How Much Grass Do Your Animals Really Need?
A pasture that feeds itself is the closest thing Stardew has to a free lunch: every animal that eats grass skips its hay that night. Build the pasture too small, though, and it does not shrink politely. It collapses, and you are back to buying hay. Here is exactly how big to build it, and how many tiles of grass to fence off so it keeps growing back on its own.
Give coop animals about 3 tiles of grass each and barn animals about 10 each, so a full Deluxe Coop needs a 6x6 pasture and a full Deluxe Barn needs an 11x11. Then put a fence post on one grass tile out of every 9 (a post on every third tile, both directions) so the pasture always has grass that animals cannot eat and that keeps reseeding the rest. Blue Grass cuts the barn pasture almost in half, down to an 8x8, but you will want a post on every second tile because it refills more slowly.
1How grass actually grows
A full tile of grass holds 4 tufts. Every night, each tile of normal grass grows back 1 to 3 tufts, and then gets a 65% chance at a second growth roll: a tile that is not yet full gains 0 to 2 more, and a tile that IS full tries to spread, with a 25% chance to sprout 1 to 2 tufts on each of its four neighbors. Grass only spreads onto open tillable dirt, so paths, fences, and furniture all stop it. A coop animal eats 2 tufts per meal and a barn animal eats 4, which means one hungry cow can wipe out a full tile in a single bite.
Animals stay inside on rainy days and all winter long, and they eat hay from the trough on those days no matter how lush your pasture is. A grass pasture cuts your hay bill on sunny days; it never replaces your Silo.
2Size the pasture first
We ran a tile-by-tile simulation of a full 28-day season, 300 runs per setup, and asked one question: what is the smallest square pasture that keeps at least 99% of meals on grass? These numbers assume your animals spread out evenly. Real animals love hanging around the door, so treat every number below as the minimum and build a little bigger if you have the room.
| Building, animals | Normal grass | Blue Grass |
|---|---|---|
| Coop, 4 | 16 tiles (4x4) | 16 tiles (4x4) |
| Coop, 8 | 25 tiles (5x5) | 25 tiles (5x5) |
| Coop, 12 | 36 tiles (6x6) | 36 tiles (6x6) |
| Barn, 4 | 49 tiles (7x7) | 25 tiles (5x5) |
| Barn, 8 | 81 tiles (9x9) | 49 tiles (7x7) |
| Barn, 12 | 121 tiles (11x11) | 64 tiles (8x8) |
Here is why getting this right matters so much. Put a full Deluxe Barn on an 8x8 of normal grass and only 35.0% of meals come from grass; the herd eats 218.4 hay over the season. Bump the same pasture to 10x10 and 98.7% of meals are grass, with just 4.3 hay. Below the line, animals eat tiles faster than tiles can spread back, and the whole field crashes within days.
3The fence-post trick: protected grass
Place a fence post (or a lightning rod) on top of a grass tile and animals can no longer eat it. That tile stays full forever, and a full tile is exactly the kind that spreads. Those protected tiles are your pasture’s seed bank: they survive overgrazing, they survive winter, and on Spring 1 of every year after the first the game gives every grass tile 40 growth rolls in one night, so a pasture with protected tiles comes back green on day one.
- Till or clear the pasture area. Grass spreads only onto open tillable dirt, so pull the debris and keep paths out of the field.
- Plant Grass Starter on a lattice. Starters are 100g at Pierre’s. For normal grass, plant one on every third tile in both directions; that is 9 starters for a 10x10.
- Cap each starter with a fence post. These tiles are now protected for good.
- Keep the animals in while it fills. With a post on every third tile, a bare 10x10 fills completely in a median of 22 days, and 93% of the time it is full within a single season.
- Open the gate once it is green. If an overgrazed field ever goes bare, close it again; see the Heads Up below.
In a hurry? A post on every second tile (25 posts on a 10x10) fills normal grass in a median of 15 days, and it hit full within the season in every single run we did.
Protected grass cannot rescue a pasture while animals are still grazing it. A bare 10x10 with 9 posts and 12 hungry chickens keeps just 47.1% of meals on grass, because every sprout gets eaten the day it appears. Rest the field (animals in, gate shut) until it refills, then reopen. Posts do help right at the edge, though: a 9x9 of normal grass under a full Deluxe Barn goes from 60.4% to 80.7% grass-fed with 9 posts.
4Is Blue Grass worth it?
Blue Grass counts double: barn animals eat 2 tufts instead of 4, coop animals eat 1 instead of 2, every meal gives +16 friendship instead of +8, and a successful scythe cut drops 2 hay instead of 1. The catch is the nightly free regrowth of 1 to 3 tufts; normal grass gets it and Blue Grass does not. Since 1.6.9 it spreads just as fast, but it refills an eaten tile more slowly. That makes it a big win for BARNS, where it shrinks a full Deluxe Barn pasture from 121 tiles to 64, and a friendship-only bonus for coops, where the pasture size does not change at all.
Getting it costs real effort. Meadowlands farms start with it; everyone else buys the Blue Grass Starter recipe in Qi’s Walnut Room for 40 Qi Gems and crafts each starter from 25 Fiber, 10 Moss, and 1 Mystic Syrup. Plan on a protected tile every second tile, because a bare 10x10 of Blue Grass with a post on every third tile fills in a median of 36 days, longer than a season.
5Why this is a Perfection move
Perfection is the game’s 100% score, tracked by the statue in Qi’s Walnut Room across eleven categories: Produce & Forage Shipped (15%), Great Friends (11%), the Golden Clock, Monster Slayer Hero, Stardrops, Cooking, Crafting, and Fish Caught (10% each), Farmer Level and Golden Walnuts (5% each), and four Obelisks (4%). Hit 100% and the Summit opens, Grandpa notices, and Golden Eggs and Golden Chickens unlock. Fittingly, the reward for Perfection is a better chicken.
Animals touch more of that list than you might think. The Cooking category wants 81 recipes made, and a big chunk of them call for eggs or milk. The Golden Clock costs 10,000,000g, and a herd that feeds itself is gold you are not spending on hay: 12 animals grazing for 28 days saves 336 hay, which is 16,800g at Marnie’s price. Get your animals on grass early, and they quietly pay for the rest of the run.
Want the whole route to 100% laid out for you? The Perfection Planner plans three in-game years day by day, from the first parsnip to the Summit, including when to build the coop and barn and when to get the pasture going. Check the boxes and the percentages take care of themselves.
| Your setup | Pasture | Protected tiles |
|---|---|---|
| Deluxe Coop, normal grass | 6x6 | Every third tile |
| Deluxe Barn, normal grass | 11x11 | Every third tile |
| Deluxe Barn, Blue Grass | 8x8 | Every second tile |
| Deluxe Coop, Blue Grass | 6x6 | Every second tile |
Every gift, geode, bundle, and the Golden Clock, on a day-by-day schedule: The Perfection Planner, in paperback from Inland Valley Guides. Raising animals is one step to Perfection; the Planner is the other three years.