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

↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.

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:

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

↑ ^a ^b MC-177082

Bedrock Edition:

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`

↑ ID of block's direct item form, which is used in savegame files and addons.
↑ Available with /give command.
↑ The block's direct item form has the same id as the block.

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

Java Edition
February 24, 2013				A Reddit user (karthus25) discovers a screenshot of hay bales hidden in the files of the Mojam game Nuke the Dinosaurs.
1.6.1		13w16a		Added the hay bale.
		13w16a		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.
		14w26c		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
1.16		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.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3		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.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.1		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.