Boar: Complete Guide to Taming, Breeding & Farming in Valheim

Why the Boar Matters

The Boar is the first creature most Vikings meet, and it stays useful long after the Meadows. It is the only tameable animal in the starting biome, its drops feed dozens of recipes, and a well-run farm supplies renewable Leather Scraps and Boar Meat indefinitely.

Where to find Boars

Wild Boars belong to the Forest monsters faction and spawn commonly across the Meadows. Look for them in three places:

• Open Meadows terrain, as regular spawns
• Boar Runestones, which spawn 1 to 9 Boars as a one-time event
• Abandoned farms scattered around the Meadows

Behaviour

Boars attack when they spot you: a predictable headbutt charge, then a brief retreat. Once you know the pattern it makes herding them into pens easy.

Wild Boars are also afraid of fire. A Torch, Campfire or any open flame within about 10 meters puts them in a frightened state where they refuse to eat and cannot be tamed. The fear disappears once a Boar is tamed.

Drops and Why They Matter

Every adult Boar drops Boar Meat and Leather Scraps, plus a 15% chance at a Boar Trophy. Quantities double with each star, so a 2-star Boar gives four times the resources of a 0-star (see the table below). That is why experienced players work so hard to find and breed 2-star Boars.

Boar Meat

Cooked on a Cooking Station, Boar Meat is a simple early food. Its real value is as an ingredient in five cooked dishes:

• Boar Jerky
• Minced Meat Sauce
• Sausages
• Turnip Stew
• Whole Roasted Meadow Boar (a feast)

Leather Scraps

Leather Scraps go into your earliest gear and keep appearing through every tier: Rag Armor, the Crude Bow, Flint weapons, Bronze and Iron weapons, the Abyssal Harpoon, Fenris Armor, the Lox Saddle, Ooze Bombs and many building pieces. Bats and Muddy Scrap Piles also give them, but Boars are by far the most accessible renewable source.

Boar Trophy

The trophy can be displayed on an Item Stand or used to program a Ballista to target Boars. It has no other crafting use.

Breeding and Building a Boar Farm

Once you have two tamed Boars, breeding follows a few rules:

• Both Boars must be fed and not frightened.
• They must be within 3 meters of each other.
• No more than 5 Boars can be within a 10-meter radius.

When the conditions are met, pink hearts show love points accumulating. After 3 love points a Boar becomes pregnant, and a piglet appears 1 minute later in a puff of red smoke.

Faster than you expect

Either Boar in a pair can become pregnant, and both can be pregnant at once, so a pair produces piglets twice as fast as many players assume. Piglets take 50 minutes to grow up and drop nothing if killed before then.

Getting past the 5-Boar limit

Breeding stops entirely once 5 Boars are nearby. The popular workaround is an elevated breeder: put the breeding pen on raised Core Wood platforms so newborn piglets drop to a lower area outside the 10-meter radius. The pair keeps breeding while you harvest adults at ground level.

Anchored Boars

Boars tamed at abandoned farms and Runestones keep an anchor to their spawn point. They keep trying to return home, sit in one corner and breed poorly. Breed them once, then kill the originals and keep the offspring: piglets born in your pen have no anchor.

Star Ratings: Finding and Breeding 2-Star Boars

Starred Boars only spawn more than 800 meters from the world center, so you will not find them near spawn. They can also appear as one-time spawns at Runestones and abandoned farms regardless of distance. 2-star Boars are rare enough that finding one is a small celebration.

Why stars are worth chasing

A 2-star Boar has triple the health of a 0-star, so it survives raids better, and it drops four times the meat and leather. Offspring take the star rating of the parent that gives birth, so breeding two 2-star Boars guarantees every piglet is 2-star.

Taming a starred Boar

Tame a starred Boar on the spot if you can, building a quick pen around it first. Moving wild Boars far is slow and risky. Once tamed, you can corral it by exploiting its habit of running toward gaps in fences.

Recipes Using Boar Meat

Boar Meat appears in recipes from the first Cooking Station to the Food Preparation Table. The comparison below shows what each dish gives you; the recipes follow.

Protecting Your Farm

A Boar farm is only as good as its defenses. Before you defeat Eikthyr, the "Eikthyr rallies the creatures of the forest" raid can send Boars and Necks at your base. Weak pens let raid Boars break in, and Greydwarfs from other events can wreck fences and kill your animals.

Defense checklist

• Use Stakewalls instead of Roundpole Fences for the outer perimeter: they have more HP and damage anything that touches them.
• Roof the breeding pair's pen so Greydwarf Shaman poison cannot reach them through fences.
• Keep the breeding pair in a covered room without windows; offspring can live in an open lower area since they are replaceable.

Multiplayer

Food demand scales fast with player count. With 4 to 10 players a Boar farm goes from nice to essential, and some seeds have sparse Boar spawns, which makes farming the only reliable supply.