How do I add hay to my automatic hay machine?

[MadamLizzy]

Someone mailed me a bunch of hay and I want to add it to my silo. Ive tried a few different things but nothing has worked.

[King_Jofffrey]

You can walk up to your silo with the hay and right or left click on it.

[desertpunk3912]

Try this if it doesn't work it's probably full. Hold it in your hand and right click the silo. If that doesn't work hold something else and right clicking will check capacity.

[ehyder]

Once you figure out how to get the hay manually into the silo you also might want to think about having a chest to store hay instead of getting more silos. A chest holds more hay, takes up less space, and does not cost anything besides the 50 wood it takes to craft it.

[MadamLizzy]

okay, thanks!

[Clovis Sangrail]

If I have a full silo and I cut some grass, will hay be generated for me to pick up? I have never seen that happen.

Also, if you store haiy in chests, doesn't that commit you to manually feeding your animals because the auto-feeder won't work.

[ehyder]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

If I have a full silo and I cut some grass, will hay be generated for me to pick up? I have never seen that happen.

Also, if you store haiy in chests, doesn't that commit you to manually feeding your animals because the auto-feeder won't work.

No, to the first one. But with 1.4 you can get hay as a byproduct from harvesting other crops.
For the second: You will want to transfer hay from the silo, when the silo gets low, from the chest. This is easy since you can grab the hay in big bundles from the chest.

The major problem, which I was going to test to see if there had been any changes, was how to get the hay you harvest from the grass into the chest. It was not very feasible to do this before the update, and still may not be. The best use of a hay chest is to store gifted or purchased hay, or now, hay harvested as a byproduct from crops. Then you transfer as needed from the chest into the silo.

Edit: Will post more info after testing. Or after others way in :)

[Clovis Sangrail]

OK, I'm seeing how to make this work --

First, build a silo and fill it up.

Then, go to your feeder in your coop or barn and suck all the hay out.

Build a chest in the coop or barn and put the hay in it.

Go cut more grass and harvest more hay.

Rinse and repeat. When a silo gets full, transfer the hay to your chest.

No more having to dig up clay to build silos. You only need one silo, and if you keep it full the autofeeder should work.

[MadamLizzy]

Got it! Thanks for all that work!

[LetTheBodyFall]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

OK, I'm seeing how to make this work --

First, build a silo and fill it up.

Then, go to your feeder in your coop or barn and suck all the hay out.

Build a chest in the coop or barn and put the hay in it.

Go cut more grass and harvest more hay.

Rinse and repeat. When a silo gets full, transfer the hay to your chest.

No more having to dig up clay to build silos. You only need one silo, and if you keep it full the autofeeder should work.

This is what i always do. And when I have my coops and barns fully upgraded, I make a new coop and just keep it basic.

[Whirl]

Hay is now a Wheat Byproduct, as if Wheat turned into Pale Ale wasn't valuble enough. The best thing is that a single solid crop of Wheat across your field at the start of autumn can potentially hold you for a year.