Stardew Valley: Why Raise Slimes?

In Stardew Valley, most the buildings you can add to your farm have obvious purposes. Your coop can hold chickens and ducks, your barn houses livestock, and your stable keeps the horse – just to name a few examples.

But there’s one rather baffling exception: the slime hutch. Slimes are monsters that can damage you. Just entering your slime hutch to water your slimes every so often can be a surprisingly risky pursuit.

So why raise slimes at all in Stardew Valley? In this brief guide, I’ll dive into the benefits of raising slimes and some of your most common slime-related questions.

How to Raise Slimes

I’ll start by describing how you raise slimes in the first place. Obviously, you’ll need to build a slime hutch first, which will cost you 10,000 gold, 500 stone, 10 refined quartz, and 1 iridium bar. This is a building you probably won’t be able to achieve until later on in the game.

With your slime hutch built, you’ll be able to keep up to 20 slimes that you hatch with the incubator inside. You can acquire slime eggs to incubate as occasional drops from slimes in the mines.

Like any other animal on your farm, slimes require maintenance. They have water troughs inside that need to be replenished. If you keep on watering your slimes, they’ll start producing slime balls.

Why You Should Raise Slimes

As I said at the beginning of this post, slimes can hurt you. They’re monsters, after all. There’s a reason you can’t just take a wild animal from the woods and put it in your house – it will literally attack you and damage your home.

Well, the same concept applies to slimes, although you can mitigate the damage you take from them by equipping the Slime Charmer Ring. They can and absolutely will bite the hand that feeds them, which leaves reasons to raise them thin on the ground.

I can tell you that the whole reason I started raising slimes was that my in-game spouse, Sebastian, told me to. Other people have their own reasons, though.

Some simply enjoy raising slimes for the heck of it. Others like the loot that slimes will occasionally drop. Still others are just completionists who want to do everything Stardew Valley has to offer.

Of course, play your cards right with your slime hutch, and it can become a surprisingly profitable venture, too. You’ll just need to build a slime egg press and consider grinding for the Burglar’s Ring, which can increase the loot drop rate of monsters.

Slime FAQs

What are slime balls used for in Stardew Valley?

If you have at least five slimes in your hutch and keep on top of providing them with water, you’ll walk into your hutch every so often to find slime balls scattered around it. These gooey balls are essentially loot chests; you can right-click on them to retrieve items.

Slime balls are one of the more compelling reasons to build a slime hutch in the first place. Whether or not you think they’re worth it, though, is ultimately up to you.

Is the slime hutch worth it?

That’s an interesting question. I don’t think it’s one that has an objective answer.

Some people will find the slime hutch worth it for any number of reasons. The hutch could be worth it to someone simply because they like slimes, while another person who hates slimes would disagree with the idea.

If you’re the type of person who turns their farm into a profit-making machine, maybe you’d find the slime balls an intriguing prospect. However, I think there are better ways to make more money, such as brewing and aging alcohol or making preserves.

So here’s my personal answer: I don’t think the slime hutch is worth it. If I make another save file at some point, I likely won’t bother with building a slime hutch again.

Wrap Up

Building a slime hutch on your farmstead isn’t a requirement for profits or even fun in Stardew Valley. In fact, I think that you could avoid it entirely and the lack of a slime hutch would have no impact on your gameplay.

In the end, whether you choose to build a slime hutch is always your decision. As I said earlier on in this post, there certainly are reasons to build one that some may find compelling. No one can tell you how to “properly” play a game – games are ultimately about your enjoyment, and Stardew Valley is especially accommodating to a range of play styles.

If you’re bottom line is making money in the game, I recommend checking our guide to the best summer crops for year 1 in Stardew Valley.