Zealand]) to get that money for the hay. If you're doing serious farming and focusing on any other objectives in the game seriously, you just need to buy the hay and deal with the price. Focusing on it is too time consuming, you just need a good number of silos and you're off to the races.
'Excess crops' can be made into wine, juice, jelly or pickles, and then they really won't be excess anymore because depending on the crop, you'll be making a good chunk of cash off them. Much better than turning them into hay, which practically depreciates their value to nothing except in the name of practicality. Cold hard G is pretty practical too, though. Then you could buy more hay.

By excess crops I mean the low value crops; not pineapple, melon, starfruit, banana or ancient fruit. For example: wheat. You already get some hay from harvesting them, why can’t we put wheat into a producer to make hay? I wanted a self sufficient method to getting food for my animals without having to buy it. And it never fails that when I need hay for my animals, Marnie isn’t at the shop or she’s in the kitchen. A haymaker would be a nice addition for people who like to raise a variety of animals, in my opinion. I’ve never known anyone to use worm bins for example, so they could upgrade the bins to work as a hay maker + bait producer. Or make them work the way the crystalarium does but instead putting bait in the bin yields bait and hay will yield hay.

 

[DarkenVixen]

When looking at other people's Farms in the Valley Showcase section and elsewhere, you seem to be raising more animals than most people and are running up against a limiting factor in the game balance when it comes to Animal Feed. The way the game is set up now, the Farm doesn't support direct self-sufficiency for large numbers of Animals, as you have said. You could try looking for Mods for this if you play on a moddable platform like PC or Android.

It would be interesting if @FilthyGorilla or some other Min-Maxers have other ideas for optimizing Hay production.

That said, 20 Truffles processed to Truffle Oil delivers enough g in 4 days for Hay for 7 full Barns/Coops of Hay for a Season. 16 days of Truffles for the entire year if one didn't want to spend even a minute Scything Hay or generating it in any other way. That of course is the opposite of what you're looking for but seeing as Truffle gathering and processing aren't time-consuming tasks, at least the financials of buying from Marnie are viable.

The real problem is tearing her away from The Most Interesting Microwave in the Valley.

Unfortunately, I play on console so I’m not able to mod the game. I just think adding a haymaker or even overhauling the worm bin to behave like a crystalarium where putting bait yields bait and hay yields hay, would be a nice addition. Especially since worm bins are rarely used and this gives it a chance to actually be useful.

 

[DarkenVixen]

Honestly there really isn’t any optimizing hat production, just buying it really.

No matter what you do, it’ll basically never be possible to be a less profitable use of a tile than letting grass grow.

No animal makes less than it needs to eat in bay too, one pig makes enough on average in a day to feed the entire barn for a week.

For other animals it’s less though you never really lose profit buying hay, you need to feed them anyway and those grass tiles can be used for crops which could be used to buy more hay and at a more effective hay per tile ratio.

Those are my thoughts, on challenge farms where I have had to use hay I try to have a field which I periodically create more “surface area” in by using my scythe a bit in and around all of the grass which makes the grass grow the fastest overall.

I understand what you’re saying, I just like the idea of self sufficiency mainly because there’s so much collecting to do in a day that I don’t make it to Marnies by the time the door is locked, or she’s not there or she’s in the kitchen. It seems to happen very often that when I need to buy hay, she’s not there. Which puts a halt on the animal production overall.
I genuinely believe that adding a haymaker or updating the worm bin to work like a crystalarium to yield bait or hay depending which you put in, would be a good addition. Especially since any videos I’ve seen, everyone says the worm bin is useless and no one uses it, this way it’s at least useful to some people. It doesn’t even need to make Marnie obsolete either (especially needing hay in winter time), just provide another method to get hay besides scything grass or wheat.

Edit: Plus it follows the trend:
1) seed maker: you dont need to buy from Pierre’s as often
2) Geode crusher: you don’t need to see Clint much
3) Worm bin set to haymaker: don’t need to go to Marnie’s as often

 

[Freizeitfarmer]

I understand what you’re saying, I just like the idea of self sufficiency mainly because there’s so much collecting to do in a day that I don’t make it to Marnies by the time the door is locked, or she’s not there or she’s in the kitchen. It seems to happen very often that when I need to buy hay, she’s not there. Which puts a halt on the animal production overall.
I genuinely believe that adding a haymaker or updating the worm bin to work like a crystalarium to yield bate or hay depending which you put in, would be a good addition. Especially since any videos I’ve seen, everyone says the worm bin is useless and no one uses it, this way it’s at least useful to some people. It doesn’t even need to make marbie obsolete either, just provide another method to get hay besides scything grass or wheat.

Another way could possibly be to feed more then hay. Maybe we could give fruits for barn animals too.
I also like the idea of another machine to make hay from weed (you get tons of it in Cindersap Forest) or wheat.

 

[DarkenVixen]

Another way could possibly be to feed more then hay. Maybe we could give fruits for barn animals too.
I also like the idea of another machine to make hay from weed (you get tons of it in Cindersap Forest) or wheat.

In reality, farmers will grind their own corn to make grain to feed to their cows and other animals. At the very least, it would be cool to have a recipe that combines some fruit and veg into an animal treat that feeds them for the day and raises friendship