With an overwhelming number of craftable items for yourStardew Valleyfarm, it’s easy to forget about one of the game’s most essential: the scarecrow.If you’re a player who doesn’t use scarecrows - or if you’re using more than just a handful - you’re probably playing it wrong. Scarecrows inStardewdon’t just add some rustic charm to your farm, they also scare away the pesky crows who can feast on your crops and impact your profits. When it comes to placing scarecrows, there are some easy Do’s and Don’ts every farmer should know.
Scarecrows are one of the easiest resources to craft in-game, being available quite early on into a playthrough at just Farming Level 1.The standard scarecrow can be crafted for 50 Wood, 20 Fiber, and 1 Coal, but you’re able to also start a collection of fancier Rarecrows. There are eight Rarecrows in the game, available through Festivals, Fairs, dances, and even the Casino. Collecting all the Rarecrows grants the player the recipe for a Deluxe Rarecrow. All scarecrows and Rarecrows function the same, driving unwanted crows away from your crops.
Why Scarecrows Are Important In Stardew Valley
Scarecrows Keep The Crows At Bay
OneStardew Valleyplayer recently found themselves coming up short on a necessary crop order,all because of a pesky crow. As players slowly progress through the game, they’ll find plenty of set story quests, but they can also choose to take on Help Wanted quests of their own, each requiring them to deliver goods in some way. With the offer of increased friendship and extra money for the player, these can be a great way to progress through the game.
Reddit userDear_Following_9065found themselves taking on a crop order of their own inStardew Valley, specifically for shipping 100 artichokes by the end of the season. While this shouldn’t be too hard to complete,the player realized with four days remaining that a crow had taken an artichoke seed at some point, leaving them at 99/100 shipped artichokes. Without any time to fix their error, they had to take the loss on this very close order.
Crows are a necessary evil inStardew Valley,makingthe farming life that bit more exciting. But with their presence comes the need to be a bit more cautious, andit’s often worthwhile to over-plant crops as a safety net. While crop orders only require a certain number of crops, there’s no harm in planting more to ensure that these needs are always met. And of course, there’s always scarecrows.
How To Use Scarecrows Effectively In Stardew Valley
Make The Most Of Your Layout
While it may be tempting to drop scarecrows anywhere you have crops, there’s some easy ways to verify you’re making the most of your resources and space.Firstly, keep your scarecrows to the outside of where your crops are planted, as this gives you more crop space than placing them in between crops would.
One of the most-used scarecrow-placing tips forStardewplayers is to simply place them in the outside corners of your planting area. As long as the space where you grow your crops isn’t obscenely large,having just four scarecrows - one on each corner - will likely protect your crops entirely.
Just How Much Do Scarecrows Protect In Stardew Valley?
You May Be Overusing Scarecrows
As has often been pointed out across social media - like in the above post from RedditorKindCommunication956- it’s very easy to mistakenly assume your scarecrows are more useless than they actually are. If you’re overusing scarecrows, then you’re definitely not playing in the most optimized way. You should be aware of just how much space your scarecrows protect: according to theStardew Valley Wiki,each scarecrow will protect 249 spaces with “8 spaces each to the north, east, south, and west.“This radius is likely bigger than you imagined, so it’s possible you could have fewer scarecrows, placed at greater distances, and still keep your crops safe.
Stardew Valley: Should You Choose The Fruit Bat Or Mushroom Cave?
Stardew Valley offers a choice between Fruit Bats and Mushrooms for the Farm’s Cave, both coming with their own advantages and downsides.
It’s also worth noting that - despite how often it might feel crows attack - the chance of losing a crop to a crow is relatively small. As Redditormargotbeanexplains:
“Each morning, the game calculates a random number between 0 and 1. If that # is less than 0.3, then it chooses a tile at random. If that tile has a crop not protected by a scarecrow, the crow eats it. Otherwise, it chooses another tile, up to 10 tiles. If a crow still hasn’t eaten a crop, the game runs the above calculations up to 3 more times, with a new random number between 0 and 1 each time.
The number of times the code runs is the minimum of (4 and #of crops/16). So if you have only 16 crops planted, it executes once. If you have 600 crops planted, it executes 4x. Whenever a crow eats a crop, the code ends (so a crow will never eat 2 crops in the same day).”
Growing a few extra crops also makes it easier to keep your game progressing even if you do get visited by a crow, rewarding the effort of keeping things running smoothly. With so much variation and potential for annoying—but funny—happenings, there’s never a reason to stop returning forjust one more farminStardew Valley.
