(INVALID)Early Beefalo Domestication

If you ever felt beefalo domestication was either too much effort, too much food, or wanted to know a way to make it more efficient than this guide is for you.

This guide will address common misconceptions about Beefalo domestication and provide everyone with a more direct understanding of the what is and how to's of Beefalo.

Areas Covered:
Feeding
Food
Domestication Priorities
Tendencies
Saddles

What is Beefalo Domestication

Beefalo Domestication is the process of giving a beefalo resources, mainly food so that it allows you to ride it and or use it for combat.

It is often considered to large an investment to do at the initial stages of the game however once you know the very minimum you need, the process becomes much less stressful and very simple to manage.

With the basics out of the way we can move on to how to go about domesticating this creature that requires such a significant investment.

Requirements

To domesticate a beefalo you will need the following:

• Saddle
  
  
• ~300 Items it can eat
  
  
• ~20 days

It is also a good idea to have the following:

• Beefalo hat
  

Food

The easiest way to get the food for the beefalo is to first know the best food to feed it.

The top 3 foods to feed a beefalo early are:

• TWIGS (9.375 hunger = 12 per day)
  
• BUTTERFLY WINGS (9.375 hunger = 12 per day)
  
• CUT GRASS (4.6875 hunger = 15 per day)

These 3 foods are convenient and abundant.

When it comes to these foods, for every 1 twig or butterfly wing you don't feed a beefalo, you need to feed it 2 cutgrass for example if you fed a beefalo 10 twigs you would need to feed it 4 cutgrass because you didn't feed it 2 twigs.

You can also use:

• Lightbulbs (0 hunger = 15 per day)
  
• Carrots (12.5 hunger = 11 per day)
  
• Berries (9.375 hunger = 12 per day)
  
• Cooked Berries (12.5 hunger = 11 per day)
  
• Juicy Berries 12.5 hunger = 11 per day
  
• Cooked Juicy Berries 15 hunger = 9.5 per day

With the exception of lightbulbs these foods are interchangeable and can be fed in any order to the beefalo as you find them up to the "per day" count. These items are less convenient and either require you to go out of your way or are just not available at all. It's not a bad idea to use these whenever you get the chance to although these items should be reserved for the player to eat or use for light as needed prior to sharing with a beefalo.

You can mostly run around the map slowly collecting the 12 twigs/butterfly-wings and or 24 cutgrass you need per day and with the additional movement speed of the beefalo it will be very easy to do. It is best to prepare for the later days as much as possible as you never know when you will need food for yourself or the beefalo.

If you find a large area of flowers you can kill butterflies that will spawn in abundance until winter. It is a great idea to take advantage of these butterflies until winter where your saved up twigs will be enough to finish domestication.

If you are frequently in the savannah cut grass can also be used however you have to again, feed it double the amount of the former two.

The most reliable area to get food at all times of the year is the dragonfly desert because it will have tumble weed spawns year round however this shouldn't stop you from collecting food around the map as you travel.

How to use the resources you have to tame it

In order to tame this creature you will need to ride it or feed it 300 hunger points per day consistently.

whenever you are moving around the map this early it is encouraged to take your beefalo otherwise you will be slowly wasting resources you don't yet have.

first of all the most important aspect of taming a beefalo this way is to understand what you need to manage it.

The two areas of beefalo taming that are essential are Domestication and Obedience.

Obedience determines if your beefalo accepts your saddle and if you can mount your beefalo, any percentage below 50% is ineffective for this method because you can not mount a beefalo with obedience less than 50% once a beefalo has 40% obedience it will shake off it's saddle and if it drops below 10% it will attack you for trying to place a saddle on it.

Domestication goes up at a constant rate as long as the beefalo's hunger is above 0 or it is being ridden at the time of the server tick.

What this means is that if you only feed it enough to ride it, you can tame it without feeding it 640 twigs/butterfly wings or 1280 cut grass.

If these number seem to much for you don't worry, there is a more complicated but easier way.

MATH

• A beefalo has a maximum obedience of 100% and a maximum hunger of 375
  
• Every day it will lose 50% of it's obedience
  
• Every day it loses 300 hunger or 18.75 hunger per tick
  
• If it is starving it will lose 100% additional obedience per day
  
• Feeding it any item raises it's obedience by 10% for each item it is fed

Knowing this you only need to feed it enough to keep it's obedience at a constant % above 50%

This comes down to 15 items per day which cover the maximum 150% obedience it loses per day however since when it eats these items it's hunger is no longer zero the number is slightly lower than 15. If you choose to feed it twigs or butterfly wings which provide 9.375 hunger to a beefalo then that will give it 15*9.375 which will give it a total hunger of 140.625 hunger. This means that the remaining 160.375 hunger it will lose obedience.

Since you will be feeding it 15 items it will gain 150% back and only lose 103% per day. Therefore you can feed it even less.

To figure out the number of ticks obedience drains for take the hunger after feeding and divide it by 18.75. This will give you the number of ticks that obedience is drained for.

With twigs for example I found 12 twigs being the absolute minimum to work with.

300-9.375*12=187.5

187.5/18.75=10

To figure out the rate of obedience drain, take the ticks that obedience drains for and multiply it by 6.25.

10*6.25=62.5% (Because Obedience is represented as a %)

Because beefalo also lose 50% obedience per day on top of the hunger drain the total obedience lost is 112.5% however it will gain 120% from the feeding therefore allowing you to perfectly balance it's obedience while gaining 7.5% per day should you lose any.

