How to get iron nuggets in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I’ve got some things to iron out

One of the key elements of Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ gameplay is crafting, which means gathering resources is key. Iron nuggets are important to a lot of different DIY recipes in the game, and while at first they can seem pretty elusive, there are some strategies you can employ to help guarantee you’ll have everything you need. Thankfully none of them are too complicated, so with a little bit of elbow grease, your inventory will be overflowing with iron nuggets in no time.

It’s time to rock and roll

So technically there’s one main method to get iron nuggets in New Horizons, but there are different ways to go about it — more on that in a second. Your best bet in terms of both efficiency and time is the six large rocks you’ll find around your island. Each rock can drop a total of eight items per day, and there’s roughly a one in three chance any given item will be an iron nugget. Simply go around to all the rocks on your island and mine them by hitting them with a shovel or axe, and hopefully, that will net you decent amount of iron nuggets.

Once you mine eight items from the rocks, or as many as you can within ten seconds, that’s all you’ll be able to get from each rock that day. Just make sure to repeat after the spawns reset the following day for as long as you need to grind for some iron. It’s worth noting as well that a popped balloon can drop a single iron nugget, and while that’s certainly not a quick way to get what you need, anything helps, especially when you’re likely going to pop every balloon you see anyway.

When it’s time to look elsewhere…

If you’re looking to gather even more iron in a day after you exhaust the rocks, the next option is to leave your island and mine rocks elsewhere — you’re essentially using the same method, only in different locations. You can always go to a friend’s island and repeat the mining process on all of their rocks. In addition, you can head to a Mystery Island by going to the airport with a Nook Miles Ticket.

This option is even better because for some reason, the rocks on Mystery Islands have an even better chance of dropping iron nuggets than on your own island. You’ve got a 50% shot of getting an iron nugget from these rocks, and you can still mine up to eight items from each one. It also helps that you can go to as many Mystery Islands as you want, as long as you can afford the Nook Miles Tickets.