Valheim is full of wonder, from the massive map full of dangerous adventures to the whole villages you can build with your friends.
If you’re struggling to feed and clothe the residents of your little town on hunting alone, there’s a simple way you can make your little commune self sufficient… animal taming.
Valheim - Boar Taming
Boars are the first and easiest animal you have the ability to tame. They provide the same resources as they would in the wild and will breed if you feed them - carrots and mushrooms being the best. This gives you a constant supply of meat and leather scraps.
To begin with you need to build yourself a pen consisting of an enclosed fence area with a door. This can be built in your base or nearby to make things easier for you, but has to be within chase range of wild boars.
Once this is ready you can have a nice walk until you find a boar or two. Startle them and let them chase you back to their new home and once inside, slam the door shut, trapping them inside. Remember that boars are afraid of fire, so make sure you don’t try to lead them past any torches.
The next step in taming a boar is to feed it. They eat any sort of plants so just get yourself a small stack of fruit or veg and drop it into the enclosure by picking it up in your inventory and clicking outside the window. You can leave the pens since you don’t need to stick around while they eat and being too close may stop them from doing so.
Taming can take a few days but eventually you’ll have a smelly snuffling pet piggie. If you have multiple boars in a single pen they will start breeding. This will give you your renewable resource farm but you need to ensure there is enough space inside or they won’t get busy. Whenever the pen gets full, slaughter some boar and make yourself a roast.
Valheim - Wolf Taming
Wolves appear only in the freezing Mountain biome and your first encounter with them probably won’t go well for you. Wolves are savage and strong and will hurt you badly given the chance.
For this reason it’s best to make this pen from stakewalls at a minimum as regular fencing will be ripped to pieces as easily as you will.
Other than this, the capture process is much the same as for boars. Walk up to a wolf, turn around, run for your life, and lure it into the pen, locking it inside… hopefully with you on the other side.
The next difference between wolves and boars is their diet. Wolves need a supply of raw meat to be tamed or bred. As going into the pen is very dangerous, we’d suggest feeding them velociraptor style from a walkway built around the top of the fence.
Valheim - Lox Taming
The Lox make even the wolves look tame by comparison and can be found in the Plains biome. They are so strong that even the toughest fences will be turned to kindling by these great beasts.
If you want to tame them, the only real way is to do so in the wild. Crouch to sneak and drop some barley or cloudberries nearby before retreating.
Once you have tamed them you can then pen them, pet them, and breed them like the other animals.
Valheim has had a fantastic start in early access, reaching 367,443 concurrent users over the weekend, and if you’ve been playing it you might like to check out our console commands for more guidance, and a few cheats too.
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