Valheim guide: How to tame and breed boars

In this Valheim guide, we’ll show you how to tame boars. By turning these enemies into companions, you can begin breeding them for resources. Not only that, but you can also pet them. If you manage to tame more than one boar and place them in the same pen, they can also breed.

How to tame boars in Valheim

Taming boars in Valheim requires a bit of setup, patience, and time. To being the process of turning boars into friends, you’ll need a few things:

• A workbench near some flat ground
• A pen to house your boar
• Some food like raspberries or mushrooms
• Time

If you plan on taming boar, you’ll need to build a pen for them to hang out in. You’ll also need a workbench.

While you can build a pen near a workbench you’ve already built (maybe before you’ve summoned and fought Eikthyr), you can also establish something like a farm elsewhere. Look at your map and find a clearing with flat ground before you get started.

Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

Once you’ve set up a place for your boar pen, build a new workbench.

Creating a boar pen

After you have your workshop set up, find a nearby area with flat land to create a boar pen. Look for a relatively flat land for the enclosed space you’ll create.

To begin building a home for your new friends, go to your crafting menu under Furniture and choose one of two options for fencing: roundpole or stakewood. While they are functionally the same, stakewood fences cost four times more wood than roundpoles.

As you build your pen, leave one space open. You’ll use this opening to lure boars in.

Trapping a boar

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With your pen mostly built, walk around the open meadow or into the woods and find a boar. When it spots you, a red exclamation point will appear over its head. This means it sees you as a threat and will come rushing in to attack.

Dodge its attacks as you backtrack to your pen with the boar following you. Once it’s inside the pen, equip your crafting hammer and build a fence in the gap. This will trap the boar inside with you. Unlike the boar, you can jump the fence and leave the boar behind.

Taming a boar

Boars require time to acclimate and become tame. You can see how far along a boar is by hovering your cursor over it. A percentage appears, showing you how close the boar is to become tame.

To make checking easier, crouch and sneak over to the pen so you don’t startle the animal. If the boar feels threatened, it will attack and damage the fence. While it’ll take a few hits to destroy, it’s still possible for the boar to break free.

As the boar is acclimating to its pen, you’ll see yellow hearts appear above it.

Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

To help your boars with the acclimatizing process, drop some fruits and vegetables into the pen. You can click and drag any raspberries or mushrooms you have in your inventory out of that menu and in doing so, you’ll throw them on the ground in the direction you’re facing. When the animal feels safe from threats — you in this case — it’ll slowly eat the food and become happier.

Over time, as the boar gets used to hanging around and eating food, it’ll eventually become a tame boar. Once your boar is tame, you can enter the pen and it’ll be docile. You can also pet your new friends, and they’ll emit pink hearts when you do.

How to breed boars

If you manage to tame two boars in the same pen, you can breed boars.

Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

To begin the process, make sure you have at least two boars in a pen and that they are fully tamed. Then make sure they are happy and fed by placing food inside the pen. In time, the two happy boars will cuddle up next to one another, and you’ll see a burst of pink hearts coming from both boars.

If this show of affection happens, then a piggy should be born within a few in-game days. It shouldn’t take more than a week.

Image: Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain Publishing via Polygon

If it’s been a few days and a piggy hasn’t been born yet, then expand the size of your pen. We’ve found that doubling the size of the pen helped. Once boars begin breeding, more piggies might be born quite fast, so try to make your pen large enough to accommodate three or more boars and they should begin giving birth.

In time, piggies will grow into adults who can then breed with other adult boars in a pen.