If you’ve spent any time building out your Enshrouded base, you’ve probably noticed that hunting wild animals for meat and hide gets old fast. Learning how to breed animals enshrouded is one of the most impactful quality of life upgrades you can unlock for your playthrough, cutting down on hours of foraging time and giving you a reliable source of rare materials you can’t get any other way. I’ve spent over 40 hours testing different breeding setups across multiple playthroughs, and I’ve broken down everything you need to know to get your first farm up and running without wasting resources on avoidable mistakes.
Prerequisites You Need to Breed Animals in Enshrouded
You can’t just throw two random animals in a pen and expect them to breed. The game locks this mechanic behind a few key unlocks you’ll need to get first, most of which become available once you hit the mid-game. I skipped the Farmer NPC rescue on my first playthrough and wasted 3 hours trying to make a farm work, so don’t make that same mistake. The core prerequisites you’ll need are:
- Rescued Farmer NPC, unlocked by clearing the Ancient Spire in the Revelwood region
- Crafted Animal Trough for each pen, made with 10 Wood Planks, 4 Iron Nails, and 2 Rope
- Two tamed animals of the same species (you can’t breed wild, untamed animals)
- A fenced pen with at least 8 square meters of space per animal to prevent overcrowding
- Regular supply of feed specific to the species you’re breeding
You’ll also need to make sure your Farmer has a fully upgraded workbench, as higher tier feed recipes unlock as you level up their crafting station. If you notice your animals aren’t eating the feed you leave out, double check that you’re using the right type for their species — sheep won’t eat raw meat, and boars won’t touch standard hay, no matter how hungry they are. Don’t try to skip upgrading the Farmer’s bench either, you’ll miss out on specialized feed that cuts breeding time by almost 30%.
Step-by-Step Process to Start Your Breeding Operation
Once you have all your prerequisites sorted, getting your first breeding pair set up takes less than 10 minutes if you know what you’re doing. First, you’ll need to track down two wild animals of the same species and tame them using their preferred taming item. For chickens, that’s regular seeds, for sheep it’s wild berries, and for boars it’s foraged mushrooms. Hold the item out in your hand and approach slowly, and they’ll come to you to eat, eventually becoming tamed enough to lead back to your base.
Next, build your fenced pen and place the trough inside before leading your animals in. Add the right type of feed to the trough, and you’ll see small heart icons pop up above the animals within a few in-game minutes if everything is set up correctly. The average gestation period for most Enshrouded animals is 10 in-game minutes, so you don’t have to wait too long for your first baby animal to spawn. Baby animals take 20 more in-game minutes to grow to full size, at which point they can also join the breeding pool.
I usually set up a small camp next to my pens when I’m starting a new farm, so I can keep an eye out for predators that might wander into the area and attack my animals before they reproduce. One stray wolf took out half my first chicken flock before I added a spiked fence around the perimeter, so I highly recommend adding extra defenses if your base is near a high-spawn area for hostile mobs. Separate different species into their own pens too, they won’t crossbreed, and overcrowding will stop all breeding entirely even if you have enough troughs for every animal.
Best Animals to Breed for Your Playstyle
Not all animal farms are created equal, and the best species for you to breed will depend entirely on what you spend most of your time doing in Enshrouded. If you’re a new player still working on basic base upgrades and early game vault runs, start with chickens. They only need basic seeds for feed, take up very little space, and produce eggs and feathers consistently. Eggs are used in almost all mid-tier cooking recipes, and feathers are essential for crafting arrows if you prefer ranged combat.
If you spend a lot of time crafting armor and running group content, sheep are a great next step. They produce wool that’s used for high-tier cloth armor and cold-resistant gear, plus mutton that makes for filling, long-lasting food for long exploration trips. For endgame players who tackle hard mode vaults regularly, boars are the top pick. They produce thick leather for endgame armor and truffles, a rare ingredient used in cooking recipes that give you 30% extra damage for 20 minutes. Prioritize chickens first if you’re new, their low upfront cost and fast breeding cycle make them the perfect introduction to farm mechanics.
I tried to breed boars first on my second playthrough because I wanted high-tier buffs, and I ended up wasting so much mushroom feed that I ran out of healing items for a full vault run. Start small, then scale up to larger, more resource-heavy animals once your farm is established. If you’re playing in a multiplayer group, you can split up animal types across different bases to cover all your resource needs without overloading one player’s base with too many pens.
Common Breeding Mistakes to Avoid
Even if you follow all the basic steps, there are a few small mistakes that can break your entire breeding operation before it even gets off the ground. The most common one I see new players make is overcrowding their pens. A lot of people cram as many animals as possible into a small space thinking they’ll get more offspring faster, but the game completely pauses breeding if the pen is over capacity. Each pen can hold a maximum of 8 animals total, including babies, so you’ll need to cull older animals regularly to keep the cycle going.
Another easy mistake is forgetting to refill your troughs. If the trough is empty for more than 5 in-game minutes, the breeding cooldown for all animals in the pen resets completely, so you’ll have to wait another 10 minutes even if you refill it right away. I set a small real-life timer to check my troughs every 15 minutes when I’m working on other base tasks, so I never accidentally let them run dry. Don’t breed animals faster than you can use their resources, either. It’s easy to get carried away and end up with 50 sheep and 1000 units of wool you’ll never use, taking up valuable storage space better used for rare vault loot.
If you’re moving your base to a new region, you don’t have to re-tame all your animals, either. You can craft a lead from 3 rope and 2 leather to lead tamed animals across the map, as long as you keep them away from high-level hostile mobs along the way. I’ve moved my entire 12-sheep farm across three regions without losing a single animal, so it’s totally doable if you plan your route ahead of time.
Breeding animals doesn’t have to be a confusing, resource-heavy process once you know the core rules and avoid the most common pitfalls. Taking the time to learn how to breed animals enshrouded will pay off tenfold over the course of your playthrough, giving you more time to explore vaults, fight bosses, and build out your dream base instead of running around chasing wild sheep for hours. Start small with a small chicken pen, test out the mechanics for yourself, and scale up as you unlock more resources and NPCs. You’ll be shocked how much of a difference a steady supply of homegrown resources makes to your overall gameplay flow.