You're probably using scarecrows wrong in Stardew Valley

With an overwhelming number of craftable items for your Valley of the Stars farm, it's easy to forget one of the game's most essential elements: the scarecrow. If you're a player who doesn't use strawmen – or if you're using more than just a few – you're probably playing the game wrong. Scarecrows in Star Not only do they add rustic charm to your farm, they also scare away pesky crows that can feast on your crops and impact your profits. When it comes to putting up scarecrows, there are a few easy things every farmer should know.

Scarecrows are one of the easiest resources to create in the game, being available at the beginning of the game, only at level 1 of farming. The standard scarecrow can be crafted with 50 wood, 20 fiber and 1 coalbut you can also start a collection of fancier Rarecrows. There are eight Rarecrows in the game, available at festivals, fairs, balls and even the casino. Collecting all Rarecrows grants the player the recipe for a Deluxe Rarecrow. All scarecrows and Rarecrows work the same way, warding off unwanted crows from your crops.

Why Scarecrows Are Important in Stardew Valley

Scarecrows keep crows away

One Valley of the Stars the player recently found himself without a necessary harvest order, all because of an annoying crow. As players slowly progress through the game, they will encounter many set story missions, but they can also choose to undertake their own Help Wanted missions, each requiring them to deliver goods in some way. With the offer of increased friendship and extra money for the player, this can be a great way to progress in the game.

Reddit User Dear_Following_9065 found themselves taking on a harvest order of their own in Valley of the Starsspecifically for shipping 100 artichokes by the end of the season. While this shouldn't be too difficult to complete, the player realized, with four days to go, that a crow had taken an artichoke seed at some pointleaving them at 99/100 artichokes shipped. With no time to correct the error, they had to take the loss in this very close order.

Crows are a necessary evil in Valley of the Stars, making farming life a little more exciting. But with their presence comes the need to be a little more cautious, and It's often worth overplanting as a safety net. Although harvest orders only require a certain number of harvests, there is no harm in planting more to ensure these needs are always met. And of course, there are always scarecrows.

How to use scarecrows effectively in Stardew Valley

Make the most of your layout

While it may be tempting to place scarecrows anywhere there are crops, there are some easy ways to ensure you're making the most of your resources and space. First, keep your scarecrows out of where your crops are planted.as this offers more space for harvesting than would be possible to place them between crops.

One of the most commonly used scarecrow placement tips for Star players is simply to place them in the outer corners of your planting area. As long as the space where you grow your crops isn't obscenely large, having just four scarecrows – one in each corner – will probably fully protect your crops.

How much do scarecrows protect in Stardew Valley?

You may be using too many straw men

As has often been pointed out on social media – like in the post above by Redditor GentilComunicação956 – it's very easy to wrongly assume that your strawmen are more useless than they really are. If you are using too many straw men, you are definitely not playing in the most optimal way. You should be aware of how much space your scarecrows protect: according to the Stardew Valley Wiki, each scarecrow will protect 249 spaces with “8 spaces each to the north, east, south and west.” This radius is probably larger than you imagined, so it's possible that you could have fewer scarecrows, placed at greater distances, and still keep your crops safe.

It's also important to note that – despite how often crows can attack – the chance of losing a crop to a crow is relatively small. As a Redditor margotbean explains:

“Every 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 has not yet eaten anything, the game performs 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 is executed is the minimum of (4 and #of crop/16). So if you only have 16 crops planted, it will run once. If you have 600 crops planted, it runs 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 maintain game progress even if you're visited by a crow, rewarding the effort of keeping things running smoothly. With so much variation and potential to irritate – but funny – events, there is never a reason to stop coming back to just one more farm in Valley of the Stars.

Source: Caro_Following_9065/Reddit, KindCommunication956/Reddit, Stardew Valley Wiki