How to tame boars in Valheim, as well as wolves and loxes

(Image credit: Iron Gate)

When it comes to taming wild boar in Valheim, you might be feeling a little bit at a loss. Valheim is a sprawling game, so it makes sense that the survival mechanics are equally expansive. It's not just boar that can be tamed and bred, however: wolves and loxes exist in the game too. As boars live in the Meadows though, you can start taming them almost immediately after dropping into one of the many Valheim biomes, so they might be the easiest species to start with.

To tame boars, you need an enclosure and certain food types. Once you've domesticated the beast, they can make quite decent pets. Here's how to tame wild creatures like boar, wolves, and loxes in Valheim.

How to tame boars in Valheim

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Valheim biomes — (Image credit: Iron Gate)

It's technically possible to start taming boars from the moment you spawn in a new world, but it's not recommended until you have a base set up because you'll absolutely need a pen or enclosure for them. Build a small area you want to keep your animals in, but leave one section of the fence open so you can come back through later.

Go off and find a boar if there isn't one nearby, then get close to it so it starts chasing you. Run back to your newly-built enclosure then when they're inside, quickly equip your hammer and place another fence to trap them.

Taming the boar requires you to feed it, which can be done with any food that grows in the ground – raspberries, blueberries, mushrooms (yellow or red), carrots, or turnips. Leave them on the floor of the pen and the boar will start to eat them, slowly becoming tamer with yellow hearts floating above its body. You can check on the progress of the the taming by getting close to the boar and looking at it, which will give you a percentage.

Sometimes the boar will stay aggressive for a while and not start to eat the food until you've left the vicinity and returned, so if you're finding that the boar won't stop charging around and has a red exclamation mark above it, pack your best tools and go on an adventure. When you return from slaying trolls and exploring the big wide world, the boar should have calmed down.

How to breed boars in Valheim

Breeding boars in order to farm them and have an endless supply of meat and leather scraps is easier said than done. To begin with, you of course have to lure and tame a second boar in the enclosure.

When you have multiple boars, leave food on the ground to ensure they stay satiated, and two "happy" boars – a status you can check by hovering over them with your mouse cursor – can randomly mate and produce baby boars. The babies will eventually grow into adults and the more adult, happy boars you have in the pen, the more boars they will produce. As long as you always leave two adult boars in there, you've got a self sufficient boar farm.

How to tame wolves and loxes in Valheim

How to tame a boar in Valheim — (Image credit: Coffee Stain Publishing)

The process is essentially the same for wolves and loxes, with a couple of notable differences. Wolves are found in Mountain biomes and you need to feed them raw meat instead of berries or vegetables. This is as expected really, thanks to the wolves' carnivorous nature. Since they'll attack you on sight in a much more aggressive manner than the boars, it's imperative that you keep your distance and take your time taming them. When you have a tame wolf, press E to interact with it and get it to follow you as a companion. Just beware of particularly tough enemies, because all your hard work taming a wolf can be diminished in an instant.

If you've found Haldor, the Valheim merchant, then you'll know what a lox is. These beasts can be found roaming around in Plains biomes and while Halstein, Haldor's friend, is passive, the wild ones are most decisively angry. For this pen, you'll need to build stone walls because they're strong enough to easily break wooden fences, and you must maintain distance with loxes or they will obliterate you. Loxes eat cloudberries and barley, so feeding them and taming them is the same, but with harder to acquire ingredients.

If you want to be a self-sufficient adventurer, here's how to plant seeds in Valheim.