Hay in Fields of Mistria is an item found by cutting grass with a sword, and its main purpose is feeding the large animals kept in a barn. If grass cutting is not keeping up with your herd, you can also craft Hay at The Stone Refinery with Stone, or buy it from Hayden's Shop or Balor's Wagon for 50 Tesserae each. Hay additionally appears as an ingredient in many Woodcrafting furniture recipes and in every milled Large Animal Feed recipe. This guide covers each method, the exact recipes that use Hay, and community-tested tricks for when your supply runs low.

What Hay Is Used For

Hay fills two roles on a Mistrian farm. Its primary use is feeding large barn animals — Hay can be placed in barn troughs or hand-fed directly, and the same is true for the feed recipes milled from it. It is also a genuine crafting material, appearing in Woodcrafting recipes such as doormats, scarecrows, birdhouses, and the Hay Bale itself. Because of that double duty, it is easy to burn through a grass-cutting stockpile faster than expected.

Method 1: Cut Grass with a Sword

According to wiki.gg, Hay is an item found by cutting grass with a sword, and this is the game's core free source of feed. Every patch of grass you clear on the farm is a chance at Hay dropping, so routine sword maintenance of your fields doubles as feed production. One caution from the community: Reddit players report that even with the skill perk that supposedly drops more seed and Hay, results still skew heavily toward seed. Treat grass cutting as your steady baseline rather than your entire supply.

Method 2: Craft Hay at The Stone Refinery

Hay can also be crafted at The Stone Refinery using Stone, which turns spare mining output into feed that does not depend on grass growth. Pay attention to where this recipe lives: per the wiki's history section, as of v0.13.3 Hay no longer shows up in The Mill crafting menu and now only appears in The Stone Refinery crafting menu, where it is supposed to appear. If you remember crafting Hay at The Mill in an older version, that version change is why the recipe moved. The exact quantity of Stone required per Hay is not listed on the wiki page 待确认.

Method 3: Buy Hay from Hayden's Shop and Balor's Wagon

When you need Hay immediately, two vendors sell it at the same price of 50 Tesserae (50t) each:

  • Hayden's Shop, located at Sweetwater Farm, sells Hay directly.
  • Balor's Wagon, found in town, sells Hay whenever it is in stock.

A Reddit poster described the cost as "paying Hayden 50 gold a pop" — the same 50-unit figure, with wiki.gg listing the price in Tesserae. The consensus in that thread is that buying works as an emergency stopgap but gets expensive once you are supporting a full barn. Most players therefore pair a few purchases with active grass cutting and crafting.

Feeding Large Animals: Milled Feed Recipes

Hay feeds large animals on its own, but milling it into upgraded feed improves the result, and every milled feed can be placed in barn troughs or hand-fed just like raw Hay. All three recipes below are made at The Mill:

  • Quality Large Animal Feed — Hay (1) + Water Chestnut (1), 20 minutes, sells for 10t.
  • Deluxe Large Animal Feed — Hay (1) + Water Chestnut (1) + Acorn (1), 30 minutes, sells for 15t.
  • Ultimate Large Animal Feed — Hay (1) + Water Chestnut (1) + Acorn (1) + Seaweed (1), 40 minutes, sells for 30t.

Be aware that milling costs real in-game time. One player reported that crafting 30 grass starters in a single session took 10 in-game hours and left their character collapsing afterward, and another complained about spending a whole day making cheese and grass starters. Batch your milling accordingly.

Woodcrafting Recipes That Need Hay

Hay is a component in a surprising number of Woodcrafting furniture recipes. Some are available from the start, while others are bought from Merri's Stall, the Saturday Market, the General Store, or the Carpenter's scroll bundles. Here is every Woodcrafting recipe that uses Hay, with ingredients, craft time, required level, and sell price:

  • Basic Doormat — Hay (5), 20 minutes, level 1, available from the start, sells for 25t.
  • Hay Bale — Hay (10), 20 minutes, level 2, available from the start, sells for 190t.
  • Bakery Bread Basket — Hay (10) + Flour (1), 20 minutes, level 2, recipe from Merri's Stall for 400t, sells for 240t.
  • Picnic Basket — Hay (10) + Paper (1), 20 minutes, level 2, recipe from Merri's Stall for 200t, sells for 75t.
  • Basket — Hay (10) + Fiber (5), 20 minutes, level 4, recipe from Merri's Stall for 130t, sells for 65t.
  • Birdhouse — Wood (15) + Stone (15) + Hay (10), 30 minutes, level 4, available from the start, sells for 120t.
  • Scarecrow — Wood (15) + Hay (15) + Fiber (10), 30 minutes, level 4, recipe from the General Store for 160t, sells for 135t.
  • Lovely Cottage Wall Flowers — Fiber (10) + Hay (2) + Grass Starter (2), 30 minutes, level 4, recipe from the Lovely Cottage Scroll Bundle at the Carpenter for 1,000t, sells for 65t.
  • Small Vase — Clay (4) + Grass Starter (1) or Hay (3), 20 minutes, level 10, recipe from Merri's Stall for 70t, sells for 35t.

A useful takeaway: the Hay Bale converts 10 Hay into furniture that sells for 190t, a handy outlet when grass cutting outpaces your animals' appetites. Most of these recipes also need only low Woodcrafting levels, making them realistic early-game sinks for extra Hay.

Community Tips: Alternatives When Hay Runs Low

A recurring theme in the community is that Hay feels scarce; one Reddit thread is even titled "Speed running sod/hay?" after the poster threw away sod early and then ran out of feed for their animals. The good news is that Hay is far from the only food animals accept, and several substitutes pay you back in Shiny Beads:

  • Hand-feed tree fruits and vegetables: one player reports that higher-value foods like apples or pumpkins earn around 4 Shiny Beads per animal, while low-value forageables such as mushrooms and burdock net only 1 each.
  • Cooked foods, fruits, and wild berries all work as feed; one player forages berries the night before because they respawn so often in the overworld.
  • Free cooked foods received from characters can be handed to animals instead of eaten or sold, with higher star levels yielding more Shiny Beads when the relevant skill perk is enabled.
  • Plant Grass Starters so animals can graze outside instead of draining your stored feed.
  • For coop animals, one player tops up the coop feeder with grass seeds but hand-feeds early, so the feeder is rarely consumed.

The bead payoff is real: the same player reports consistently giving the Chicken Statue 100 beads at a time after switching from hay and seed to fruits and vegetables. If your Hay keeps vanishing, rotating these foods can stretch a small stockpile across a whole season.

Hayden's Request for Hay

The wiki's quest section also lists a villager request titled Hayden's Request for Hay, confirming Hayden may ask you to deliver Hay during a playthrough. The entry does not specify how much Hay is required or what reward is paid 待确认. Either way, keeping a small reserve stockpile is wise so a sudden request never leaves your barn troughs empty.

Sources

  • https://fieldsofmistria.wiki.gg/wiki/Hay
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/FieldsOfMistriaGame/comments/1f224bd/speed_running_sodhay/