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Stardew Valley's gameplay involves a lot of discovery, even after putting hours into it already. Players are consistently getting access to new buildings, new animals, mysterious areas, and more — not to mention the consistent updates that Stardew Valley's developer, ConcernedApe, releases for it.
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Among this new content that you'll experience as you work through Stardew Valley are Slime Hutches, purple brick buildings you can put on your farm to raise your very own Slime population outside of the Mines. As with other aspects of the game, very little is explained to you off-hand; you'll need to experiment and try to make it work on your own. While many players enjoy this sense of discovery, others find it frustrating to always feel like you're starting from square one. If you're one of those people, no need to worry! We have all the details you'll need about your brand new building in this one convenient article. Read on!
Building A Slime Hutch
To build a Slime Hutch, you just need to visit Robin at her Carpenter's Shop in the Mountains.
Building Materials Required:
- 10,000g
- 500 Stone
- 10 Refined Quartz
- 1 Iridium Bar
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Getting Slimes For Your Hutch
Slime Eggs
The first way that you'll be able to add Slimes to your Hutch is via Slime Eggs. Marlon introduces the concept of them to you the first time you build a Slime Hutch and you'll slowly come into contact with more over time. Sources include…
- Marlon (the first time a Slime Hutch is built) (Green Egg)
- Putting 100 Slime into a Slime Egg-Press (results in a Random Colour Egg)
- As a drop from Slimes in your Slime Hutch (Egg colour of the associated Slime)
- Skull Cavern Treasure Rooms (Purple Egg or Red Egg)
- Slimejack Fish Ponds (once you have 9 fish) (Green Egg)
- Killing Tiger Slimes (Tiger Egg)
- Killing Any Slimes (only once a Slime Hutch has been built) (Egg colour of the killed Slime)
To hatch a Slime Egg, you'll need a Slime Incubator. One comes automatically with your Slime Hutch. To get more, you'll need to craft them yourself. The recipe is provided when you reach level eight in the Combat skill and you'll need two Iridium Bars and 100 Slimes to make one. Keep this information in mind about incubating Slimes:
- Eggs incubate for 4,000 minutes (2-3 days)
- You can put Slimes outdoors by putting your Slime Incubator outdoors
- The Slime's gender is random and there is no way to know it in advance
Mating
Once you have a few slimes, there's a chance that male and female slimes will mate. (Male slimes have an antenna and female slimes don't.) Unfortunately, there's no way for you to encourage this as you might in Minecraft.
You'll know that Slimes are mating because hearts will appear over their heads. If a heart is over one and an exclamation point is over the other, it means that the exclamation mark Slime rejected the heart Slime's advances.
The colour of the resulting baby Slime is calculated by the game to be slightly random with favour given to the colours of the parents.
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How To Care For Your Slimes
Slimes are fairly low maintenance compared to other animals — they just need to be watered, not fed. There are troughs on the right-hand side of the Slime Hutch that the Slimes drink from. They can be filled manually (with a watering can) or automatically (by placing a Sprinkler).
For your hard work, you'll be rewarded with Slime Balls! These are items that appear on the floor of the Hutch (they won't appear on crafted floors). They can't be sold on their own; you need to click on them to release Slimes (the item, not the creature). You can get a maximum of four Slime Balls per day. To do this, you need to have the maximum number of Slimes in your Hutch (20) and have all the water troughs filled.
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Laying Out Your Slime Hutch
There are a few truths about Slimes and Slime Hutches that have led players to layout the inside in a particular way:
- Slime Balls will only spawn on crafted floors
- Slimes in your Slime Hutch will still attack you
- There's enough room in the Slime Hutch to fit 20 Slimes with leftover space
- Slimes don't need to be able to physically reach the water troughs
As a result, you can absolutely use fences inside the hutch to keep yourself safely away from the Slimes while you collect Slime Balls. If you don't place crafted floors in the space where the Slimes are trapped, the Slime Balls will have to spawn in the safe parts.
The Witch's Curse
There's a random event that may happen to you in which the Witch curses your Slime Hutch, turning all your Slimes into Black Slimes (though, notably, they keep the stats of their original colour). If you want to prevent this, you just need to put a Wicked Statue inside the Slime Hutch — it keeps her away!