Grazing area VS Hayfields

[Schadenfreude]

Hi there,

I kept expanding and expanding my animals pen size to provide them with more free nutrition growth.

But I was wondering, my hay keeps stacking up, and so I thought "why not turn all the grazing area into harvest fields?

Is my hay stacking, because they have a lot of free nutrition, or is hay just so efficient that I don't have to provide them with a lot of room to graze?

Feels like I can just put them into a small area and better use the otherwise grazed ground for more production.

Any thoughts?

[RCMidas]

If you're not using that space for anything else, may as well turn it into hay fields for the time being. You can replace it later.

[Jaggid Edje]

Hay is pretty darn efficient in terms of what you get from the area, IF you let it grow to maturation before harvesting (i.e. don't let them graze in the hayfields).

What I've been doing is setting a grow zone inside pastures and setting it to grow grass for them to graze (and setting it to sew but don't cut so my planters don't waste any time on it other than planting if natural spread doesn't keep up).

Then I supplement it with a single, relatively small, hayfield that is outside the pastures.

This has worked really well for me so far.

The hayfield as backup is a good idea regardless, because all it takes is one cold snap or fire that kills all the grass and your animals will starve if you don't have enough hay in storage to last through it. Unless you want to waste your people food on them when that happens.

I've also seen posts where people talk about growing dandelions instead of hay as their feed crop. I think it is more labor intensive though, which I didn't want, so I haven't done that.

[RCMidas]

Dandelions, yeah. Nearly as nutritious as hay, plus it grows nearly three times quicker (4-ish days compared to 12-ish). So yeah, more labour-intensive, which means you'll be grinding your Plants skill and thus have better yields when harvesting anything else.

You want to talk about labour, though? Eight hydroponic sectors (24 bays each) each growing rice. I just let my animals graze straight from the bays during the winter because over the course of the summer I'd picked several thousand units of rice for my pawn meals. The very concept of starvation had disappeared into the ether. I needed four pawns just to keep on top of it at the slowest of times.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Hay is pretty darn efficient in terms of what you get from the area, IF you let it grow to maturation before harvesting (i.e. don't let them graze in the hayfields).

What I've been doing is setting a grow zone inside pastures and setting it to grow grass for them to graze (and setting it to sew but don't cut so my planters don't waste any time on it other than planting if natural spread doesn't keep up).

Then I supplement it with a single, relatively small, hayfield that is outside the pastures.

This has worked really well for me so far.

The hayfield as backup is a good idea regardless, because all it takes is one cold snap or fire that kills all the grass and your animals will starve if you don't have enough hay in storage to last through it. Unless you want to waste your people food on them when that happens.

I've also seen posts where people talk about growing dandelions instead of hay as their feed crop. I think it is more labor intensive though, which I didn't want, so I haven't done that.

I don't see any option to sow grass, I am sowing Dandelions, they are, afaik, the most valuable work/nutrition wise for them to snack on, to artificially, reliably, increase their nutrition supply, but you can't store them for the winter.

I am reliant on Hay, because in my geolocation I can only grow 30 out of 60 days a year, as a rancher, which want big life-stock numbers.

Was really rough, until I got my hayfield greenhouses online, but I'm at a point where I don't have animals starvation anymore and want to expand, so all that grazing area looks like such a waste.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Dandelions, yeah. Nearly as nutritious as hay, plus it grows nearly three times quicker (4-ish days compared to 12-ish). So yeah, more labour-intensive, which means you'll be grinding your Plants skill and thus have better yields when harvesting anything else.

You want to talk about labour, though? Eight hydroponic sectors (24 bays each) each growing rice. I just let my animals graze straight from the bays during the winter because over the course of the summer I'd picked several thousand units of rice for my pawn meals. The very concept of starvation had disappeared into the ether. I needed four pawns just to keep on top of it at the slowest of times.

Rice seems like such a waste to feed to animals, though, currently need all the rice for my colonists, I have 3 fields of hay under a sun lamp in a greenhouse and can feed 60+ animals atm.

Since hay is nutrition efficient and takes long to grow it's not so labour intensive, letting me concentrate on more diverse projects.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

I don't see any option to sow grass, I am sowing Dandelions, they are, afaik, the most valuable work/nutrition wise for them to snack on, to artificially, reliably, increase their nutrition supply, but you can't store them for the winter.

Grass sewing may be something added with a small mod I use that lets you plant a few more of the game's existing vegetations that weren't sewable without a mod.

