Taming livestock with a rope

Choose Tame beside the animal

In Adventure, stand alongside wild livestock, including diagonals, right-click it and choose Tame. Carry a Taming Rope in your pack. One rope is spent whether the animal is caught or breaks free. A Protected rope is not spent. Simply walking into an animal does not throw the rope. This action is separate from companion whistle taming and Befriend.

Chance and earlier failures

The base chances are 60% for Common livestock, 40% for Uncommon, 20% for Rare, 10% for Legendary and 5% for Mythic. Each failed try on the same animal adds 7 percentage points to its next try, up to 50 extra points. The total cannot exceed 100%. A failure makes the animal flee and blocks another rope attempt for 8 turns. The bonus belongs to that animal's earlier failures, rather than every animal of its species.

Optional bait for rarer livestock

Rare, Legendary and Mythic rope attempts automatically offer one eligible bait if you carry it. Bait adds 15 percentage points and is spent on success or failure. Common and Uncommon rope attempts do not offer bait. The game takes the first eligible pack item, then checks the quick bar if none was found. It does not choose the cheapest item from the bait list. Accepted bait is Grain, harvested Carrot or Turnip, Wheat Sheaf, Cooked Meat, Cooked Venison or Cooked Mutton. Their better-cooked forms also count. Carrot and Turnip seeds do not count as vegetables.

Reserved bait in the quick bar

Protected pack bait is skipped. Protected quick-slot bait is skipped when choosing an offering, but duplicate quick-slot stacks of the same bait have an exception. The spend takes the first quick slot with that item ID, which can be a Protected stack before the unprotected stack that was chosen. Keep reserved bait out of the quick bar when another stack of the same bait is there. Retain does not reserve a rope or bait against being consumed.

After a successful catch

A caught animal becomes your livestock and starts in Follow mode. It begins at full health for its species with 30 happiness, unfed. Milk quality is calculated from happiness, feed and species bonuses as the world updates. Its first milk, wool, silk or egg timer is set from its species. A released animal keeps its proper name and coat when you catch it again. Use the animal's right-click menu or Animals panel to choose Follow, Roam or Stay.

Wild encounters and other ways to keep animals

A taming chance does not mean every livestock species normally appears wild. The ordinary wild livestock pool varies by biome. Its daytime arrival check runs every 8 turns, has a 12% roll while fewer than 3 wild livestock are in the active creature list, and still needs legal open ground. It does not run in Wilds or while sailing. Special mythic befriending and befriending young or docile creatures use their own offerings and rules.