Where to find Iron Nuggets in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Within your first few days of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’ll need Iron Nuggets to craft tools and unlock Nook’s Cranny, the island’s first store, which costs a whopping 30 Iron Nuggets (a scarce resource) to finish building.

You get Iron Nuggets from rocks, which can also spit out stone and clay. (Also, one of the rocks in your town will drop Bells instead of resources.) It’s best to check rocks as soon as you can, so that you have Iron Nuggets when you need them.

Farming Iron Nuggets

To farm Iron Nuggets, hit the rocks around your island with a shovel until they stop spitting out resources. To maximize the amount of loot you get from each rock:

1. Stand next to a rock, holding your shovel.
2. Turn around and face away from the rock.
3. Dig two holes, so that you’re standing between the rock and the holes you dug. (The holes will prevent you from bouncing backward after each hit.)
4. Hit the rock as many times as you can as quickly as you can.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Consider farming resources from all of your rocks every day to gather their resources. If you’ve hit all the rocks in your town and still don’t have enough Iron Nuggets for your craft, then your best bet is to buy a Nook Miles Ticket for 2,000 Nook Miles and set off to one of the randomized islands. There will be plenty of rocks to farm there.

You can also time travel by changing your Nintendo Switch’s date in the settings, if you’re fine with skipping forward to the next day.