Hay Bale

Hay bales are storage blocks equivalent to nine pieces of wheat. They are used as a crafting ingredient, to feed llamas, horses and horse variants, reduce fall damage or extend campfire smoke.

Obtaining[]

Natural generation[]

Hay bales often generate as pile (and in some houses, animal pens, farms, or meeting points) scattered around in plains villages, and less commonly in savanna and desert villages. They also can generate under some campfires in taiga villages and as a part of targets/scarecrows in pillager outposts.

Breaking[]

Hay bales can be mined using any tool, but a hoe speeds up the process.

Block	Hay Bale
Hardness	0.5
Tool
Breaking time[A]
Default	0.75
Wooden	0.4
Stone	0.2
Iron	0.15
Diamond	0.1
Netherite	0.1
Golden	0.1

Crafting[]

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Wheat

Usage[]

Hay bales can be used as compact storage of wheat.

Crafting ingredient[]

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Target	Redstone Dust + Hay Bale
Wheat	Hay Bale	9

Food item[]

Although players cannot eat hay bales, hay bales serve as a compact wheat supply for crafting food items during long periods away from other food sources. A full stack of 64 hay bales is equivalent to 192 loaves of bread in a single inventory slot.

Animals[]

Hay bales can be fed to donkeys, horses, llamas, or mules to heal up to 10 hearts. They are an effective method to heal horses if the player wants to heal them in a short period of time. They also speed up the growth of foals by three minutes and baby llamas by 90 seconds.

Breeding[]

Hay bales can be used both to lead and breed llamas.

Falling[]

Falling onto a hay bale reduces the fall damage by 80%, meaning whatever falls on a hay bale takes 20% of the normal fall damage.

Below are some example damages a player receives falling on a hay bale (assuming no fall damage reducing enchantments and/or status effects).

Falling on a Hay Bale Examples

Fall height	Fall Damage
4-8 blocks	1
9-13 blocks	2
95-100 blocks	19 × 9.5
101-103 blocks	20 × 10
115-120 blocks	23 × 11.5

So it is possible to fall onto a hay bale and survive a 100 block fall (starting with full health) or even a 120 block fall (starting with full health plus 2 absorption hearts).

Campfires[]

Placing a hay bale under a campfire makes it a signal fire, increasing the height to which its smoke particles can rise from 10 blocks to 25 blocks.

Composting[]

Placing a hay bale into a composter has an 85% chance of raising the compost level by 1. Composting with hay bales is very inefficient, as the hay bale's chance to be composted is only slightly higher than wheat. For example, 900 wheat could be composted to yield 83⁴⁄₇ bone meal on average, but if crafted into 100 hay bales, they would only yield 12¹⁄₇ bone meal on average

Placement[]

Hay bales can be placed pointing in all three spatial dimensions, in the same way as a log is placed. However, there is no "six-sided" variant like that of the wood block.

Note blocks[]

Hay bale can be placed under note blocks to produce banjo sounds.

Sounds[]

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	block.grass.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16
	Block placed	Blocks	When the block is placed	block.grass.place	subtitles.block.generic.place	1.0	0.8	16
	Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	block.grass.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	0.25	0.5	16
	None[sound 1]	Entity-Dependent	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.grass.fall	None[sound 1]	0.5	0.75	16
	Footsteps	Entity-Dependent	Walking on the block	block.grass.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	0.15	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Blocks	Once the block has broken	dig.grass	0.7	0.8-1.0
	Blocks	When the block is placed	dig.grass	0.8	0.8-1.0
	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	hit.grass	0.3	0.5
	Players	Falling on the block with fall damage	fall.grass	0.4	1.0
	Players	Walking on the block	step.grass	0.3	1.0
	Players	Jumping from the block	jump.grass	0.11	1.0
	Players	Falling on the block without fall damage	land.grass	0.21	1.0

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	Translation key
Hay Bale	hay_block	Block & Item	block.minecraft.hay_block

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Item ID[i 1]	Translation key
Hay Bale	hay_block	170	Block & Giveable Item[i 2]	Identical[i 3]	tile.hay_block.name

Block states[]

Java Edition:

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
axis	y	x	The hay block is oriented east–west.
		y	The hay block is oriented vertically.
		z	The hay block is oriented north–south.

