In Valheim, you can breed wild boars, wolves, and Lox, allowing you to quickly and effectively obtain their resources. In our guide, we explain what preparations you need to make and what to watch out for.
At the start of your journey, you need a relatively large amount of leather scraps to craft tools and items. Constantly hunting wild boars can take a lot of time. Therefore, it is advisable to always have a supply of leather in your own backyard.
This is easy to do by simply taming and breeding the necessary pigs. They will multiply directly in your base, allowing you to easily obtain meat and scraps. Here’s how.
Note: This guide was first published on February 10, 2021. On February 24, 2021, it was supplemented by taming wolves and Lox.
Catching and Feeding Wild Boars in an Enclosure
This is how you catch a wild boar: Wild boars are aggressive animals and will chase you if you attack them or get too close. Therefore, you need to be careful when approaching them, as you must not scare them away.
To tame a wild boar, you need to feed it. Sneak close to one of the animals without scaring it, and throw it some food from your inventory. Simply drag the corresponding item from your inventory into the world or click on it while holding the Ctrl key.
Once the wild boar sees the food, it will start to eat it, as long as it is hungry.
What can I feed them? Wild boars primarily eat food that they find near the ground. From my own experience, they prefer red mushrooms. You can also feed them raspberries and blueberries.
Yellow mushrooms did not work in our tests. However, you need those primarily for yourself, to brew powerful mead potions through fermentation.
How long does it take? Once the wild boar has eaten, a progress bar for the taming will appear. 10 red mushrooms are enough to tame a wild boar.
The taming takes a while. You can leave the animal unattended, as the presence of a player is not necessary during taming. You will receive a message once the taming is successful.
After successfully taming the wild boar, you will receive an indication of its well-being. With “E”, you can additionally pet the animal, but currently, there is no benefit to doing so.
Preparation for Taming Wild Boars
After you have tamed wild boars, they will roam freely. To prevent them from running away, you should build your own enclosure. An enclosure also makes it easier for you to tame them, as the animals cannot escape from it.
This is how you build an enclosure for wild boars: To build in Valheim, you need a workbench in the immediate vicinity. Wild boars frequently appear in meadows, and we recommend building the enclosure there.
Once the workbench is set up, you can level the ground with a hoe. The ground does not need to be perfectly aligned; it is sufficient if you can place fences properly. The so-called “Skigard” can be learned in the game at an early stage and costs you only 1 x wood.
Separate an area with the Skigards and leave a passage open. In this passage, you can either place a large gate or another Skigard if the wild boar is trapped in the enclosure.
This is how you use the enclosure: Approach a wild boar and let it follow you. It will not stop chasing you if you remain within range.
Run with the wild boar in tow to the end of the enclosure. Once the animal is in the enclosure, place a Skigard to close it. If you have secured the entrance with a gate, close both doors.
Then, move away from the enclosure and wait until the animal calms down. Afterwards, you can sneak or walk closer to the enclosure and begin feeding and taming.
To feed the animals, look into the enclosure, open your inventory, and drag the food out of the inventory slot. This way, your character will throw the item away. It does not matter whether the food is stacked or thrown individually into the enclosure.
Breeding Wild Boars Made Easy
Do you want to breed wild boars in Valheim? This only works if the animals mate in captivity. However, this is only possible if you keep at least two animals in an enclosure. Both must be tamed. Additionally, there must be enough food for the animals in the enclosure.
This is what you need to consider to obtain piglets: Based on our author’s experience, wild boars only reproduce up to a certain number. After initial estimations, a maximum of six tamed wild boars per workbench area is possible.
Once you have two tamed wild boars in your enclosure that are happy and well-fed, hearts will appear above their heads during mating. After a while, you will be able to welcome little piglets into the world of Valheim.
What do I do with the wild boars? Unfortunately, wild boars do not actively produce resources. To obtain leather scraps, you still need to kill them. This might be a bit difficult at first, especially when you see the little piglets growing up. If you still want to kill them, it’s best to use a bow and arrow. This way, only one animal dies, and you won’t risk accidentally injuring another animal when handling a spear in the enclosure.
Besides leather scraps, wild boars can also provide you with trophies and meat. The loot drops from the animals are random. From our experience, wild boars most frequently drop scraps, followed by meat and trophies, which are dropped less frequently.
Taming Wolves in Valheim
In addition to wild boars, you can also tame wolves in Valheim. The animals reside in the mountains and can be a danger to life and limb in packs. Without wolf armor, it is also very cold in the mountains, and you can die from the cold. We, therefore, recommend setting up a camp near the mountains and building an enclosure for taming there, similar to the wild boars.
This is how to build a secure enclosure to tame wolves: Wolves attack not only you but also objects you have built. Since a wolf’s attack is very strong, the taming enclosure should not be made of Skigards, but of palisades.
To quickly leave the enclosure, place a 1×1 ground block at its end that you can use to escape the enclosure later.
This is how you catch a wolf in Valheim: Wolves are aggressive animals and will chase you as soon as you get too close. To fend off their attacks, you should carry a bronze or higher shield. Once you find a wolf and have drawn its aggression, run to the previously built enclosure and lock the animal inside.
This is how you tame the wolf: Wolves eat raw meat. Throw this into the enclosure and quickly move away. The aggression range of wolves is larger compared to wild boars, and they will only start to eat after you have moved away.
To tame a wolf, you should throw a stack of raw meat into the enclosure. After some time, the taming is successful, and you can command the wolf to follow you with “E”.
This is how wolves breed in Valheim: To obtain wolf puppies, you must have at least two tamed wolves in an enclosure. In addition, there must be enough raw meat available in the enclosure for them to mate. Hearts will appear above the animals as soon as mating occurs. After a short time, you’ll be able to celebrate new pups with the wolves.
Taming Lox in Valheim
Lox may seem very cozy and peaceful at first glance despite their size. However, like wild boars and wolves, they are aggressive and will attack you if you get too close.
You can find these animals in the plains and feed them moltberries and barley. Like with wolves and wild boars, you can lure the animals into an enclosure, making it easier to tame them. In our tests for the guide, stone walls proved to be very effective.
What you can do with a Lox: Currently, you can only tame and interact with Lox if you have tamed them. As of February 24, 2021, it is still not possible to breed the animals. If this changes with an update, you’ll find out here.
Lox provide you with fur and Lox meat that you can use for cooking. From this, you can prepare Lox meat pie, which is one of the best foods in Valheim.
With a little practice, breeding wild boars, wolves, and Lox in Valheim is easy to learn. With the tamed animals, you obtain a reliable source of leather scraps and can fully focus on other adventures in the mystical world of Valheim.
You can also immerse yourself in the mystical world even if your PC is not very powerful, as the new Steam hit Valheim can even run on 10-year-old PCs.