If I didn't have the option to sew grass I'd plant dandelions inside the pastures and set to "no cut"...for similiiar results. Looking at the stats for grass and dandelions with the in-game "info" panel they look to be identical in terms of both nutrition and growing time.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Rice seems like such a waste to feed to animals, though, currently need all the rice for my colonists, I have 3 fields of hay under a sun lamp in a greenhouse and can feed 60+ animals atm.

Since hay is nutrition efficient and takes long to grow it's not so labour intensive, letting me concentrate on more diverse projects.

Depends on where you are at in the game. If you have a 10+ skilled planter with field hands then Rice has essentially no labor cost, they zip through your hydroponics bays in seconds and then it just becomes a matter of hauling. Hydroponic rice has over twice the nutrition per day of haygrass allowing you to do a lot more with the same number of sunlamps.

Another option is nutrifungus, you can ditch the sunlamps and make a few more indoor fields to feed your animals without any power constraints.

Those two are typically what I go for in the current state of the game. Grazing as much as possibly early game and eating whatever when they need to in the winter. Nutrifungus mid-game when I have the skilled workers to handle it. Hydroponic rice later game to compress everything down and save space and keep my animals close year round rather than grazing.

Dandelion grazing is an option but it's probably the most labor intensive way to feed animals unless you micro manage it. The issue normally is your animals eat a patch of dandelions then your grower stops what they are doing and runs over to replace it, and this happens all day every day eating up a huge amount of time for your grower running back and forth, this is the labor cost. If you plant a big field then turn off sowing until it gets low and then turn sowing back on you can micro it so it's a reasonable amount of work, but you have to remember to switch it at the right time to not starve your animals.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

I don't see any option to sow grass, I am sowing Dandelions, they are, afaik, the most valuable work/nutrition wise for them to snack on, to artificially, reliably, increase their nutrition supply, but you can't store them for the winter.

Grass sewing may be something added with a small mod I use that lets you plant a few more of the game's existing vegetations that weren't sewable without a mod.

If I didn't have the option to sew grass I'd plant dandelions inside the pastures and set to "no cut"...for similiiar results. Looking at the stats for grass and dandelions with the in-game "info" panel they look to be identical in terms of both nutrition and growing time.

Actually forgot to disallow cutting on dandelion and tree growing areas, thanks.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Rice seems like such a waste to feed to animals, though, currently need all the rice for my colonists, I have 3 fields of hay under a sun lamp in a greenhouse and can feed 60+ animals atm.

Since hay is nutrition efficient and takes long to grow it's not so labour intensive, letting me concentrate on more diverse projects.

Dandelion grazing is an option but it's probably the most labor intensive way to feed animals unless you micro manage it. The issue normally is your animals eat a patch of dandelions then your grower stops what they are doing and runs over to replace it, and this happens all day every day eating up a huge amount of time for your grower running back and forth, this is the labor cost. If you plant a big field then turn off sowing until it gets low and then turn sowing back on you can micro it so it's a reasonable amount of work, but you have to remember to switch it at the right time to not starve your animals.

It really isn't that extreme, I have tons of growing areas for my pawns to sow and they don't rush over to replace the dandelions like that, which also isn't totally grazed up the moment it's sown, on 36x7 area with 60+ animals.

It probably is time to ditch dandelions altogether, though.

I am currently just about to be able to satify my colony with 2 full sets of hydroponics rice, would have to invest into more energy to make more rice to ditch the hay.

I do float a lot of nutrifungus, though, might try and replace hay with that.

[Schadenfreude]

According to the wiki normal soil hay has a yield of 1.39/day with a nutrition value of 0.3.
Nutrifungus on the other hand only a yield of 0.99/day and 0.25 nutrition.

Even in Hydroponics Fungus provides less yield with less value (1.26 and 0.25).

The only upside to nutrifungus would be the obsolescence of sunlamps, so it's an idea, if I want to divert power to other areas, although the hydroponics would eat power as well, little more than half of that of a sun lamp, for a full set.

Hay is less labour intensive, on top.

[Astasia]

You definitely shouldn't put nutrifungus in hydroponics. The advantage of nutrifungus and why'd you'd want to use it is it's essentially 0 power requirements to grow year round, you can just put a 1x1 room with an open door and a campfire/heater next to a large field of nutrifungus and grow it all year round safe from weather and fallout, eclipses and solar flares don't matter to it, and it is immune to blight. It's the most stable nutrition source in the game.

[Pyrrhus]

In cold biomes or during cold weather, this glass roof mod is useful for early start or tribal colony without electricity. Just add coal or wood stoves to your greenhouse. Crops would grow slower without sun lamps but your crop size can be larger than what sun lamp allows.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2568893936