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Metadata Bits	Default value	Allowed values	Values for Metadata Bits	Description
pillar_axis	0x4 0x8	y	x y z	1 0 2	The axis along which the block is oriented
deprecated	0x1 0x2	0	0 1 2 3	0 1 2 3	Unused, has no effect in game.

History[]

February 24, 2013					A Reddit user (karthus25) discovers a screenshot of hay bales hidden in the files of the Mojam game Nuke the Dinosaurs.
Java Edition
1.6.1		13w16a			Added the hay bale.
					The hay bale currently does not have an in-game name, but is called "Hay Bale" in the change notes.
		13w16b			The hay bale has now received an in-game name, which is "Hay Block".
		13w18a			Hay blocks have now received a crafting recipe.
		13w21a			Hay blocks are now flammable.
		13w24a			The name of "Hay Block" has been changed to "Hay Bale".
1.8		14w10a			Six-sided hay bales no longer have a model.
		14w25a			All blocks have been converted to use block states, so the block/data-value combination 170/12 (6-sided hay bale) has been removed.
		14w26c			The amount of how much hay bales heal has been rebalanced.
					Hay bales now accelerate the growth of horses.
1.9		15w44b			Falling onto a hay bale now does only 20% of the normal fall damage.
1.11		16w39a			Hay bales can now be used to breed llamas.
1.13		17w47a			Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 170.
1.14		18w43a			The textures of hay bales have been changed.
		18w47a			Added pillager outposts, which sometimes generate with scarecrows made of hay bales.
		18w48a			Hay bales now generate in the updated plains villages.
		18w49a			Hay bales now generate in the updated savanna villages.
		18w50a			Hay bales now generate in the updated desert and taiga villages.
		19w02a			When a hay bale is placed under a campfire, the campfire's smoke now rises higher than normal (25 blocks instead of the normal 10).
		19w03a			Placing a hay bale into the new composter has now a 80% chance of raising the compost level by 1.
		19w05a			Hay bales now have an 85% chance of increasing the compost level in a composter by 1.
		19w09a			Hay bales can now be used to play the banjo, if they are under note blocks.
1.16		20w09a			Hay bales can now be used to craft target blocks
		20w10a			Hay bales can now be broken faster using hoes.
1.20		23w18a			Entities landing on the edge of a hay bale now properly reduces fall damage.[1]
Upcoming Java Edition
Villager Trade Rebalance (Experimental)		23w31a			Wandering traders now have a chance to buy a hay bale from the player.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.8.0		build 1			Added hay bales.
v0.15.0		build 1			Hay bales can now be used to feed horses.
Pocket Edition
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Hay bales can now be used to breed llamas.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.13					Falling onto a hay bale now does only 20% of the normal fall damage.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The textures of hay bales have been changed.
					Hay bale now generate in pillager outposts as targets, and in the new plains, desert and savanna villages.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.1			Hay bale can now be used to fill up composters.
					When a hay bale is placed under a campfire, the campfire's smoke now rises higher than normal (25 blocks instead of the normal 10).
1.13.0		beta 1.13.0.9			Hay bales can now be used to play the banjo, if they are under note blocks.
?					Hay bales with the side texture on all faces has been removed, and replaced with the y axis aligned bale.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.51			Hay bales can now be used to craft targets.
Legacy Console Edition
TU19	CU7	1.12	Patch 1		Added hay bales.
		1.90			The textures of hay bales have been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added hay bales.

Issues[]

Issues relating to "Hay Bale", "Hay Block", or "Hay" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Gallery[]

Renders[]

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Screenshots[]

• 

  The image found in the Mojang game file.

• 

  A building showing the possible orientations of hay bales.

• 

  Unreleased texture update hay bale texture.

References[]

External Links[]

• Block of the Week: Hay Bale – Minecraft.net on March 31, 2017