Keeping Valheim chickens isn’t hard, but you need to know how to obtain eggs first, then build an enclosure and create a nice, warm place to hatch them. To help with that we've gathered everything you need to know about chickens and eggs, from how to obtain them to how to breed them, and how to find proper chicken food once you have them.
How to get Valheim chickens
To start your chicken farm you'll need to buy eggs from Haldor, the dwarven trader in the Black Forest. An egg will cost you 1500 Coins, but you'll need two chickens to start breeding so it'll cost you 3000 Coins.
Haldor will only sell chicken eggs after you’ve defeated Yagluth however. So you'll need to reach that point before you approach him or eggs won't be in his inventory. Because chickens don’t spawn in the Mistlands and you have to buy them, this essentially makes them a Mistlands creature in terms of progression.
How to hatch eggs in Valheim
Now that you’ve got your eggs, it’s time to hatch them. However, placing eggs on the ground will be too cold to hatch anything. You need two things to change this: a nearby fire, and a roof. You can build something as elaborate as you want but all you really need is a base campfire underneath a single piece of roof.
To check if an egg is ready to hatch, hover over it and the text should tell you it's ‘warm’. It takes roughly one in-game day to hatch a chicken. A very important detail: eggs cannot hatched in a stack! So, don't throw a stack of two eggs on the ground, hold CTRL and left-click to select a single egg.
Newborn chickens also run wild, so build an enclosure around the egg before it hatches and they escape. Unlike real-world eggs, and luckily for us, Valheim eggs are unbreakable, so you can safely pick it up and throw it on the ground again if necessary.
How to breed chickens in Valheim
Next, wait until your chickens are fully grown. After about two or three in-game days, they will automatically turn into adults Hens. Don’t worry about that name; although it implies your chickens are are female, they can still breed.
All you need for chicken breeding is at two adult chickens and plenty of food. New chickens will spawn as eggs again, and without a campfire and a roof - so if you just want to farm eggs, simply take away the warmth.
Valheim chicken food
Chickens eat seeds of any kind so here’s an overview of the current chicken food in Valheim:
- Carrot Seeds
- Turnip Seeds
- Onion Seeds
- Birch Seeds
- Beech Seeds
How to use chickens in Valheim
Valheim chickens are kept for three resources: eggs, meat, and feathers. The eggs and meat are used for Mistlands-related cooking recipes, while the feathers are great for arrow-crafting. If you want to kill a tamed chicken you need to use a Butcher’s Knife in solo mode. The same goes for co-op if friendly fire is disabled.
Enjoy building your Valheim chicken farm!
