How to Tame Animals in Valheim
In Valheim, the grind never stops. From harvesting crops to chopping wood and gathering resources, seriously, the grind never stops. All of this can be fun and tiresome at times. If you are running low on animal meat for cooking, need some extra pelts for storage, or want a trusty companion, animal taming can make a massive difference in your playthrough.
How to Tame Animals
Taming animals can provide a ton of long-term benefits for you and your fellow Vikings, but it can be a little bit difficult to get started. Also, before we begin, this guide includes spoilers for animals and creatures found in later biomes, so read with care.
To tame an enemy, you need to build a secure location to capture and feed it. All tameable animals will either be scared or hostile at first, which is why you might want to lure them into a makeshift pit or hole.
The first animal you can tame in Valheim is the common Boar, and they are the easiest. Boars can be aggressive or frightened by your presence or a Fire source. Once you lure a boar into an enclosure, crouch/sneak away until they no longer detect you.
Then throw either:
- Raspberries
- Blueberries
- Carrots
- Mushrooms
- Onions
- or Turnips
Into the pit. Stay within the area while the animal feeds. Taming takes 30 minutes of real-life gameplay with three pieces of food, so you are going to be here for a while.
Once a Boar is tamed, they will seek freedom, so keep them inside an enclosure. As long as you have two Boars tamed, you can have them breed as long as you give them food.
The most important part to note is that if you capture a One Star or two Star Boar, their offspring will retain the Star rank. This gives you even more meat and pelts when you slay them. You can also craft a Butcher knife to kill tamed animals without enabling friendly fire.
Mid to Late Game Animals
This is where the list is going to go into more spoiler territory, as everything in this section is outside of the Meadows biome.
Wolves
It will be a while before you can tame the next animal, which is the Wolf, found in the Mountains. Wolves provide not just meat and pelts, but can also make for pretty good combat companions or base defenders. To tame a Wolf, you will need to capture and feed it:
- Boar meat
- Deer meat
- Lox meat
- Neck tail
- Raw fish
- Chicken meat
- or Sausages
Having a One-Star or Two-Star wolf will skyrocket their damage and health, making raids much easier to defend against.
You can speed up your animal taming by making a Brew of Animal Whispers, which is made of materials from the Mountain, but you need to visit the Bog Witch in the Swamp first.
Loxs
Loxs in the Plains can also be tamed, and they are easily the biggest creature you can win over. While their size is massive and they will take up a lot of space in your base, the advantage of taming them is that you can ride them around. By crafting a Lox Saddle, you can ride them around as gigantic, earth-quaking mounts.
Loxs eat:
- Barley
- Cloudberries
- or Flax
Hens
Next are Hens. Hens are the only animal you cannot find out in the wild. Rather, you need to buy an Egg from Haldor and place it near a fire source. The egg will eventually hatch into a Hen, which will lay more eggs as long as you feed it:
- Carrot seeds
- Turnip seeds
- Onion seeds
- Beech seeds
- Birch seeds
- Barley
- or Dandelion
If you keep the fire going where they lay Eggs, those will hatch into more Hens, so be careful when keeping your coop warm.
Asksvin
Lastly, there’s Asksvin. Found in the Ashlands, these fast Lizards are better defenders than Wolves, and can also become mounts like Loxs if you put an Asksvin Saddle on them. They eat:
- Smoke puffs
- Vineberry clusters
- And Fiddlehead
Moose
The Deep North Update also introduces the elegant Moose. We do know this is tameable, but not many players (ourselves included) have made it to the new biome yet. Recent trailers show our Vikings riding them, making them the third mountable animal in the game. But as for what they eat, we don’t know yet.