If you’ve spent even a few hours wandering Enshrouded’s misty valleys and crumbling ruins, you’ve probably stumbled across skittish stray cats hiding in tucked-away corners. Most players write these little creatures off as unimportant background decor at first, but if you know how to make cat bait enshrouded, you can turn these random encounters into some of the most rewarding side content in the entire game. I first found out about cat bait after a random player mentioned it in a public game lobby last month, and I was immediately curious. I’d walked past dozens of cats in my first 20 hours of play and never thought twice about them, so I decided to test every part of the mechanic to write this guide, cutting out all the guesswork so you don’t have to waste your hard-earned materials on failed attempts.
What You Need to Make Cat Bait in Enshrouded
Crafting cat bait doesn’t require any rare, hard-to-farm materials, even for brand new players who are still building their first base. All the items you need can be found in low-level areas within the first 10 hours of play, so you don’t have to venture into dangerous high-level Shroud zones or fight tough bosses to get them. The full list of required materials is below:
- 5 pieces of raw poultry: Dropped by wild turkeys and chickens found in the Revelwood biome, or looted from abandoned farm storage chests near the starting area
- 2 jars of honey: Harvested from beehives in forested areas, or purchased from the Hunter NPC once you unlock their camp
- 1 bundle of dried lavender: Grown from lavender seeds found in grassy meadows, or foraged from the edges of the Shroud in low-level areas
You also need access to the right crafting station to make the bait, and this is where a lot of players get stuck. You have to use the upgraded Stone Oven to craft cat bait, not the basic campfire you start the game with. The recipe won’t show up at all on the campfire menu, no matter how many materials you have on hand. The only other requirement to unlock the recipe is encountering at least one stray cat first, so if you haven’t seen any yet, spend 10 minutes wandering around the edges of the starting farm area, you’ll spot one hiding under a porch or behind a hay bale pretty quickly.
Step-by-Step Crafting Process for Cat Bait
Once you have all your materials and a Stone Oven set up at your base, crafting the bait is straightforward. First, deposit all the required materials into the Stone Oven’s inventory, then open the crafting menu. The cat bait recipe will appear under the “consumables” tab, and each batch takes 30 in-game seconds to craft. You can make multiple batches at once if you have extra materials, which I recommend doing if you plan to spend a lot of time exploring. I usually craft 5 or 6 batches at a time so I don’t have to run back to base every time I run out.
Once you’ve crafted the bait, it will go into your consumables inventory slot. You can assign it to a quick slot for easy access when you’re exploring, which saves you fumbling through your inventory when you spot a cat before it runs away. I keep mine in the 4th quick slot at all times now, since I run into cats almost every time I go out to gather resources. Don’t cook the poultry first when making bait, even if you have a lot of cooked poultry on hand for health. Cooked poultry makes a weaker version of the bait that only works 20% of the time, I tested that myself and wasted 12 pieces of cooked chicken the first time I tried to make bait.
Best Places to Use Cat Bait for Maximum Rewards
Now that you have bait, you need to know where to find cats that will accept it. Cats never spawn inside the Shroud, so stick to uncovered, low-to-medium level areas for the best results. I’ve had the most luck finding cats in three specific spots across multiple playthroughs. First, around abandoned cottages in the starting farm area, where cats hide under porches and behind hay bales. Second, around the edges of the Revelwood forest, where they sit on fallen logs and tree stumps. Third, near the old lighthouse on the eastern coast, where they hang out on the rocky shoreline.
I’ve also noticed that cats come out of hiding more often right after in-game rain, so if you see the weather turn rainy, take a quick trip to one of these spots and you’ll probably find multiple cats to feed. Each cat you feed will give you a random reward, ranging from rare crafting materials to exclusive furniture blueprints for cat trees and window perches you can place in your base. If you feed 10 cats total, you unlock a permanent cat companion that follows you around your base and occasionally brings you small gifts like iron ore or healing herbs when you come back from exploration trips. Don’t use bait on cats that are already running away from you, wait until they stop moving and sit still, otherwise the bait will be wasted and the cat will despawn immediately.
Common Cat Bait Mistakes to Avoid
Even though cat bait is simple to make and use, there are a few common mistakes that waste materials and leave players frustrated. First, don’t try to use spoiled poultry to make bait. If you leave raw poultry in your inventory for more than 10 in-game days, it will spoil, and spoiled poultry makes bait that cats won’t touch at all. Always use fresh raw poultry you collected within a few in-game days for the best results. Second, don’t use bait in high-traffic areas where lots of hostile mobs spawn. If a wolf or bandit spawns nearby while you’re trying to feed a cat, the cat will run away immediately and you’ll lose the bait you used.
Another mistake I see a lot of players make is trying to use multiple pieces of bait on the same cat. Each cat will only accept one piece of bait per playthrough, so using more than one is just a waste of resources. Once you feed a cat, it will stay in that spot permanently, so you can come back and visit it whenever you want, but it won’t take more bait or give you more rewards. If you’re trying to unlock the companion quickly, focus on finding cats in different areas instead of trying to feed the same one multiple times. The last mistake to avoid is carrying more than 5 pieces of bait at a time. There’s a little-known mechanic where carrying more than 5 pieces of bait attracts aggressive foxes that will attack you and steal the bait from your inventory, I learned that the hard way when a fox stole 3 of my bait pieces last playthrough.
Cat bait is one of those small, easy-to-miss Enshrouded features that adds a ton of extra charm and rewards to your playthrough, once you know how to make cat bait enshrouded and use it correctly. You don’t need to grind for hours to get the materials, and the rewards are well worth the small effort it takes to craft a few batches. Next time you’re exploring and spot a tiny cat hiding behind a ruin, pull out a piece of bait and see what surprise it has for you – you might end up with a new base companion or a rare blueprint you can’t find anywhere else.