Looking for some furry friends for your colony? There are a large variety of different animals available in Rimworld. Every animal in the game can be tamed and become a part of your colony! As long as you have the food and skills, you can tame anything.
This guide will show you what you need to tame animals, go into some detail about raising your colonist’s animal skill and also go into what food you’ll need to tame.
How to Tame Animals in Rimworld
Taming animals in Rimworld can be pretty straight-forward as long as you have everything you need to tame them. That being said, the success of taming animals will always be a little bit random. There is a chance you can tame an animal and a chance that some animals will become aggressive when taming. To tame an animal in Rimworld, follow these steps:
- Make sure one of your colonists is set to Handle under Work
- Select the wild animal you wish to tame and press the Tame button. (Or press the N key by default)
- Select your colonist with the highest taming skill with the left mouse button
- Right-click the animal marked for taming and select the option Prioritize taming…
- Allow your colonist to make an attempt taming the creature
As soon as you complete these steps, your colonist will move to the creature and begin trying to tame it. You will need to have some type of food for the creature to eat before you can try to tame it. Check the animals diet by clicking the i symbol in their info box. (See image below.)
Once you have some of this food, your colonists will automatically attempt to tame the animal when it becomes a priority task for them. You can set Handle as the top priority if you want your colonist to focus on that above any other task.
Cannot Tame Animals?
There are a few different reasons that you may not be able to tame animals in Rimworld. One of the most common being the lack of food. You will see the error message Cannot Tame, No Usable Food. One of the best ways around this is to craft some kibble for taming animals. This will feed every animal in the game apart from wargs, so you will always have a source of taming food. Keep a stack of kibble in your refrigerator.
Another common reason may be that your colonists skill is too low to tame that animal. Some animals will require a minimum Animals level before your character can attempt to tame them. This keeps the player from being able to acquire animals too easily in Rimworld. You will have to train up your colonist to be able to tame these creatures. It’s best to have at least one colonist focus on being an animal tamer.
Raising a Colonist’s Animal Skill
To level up a colonist’s animals skill it is going to take a little time and patience. The way that they can raise this skill is by taming and training animals. If you have your eye on that donkey but don’t have the animals skill to tame it yet, you are going to have to start smaller. Start by having your colonist tame every animal on the map. Yes every one.
You can tame all the rats, squirrels and raccoons you can find. Once you have tamed them, you can release them back into the wild where they can be tamed again. This is an easy way to grind animals skill. Try to have a colonist who has a passion (fire symbol) for the Animals skill. This will mean they gain experience for this skill quicker than normal.
Dangers of Taming Animals/ Animal Retaliation
There will always be a % success chance when you colonist attempts to tame an animal. This will depend on a few factors including; the food being used to tame (kibble is great), the colonist’s Animals skill level and the animal itself. Certain animals, such as Elephants and Muffalos will be very difficult to tame. You should only attempt to tame these creatures with a very experienced animal handler.
Another point to consider is that some animals will attack the colonist in a frenzy if they fail to tame them on the first try. As they are wild animals, they may not like some stranger coming over to them throwing food at them and whispering about politics. You can check how likely an animal is to attack your colonist after a failed taming attempt though their Information sheet under the Revenge Chance on tame fail.
You can also see this number expressed as a percentage under the Wildlife tab from the main screen. Make sure to always check this number before attempting to tame any animals. The idea of having a wolf as a pet may sound nice, but there is a good chance the colonist could fail and end up being dinner.
Now that you know how to tame animals, you’ll probably want to check out our guide on how to train animals, so that they can rescue downed colonists in battle or haul objects!