Don’t Starve Beefalo Taming Guide

Beefalo are neutral mobs in Don’t Starve and Don’t Starve Together which can be found in the Savanna biome. Beefalo travel in herds which consist of up to 12 Beefalo. They are a good source of Manure, Beefalo wool and Meat. A Beefalo has 500 health points, 375 Hunger, do 34 damage per hit and drop 4 Meat, 3 Beefalo wool and have a 33% chance to drop a Beefalo Horn. Killing a Beefalo raises the naughtiness meter by 4 points.

Breeding Season

During spring time, the behavior of Beefalo will change. Their behinds will turn red and they will attack the player and other mobs if they get too close. During this season, Baby Beefalo will spawn near adult ones occasionally. To avoid fighting Beefalo, the player can wear a Beefalo hat which will allow them to move around close to the herd and gather materials, such as manure, without being attacked by the herd.

Beefalo Farming

Since Beefalo droppings are a vital ingredient for the production of farms, efficiently collecting manure is very important. A Beefalo will randomly drop Manure while roaming around so set up your base close to a Beefalo herd. Make sure to keep your distance because in breeding season Beefalo will attack the player. Alternatively, you can build a pen or an enclosure to keep the Beefalo herd from wandering far away. From there on you can easily head on in every few minutes and collect a large amount of manure.

Farming Beefalo for meat is also a tactic but not a very efficient one for many reasons. Beefalo only spawn babies every breeding season who will take up to 15 days to grow into an adult Beefalo. Another reason is actually killing the Beefalo, which is a very challenging task as the whole herd will defend the Beefalo that is under attack.

Beefalo Taming

Domestication and mounting of Beefalos can be done in Don’t Starve Together only. Taming Beefalo is the act of maintaining its Obedience value in the process of Domestication. Your actions during this stage will determine the Beefalos tendency outcome after the domestication process is complete.

Domestication

The domestication process is started by feeding a Beefalo 1 piece of cut grass. From then on, you have to keep your Beefalo’s hunger value above 0 for 20 days (15 if you brush it every day). This is a very challenging task as a Beefalo loses 300 of its 375 total hunger per day. You will need the equivalent of 64 cut grass, 32 twigs, 8 fistfuls of jam or 4 dragonpies per day to keep it fully fed. The level of Beefalo domestication determines how long you can ride the beast for. At the lowest value, you can ride it for 15 seconds which gradually increases to 4 minutes. Various actions will cause your Beefalos domestication value to decrease which extend the already lengthy process. Attacking your Beefalo will extend the process by 6 days and overfeeding will also increase it so practice caution while taming Beefalo.

After 20 days of caring for the Beefalo, a flash will indicate that it is fully domesticated. Full domestication means the riding time will increase to 13 minutes and you will not have to feed your Beefalo as much. Another advantage of a fully domesticated Beefalo is that they will have a minimum obedience value which means they will never shake off their saddles.

Obedience

Obedience value determines whether or not you can ride your Beefalo or not. If the obedience value is above 50%, you can ride the Beefalo. If it is between 40% and 50%, it will not let the player mount it but will keep the saddle. Under 40%, the Beefalo will throw off any mounted saddle and damage its durability. Trying to mount the Beefalo while it is under 10% obedience will make the Beefalo attack the player.

Feeding the Beefalo some grass or twigs will raise the obedience by 10% so make sure you have a large supply stockpiled. A brush can be used once per day to raise obedience by 40%.

50% of obedience is lost per day and if you over feed the Beefalo, its obedience will drop by another 30%. If the player attacks, or shaves their Beefalo, the obedience will instantly drop to 0.

As discussed earlier, minimum obedience is achieved once a Beefalo is fully domesticated and the value depends on the tendency.

Tendency

Tendency determines the stats of a domesticated Beefalo such as attack damage and movement speed. Depending on how you treated your Beefalo during domestication, it will acquire a tendency once it is fully domesticated. There are 4 possible tendencies: Default, Rider, Pudgy or Ornery.

A Beefalo will get the rider tendency if the player rides it a lot. A rider does a reduced 25 damage but has a speed value of 8 which makes it the fastest Beefalo type. It has minimum obedience of 95%.

A Beefalo will get the pudgy tendency if it is constantly kept above 50% hunger, or overfed. Pudgy does 20 damage per hit, least damage amongst all other Beefalo types but has a sanity aura of +6.25 per minute. It has minimum obedience of 60%.

A Beefalo will get the ornery tendency if it is engaged in combat a lot. Ornery can do 50 damage per hit so it is ideal for hunting mobs. However, ornery has a minimum obedience value of 45% which means you will have to feed it every now and then if you wish to ride it.

The default tendency is achieved if the player manages to keep a balance between all 3 other tendencies. It has the same stats as a regular Beefalo with 80% minimum obedience.

Items used in Beefalo taming

A brush is an item that can be crafted using steel wool, a walrus tusk and 2 gold nuggets. It can be used once per day on a Beefalo during the domestication process to reduce the time to full domestication down to 15 days instead of 20 days. It has 75 uses so it can be used to fully domesticate up to 6 Beefalos.

Another item is the salt lick, which can be crafted using 2 boards and 4 pieces of nitre. It is used to keep Beefalo domestication from reducing overtime. The salt lick can be used to keep a fully domesticated Beefalo fed for up to 15 days without having to feed it every day. Do not put the salt lick down near other Beefalo, Volt Goats or Koalefants as they will also use it which will degrade the durability massively. Dismounting a tamed Beefalo near a salt lick will “park” it and prevent it from wandering away.

A saddlehorn can be crafted using 2 twigs, 2 bone shards, and 1 jet feather. It has 10 uses and can be used to safely remove a saddle from a Beefalo without reducing its durability.

Saddles

There are 3 types of saddles which each offer different stat increases for Beefalo. The basic saddle is the easiest to craft and offers a 40% speed increase while mounted on a Beefalo.

The War saddle is much harder to craft as it requires steel wool, but it offers 25% faster movement and 16 bonus damage per hit.

The Glossamer saddle is the most time-consuming saddle to make as it requires 68 butterfly wings. It offers a 55% faster movement speed.

During combat, Beefalo will absorb all melee damage however all ranged damage will go directly to the player. Beefalo heal 7 health points every 10 seconds and they benefit 4x the health bonus from all food items. This means feeding them a blue cap will heal them for 80 health points instead of the usual 20.

Note: You might also require help with preparing and surviving in Winter as it gets really hard around that season.