Is taming bears and wargs viable?

[Zawarudo]

This time I tried taming 3 bears and 1 warg. My hunter had 17 in the animals skill and I brought all my colonists to back her up.

The warg took her finger, she lost a lung with the first bear, tamed the second and the last took her eye out, she died later.

I love the idea of having pets and breeding bears for money but man... do I need power armor or something?

[Ombrero]

i don't try to tame a warg or a bear, if I want them, i buy them when a merchant comes in my colony

[shiggies713]

i've successfully tamed a rhino and some elephants before but never a bear or a warg. In fact I use that mod that lets you see all the wildlife stats and i pretty much hunt down and kill anything dangerous enough to possibly kill an off gaurd colonist.

also if you use the giddy-up mod you can make your colonist mount before they go to tame and if the animal goes for revenge you can just mount and run for it. One time i did that with an elephant and actually downed it, healed it, and then tamed it on the next try lol.

[Monoxide]

Everything can technically be tamed (unless changed in 1.0) its just difficult. You can click on an animal and look at the minimum handling required and also the "wildness" of the animal (the higher the more difficult).

Certain things are hard even with 20 animal handling. Just note that certain pawn features make a difference as well. I believe social impact matters for taming as well as getting better prices in trade, and this can be affected by poor speech. You can check this under the pawns status by hitting the " i ".

EDIT - you can also down the animal, then heal it. This has a chance to form a bond with the doctor, and auto-tame. For harder creatures, this may be the better route.

[Ombrero]

the worst thing it's when de predator come to kill your animals (like chicken/muffalo) and your other animals don't react, like "meh, i don't like him anymay"

[Zawarudo]

So I wont be able to have that bear farm without spending silver or losing body parts?

[Ombrero]

Originally posted by Sir Badargo:

So I wont be able to have that bear farm without spending silver or losing body parts?

it's possible, but the bear is a good animal and for that reason, it's a bit difficult to tame

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Sir Badargo:

This time I tried taming 3 bears and 1 warg. My hunter had 17 in the animals skill and I brought all my colonists to back her up.

The warg took her finger, she lost a lung with the first bear, tamed the second and the last took her eye out, she died later.

I love the idea of having pets and breeding bears for money but man... do I need power armor or something?

It is possible but as you have discovered, it is a very risky hobby. Use the advice provided above to help minimise the risks and yes, power armour would also help lol.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Marine_armor
I have tamed rhinos, elephants, grizzlies, polar bears and both types of wolves. I particularly liked my pack of arctic wolves and polar bears.
However, I never tamed and bred them in order to sell them. That's a crazy inefficient way to make money. The risks, time and costs involved simply do not balance with what you can gain from the frequency of sales. These large animals don't breed fast enough for that.
They do make excellent combat pets though and that can justify the time and expense.
If you want to earn money, you can make far more silver from selling mass produced artwork for no risk at all.

[AquaX]

All animals are tameable but there is a risk. The odds is based between your animal skill lvl vs wildness of the animal. It can be as high as 80% to as low as 1% and you can only do it once per day.

Then it becomes an issue of how long they will stay vs how lucky you are. Some animals can stay for a long time like most small animals while some only stay for around a week like the thrumbo. To stop them from leaving, they need to be filled with hot lead with enough time for you to patch them up before they expire.

[Nightmyre]

Wargs are pretty easy to tame. Bears a bit harder. If you plan on gonig down this route, I'd suggest you bring backup. Ideally, bring other tamed animals, since losing them isn't a big deal - just have them take the hits. You'll probably have your pawn take the first shot, but then after you're fine. If you've got decent armor you shouldn't lose any limbs.

[Tarshaid]

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

Wargs are pretty easy to tame. Bears a bit harder. If you plan on gonig down this route, I'd suggest you bring backup. Ideally, bring other tamed animals, since losing them isn't a big deal - just have them take the hits. You'll probably have your pawn take the first shot, but then after you're fine. If you've got decent armor you shouldn't lose any limbs.

Exactly this. I keep taming predators I want, especially bears or wargs, whose wildness isn't that high, but to do so you must either start lucky and get your first predator tamed without it taking revenge (wargs get angered very easily, I'd say a bear is way safer as long as you have decent animal skill), or tame something less dangerous first, and have it accompany your pawn on his excursions. Right now if a wolf, bear, warg or anything gets angry at my handler, he may receive one hit, which his armor will hopefully tank, but he's set to flee and the bears, lynxes and whatever following him will put the beast down. I generally make him charge back to battle after I've confirmed that his menagerie is fighting the beast, but that's on me.

[Zawarudo]

Originally posted by Tarshaid:

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

Wargs are pretty easy to tame. Bears a bit harder. If you plan on gonig down this route, I'd suggest you bring backup. Ideally, bring other tamed animals, since losing them isn't a big deal - just have them take the hits. You'll probably have your pawn take the first shot, but then after you're fine. If you've got decent armor you shouldn't lose any limbs.

Exactly this. I keep taming predators I want, especially bears or wargs, whose wildness isn't that high, but to do so you must either start lucky and get your first predator tamed without it taking revenge (wargs get angered very easily, I'd say a bear is way safer as long as you have decent animal skill), or tame something less dangerous first, and have it accompany your pawn on his excursions. Right now if a wolf, bear, warg or anything gets angry at my handler, he may receive one hit, which his armor will hopefully tank, but he's set to flee and the bears, lynxes and whatever following him will put the beast down. I generally make him charge back to battle after I've confirmed that his menagerie is fighting the beast, but that's on me.

Ohhh thats a great tip man, have them set to flee.

[Prince Kaine]

When I want to tame a dangerous animal I wait for it to sleep, wall it, feed it, then start training. It's amazing how the danger can be reduced with a good prep and a solid door.

[Surmene]

I'd rather have a tamed bear over a warg. Wargs eat hunted prey and corpses and that can be problematic for me. Bears make a decent pack mule and fighter at least.

[Jaasrg]

Originally posted by Surmene:

I'd rather have a tamed bear over a warg. Wargs eat hunted prey and corpses and that can be problematic for me. Bears make a decent pack mule and fighter at least.

Seems a rather odd thing to bring up, what do you feed to your bears?

[Syroth]

Many commentators have given great advice.

I wish to put my vote in for buying animals...

Its a division of effort.. You cant grow everythign you cant make everything etc etc... You have to specialize some. If you wish to tame because you have many animals around that can actually be profitable ... sell materials or sell the babies.

I would recommend you buy mating pairs though, as I've found to reliably tame alot you have to sink alot of time in. Training alone can be a time sink, especially considering the wildness feature.

All that aside, I have had masses of bears and wargs and wolves and cobras. Love cobras, wish they were more poisonous... Just love idea of have a cobra pit by the killbox it just isn't too practical.

** EDIT ** I feed bears the corpses of my enemies. But they are omnivores so you can grow food for them if you wish.