Hay Bale

Hay Bale

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Other names	Straw Bale (CA)
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool
Blast resistance	0.5
Hardness	0.5
Luminous	No
Transparent	No
Flammable	Yes (60)
Catches fire from lava	No
Map color	18 COLOR_YELLOW
Note block instrument	Banjo
Sulfur cube archetype	Fast Flat

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            "field": "No",
            "label": "(link to Opacity article, displayed as Transparent)"
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            "label": "(link to Fire#Flammable blocks article, displayed as Flammable)"
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Hay bales are storage blocks equivalent to nine pieces of wheat. They are used as a crafting ingredient, to feed llamas and all living horse variants, reduce fall damage, and extend campfire smoke.

Obtaining

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 (sec)
Default	10.75 (JE) 0.75 (BE)
Wooden	10.4 (JE) 0.4 (BE)
Stone	10.2 (JE) 0.2 (BE)
Copper	10.15 (JE) 0.15 (BE)
Iron	10.15 (JE) 0.15 (BE)
Diamond	10.1 (JE) 0.1 (BE)
Netherite	10.1 (JE) 0.1 (BE)
Golden	10.1 (JE) 0.1 (BE)
Options
Efficiency	000
Haste	001 1JEBE

Legend

• incorrect tool, drops nothing
• correct tool, drops nothing or something other than the block itself
• correct tool, drops the block itself
• italicized can be instant mined

Natural generation

Hay bales often generate as piles (and in some houses, animal pens, farms, or meeting points) scattered around in villages located in plains, 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.

Hay bales can also generate in abandoned camps.

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Wheat

Usage

Hay bales can be used as compact storage of wheat.

Placement

Seen here alongside logs, bone blocks, quartz pillars, purpur pillars, polished basalt, and barrels, hay bales can be oriented in multiple directions.

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.

Food

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 bread.

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. In Java Edition, due to a bug, skeleton horses (in their hostile state; being ridden by skeletons) can also be fed hay bales.

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 enchantments and/or status effects that reduce fall damage).

Falling on a hay bale examples

Fall height	Fall damage
8-12 blocks	1HP
13-17 blocks	2HP
98-102 blocks	19HP × 9.5
103-107 blocks	20HP × 10
118-123 blocks	23HP × 11.5

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

Campfires

A campfire on top of a hay bale

Placing a hay bale under a campfire increases 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.

Trading

Wandering traders occasionally purchase a hay bale for a single emerald.

Villager		Probability		Villager wants	Player receives	Trades in stock	Villager experience	Price multiplier
		JE	BE
Wandering Trader	Purchase	33%	33%	Hay Bale	Emerald	2	—	—

Sounds

Java Edition:

v t e grass sound type
Sound	Closed captions	Source	Description	Identifier	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​[until: JE 26.4]	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
	​Something falls on a block	Entity-Dependent	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.grass.fall	subtitles.block.generic.fall​	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:

v t e grass sound type
Sound	Closed captions	Source	Description	Identifier	Translation key	Volume	Pitch
	​Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	dig.grass	subtitles.block.generic.break​	0.7	0.8–1.0
	​Block placed	Blocks	When the block is placed	place.grass	subtitles.block.generic.place​	0.8	0.8–1.0
	​Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	hit.grass	subtitles.block.generic.hit​	0.3	0.5
	​Footsteps	Players	Falling on the block with fall damage	fall.grass	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.4	1.0
	​Footsteps	Players	Walking on the block	step.grass	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.3	1.0
	​Shovel flattens	Blocks	When a shovel creates a dirt path	use.grass	subtitles.item.shovel.flatten​	1.0	0.8
	​Footsteps​[until: BE 26.70]	Blocks	Jumping from the block	jump.grass	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	0.11	1.0
	​Footsteps​[until: BE 26.70]	Blocks	Falling on the block without fall damage	land.grass	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps​	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	Translation key
Hay Bale	hay_block	170	Block & Giveable Item	Identical	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

Development

February 24, 2013							Reddit user /u/karthus25 discovers a screenshot of hay bales hidden in the files of the Mojam game Nuke the Dinosaurs.
August 28, 2018							JAPPA tweets an image of a new hay bale texture.

Java Edition

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			14w26c				The amount of how much hay bales heal has been rebalanced.​[more information needed]
							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.
1.14			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.
1.20.2 Experiment Villager Trade Rebalance			23w31a				Wandering traders now have a chance to buy a hay bale from the player.
26.2			snap1				Added sulfur cubes, which have the ability to absorb hay bales, providing the golf ball/fast flat effect to the mob.
26.3			snap3				Hay bales can now be used to craft straw beds.
			snap4				The side texture of hay bales has been changed to be vertically symmetrical and align with the straw bed texture.

Bedrock Edition

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			beta 1.2.10.1				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 villages in plains, deserts, and savannas.
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.
1.16.0			beta 1.16.0.51				Hay bales can now be used to craft targets.
26.20 Experiment Drop 2 of 2026			Preview 26.20.23				Added sulfur cubes, which have the ability to absorb hay bales, providing the golf ball/fast flat effect to the mob.
26.30			Preview 26.30.20				Implemented all features from the "Drop 2 of 2026" experiment in vanilla gameplay.
26.40 Experiment Drop 3 of 2026			Preview 26.40.30				Hay bales can now be used to craft straw beds.
26.50			Preview 26.50.20				The side texture of hay bales has been changed to be vertically symmetrical and align with the straw bed texture.
			Preview 26.50.22				All features from the "Drop 3 of 2026" experiment have been fully implemented.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added hay bales.
TU46	CU36	1.38	1.38	1.38	Patch 15		Falling onto a hay bale now does only 20% of the normal fall damage.
TU54	CU44	1.52	1.52	1.52	Patch 24	1.0.4	Hay bales can now be used to breed llamas.
			1.90				The textures of hay bales have been changed.
			1.91				Hay bale now generate in pillager outposts as targets, and in the new villages in plains, deserts, and savannas.
							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).

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Added hay bales.

Data history

Java Edition

Java Edition
1.6.1			13w16a				Hay bales with the side texture on all six faces also exist.
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.
1.13			17w47a				Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 170. The numerical metadata variants of minecraft:hay_block were as follows: DV Description 0 Hay Bale (up-down) 4 Hay Bale (east-west) 8 Hay Bale (north-south)

Bedrock Edition

Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.8.0			build 1				Hay bales with the side texture on all six faces also exist.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				The textures of hay bales have been changed.
?							Hay bales with the side texture on all faces has been removed, and replaced with the Y axis aligned bale.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12	Patch 1	1.0.1	Hay bales with the side texture on all six faces also exist.

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Hay bales with the side texture on all six faces also exist.

Issues

Issues relating to "Hay Bale", "Hay Block", or "Hay" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• In real life, hay bales (and hay in general) are actually made from dried grasses and legumes instead of wheat.
  • The dried stalks of harvested wheat and other cereal plants instead make up straw.

Gallery

Renders

• 
  A hay bale on the east-west axes
• 
  A hay bale on the north-south axes

Screenshots

• 
  The image found in Nuke the Dinosaurs
• 
  A building showing the possible orientations of hay bales
• 
  An unreleased Texture Update hay bale texture

External links

• "Block of the Week: Hay Bale" by Tom Stone – Minecraft.net, March 31, 2017.
• "Block of the Month: Hay Bale" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, July 29, 2024.