You can technically feed it 11 items with an extra every 4-5 days however obedience will drain very little since you can't have it perfectly fed at the right time all the time so 12 is the best number.

You can't feed it all 12 items at the start of the day however, If you do you will end up with it going past it's obedience cap of 100%. You have to split the items between the day to get the most out of the items you choose to feed it

The best way to do this is to feed it every quarter of the day:

Feed it 2 twigs when the clock passes turquoise

Feed it 3 twigs when the clock passes purple

These feeding proportions hold up with any food you choose to feed a beefalo although with better foods you may be able to feed it less frequently, as long as you stick to this proportion all will be fine. When in doubt use 2/3 ratio listed above.

Because cut grass give half as much hunger as twigs and butterfly wings you have to feed it twice as much cut grass (no more than 15 items total) as you would twigs whenever you feed it at these times of the day otherwise obedience will decline slowly.

NOTE Beefalo will go into heat starting first winter, you will need a beefalo hat in order to continue domesticating them. During this time in heat you are most at risk of losing your beefalo to penguls, bees, and any other hostile mob. Additionally you will have your riding time significantly reduced. If you are continuing to engage in combat make sure to be very careful that you are not thrown off in an area your beefalo can't survive because it will not de-aggro any mobs meaning you can't ride it until those mobs are gone.

Beefalo Stats

Before the next section

All beefalo have a default run speed of 7 and default attack of 34 before modifiers.

Tendencies and saddles both can modify these stats with tendencies changing the default stats of the Beefalo that have them and saddles modifying the stats of whatever beefalo they are placed on.

This gives you some customization of your beefalo though the options are limited.

Additionally all Beefalo have a minimum Obedience value, a value which the obedience can not drop below. Different tendencies have different minimum obedience values that are only factored in once the beefalo is fully domesticated. Prior to domestication the minimum obedience value is 0%

Tendencies

While domesticating a beefalo you may notice it's face change from the bland stare of the default to a smile, a frown, or gain more visible cheeks. Each face gives your beefalo different stats once they are fully domesticated but prior to that the faces are just visual representations of which beefalo you will have.

There are the 3 stats determining these representations

• ORNERY: Attacking or being attacked
  
• RIDER: Riding beefalo, (you don't have to be moving)
  
• PUDGY: Have hunger above 50%

To gain a Beefalo's tendency, The trait you want has to be greater than the sum of the other two, For example if you wanted a Rider you would have to have more rider points than an Ornery and Pudgy combined. You gain these points for doing specific tasks with the Beefalo.

DEFAULT
Beefalo has default stats:

• 34 Damage
  
  
• 7 Run Speed
  
  
• 80% Minimum obedience

Note: Aside from minimum obedience any Beefalo that have not been domesticated have the above stats.

To acquire a default Beefalo balance the stats so that no stat is greater in sum than the other two. You can't just balance two of the stats to get a default because one stat will always be greater than the sum of the other two assuming one of the three stats is near non-existent.



RIDER
Faster movement Speed, less damage:

• 25 Damage
  
  
• 8 Run Speed
  
  
• 95% Minimum obedience

To acquire a Rider ride your Beefalo more than you feed or attack with it combined. This is the simplest Beefalo to get assuming you are domesticating as mentioned earlier in the guide because you will be riding it nearly all the time.



ORNERY
More Damage, less obedience:

• 50 Damage
  
  
• 7 Run Speed
  
  
• 45% Minimum obedience

To acquire an Ornery attack with or have your Beefalo be attacked by a mob more than you ride or feed it combined. This can be challenging at times but for the most part it is a non issue if you attack the right mobs. Bees are the best mob to use because of their very low damage output, low health, and frequency to swarm. Be cautious not to overwhelm your Beefalo around the time you will be knocked off because Beefalo do not like to let you mount when in combat with other creatures.

Note: Unlike all other beefalo this is the only one that will not allow you to ride it without bringing up it's obedience since you need a 50% minimum obedience to ride and the minimum for Ornery is 45%.



Pudgy
Less Damage, less speed, sanity aura:

• 20 Damage
  
  
• 6.5 Run Speed
  
  
• 6.25 Sanity per minute
  
  
• 60% Minimum obedience

To acquire keep hunger above 50% more than you attack or ride with Beefalo. This means that you would need to feed it enough to satisfy it's 300 hunger a day. There are many ways to do this but if you are short on food you can domesticate it the way this guide outlines and then transition to feeding it it's 300 hunger drain per day around day 10-15 when you have had enough time to stockpile the food for it, you may have to stop riding or attacking with it to allow the trait to catch up to the others however.

Saddles

There are 3 Beefalo saddles each giving your beefalo different stats. These stats are applied to any beefalo that wears the saddle domesticated or not. All beefalo have a default run speed of 7. Uses indicates how many times your beefalo can shake a saddle off before it breaks.


NOTE: Ornery Have same movement as default

Saddles

Saddle

• 5 uses
  
  
• +40% movement speed
  
  

  Item	#	To Acquire
  Pig Skin	4	Hammer 2 pig houses or Pig Heads. I recommend the former to construct an alchemy engine and razor.
  Beefalo Wool	4	Shave beefalo the night(s) prior to starting domestication. It is not wise to attempt to domesticate that is shaved.
  Gold Nugget	4	While mining for your alchemy engine go for 9 gold instead of 5 or if you find the pig king just feed him some of the extra pig skin in exchange for gold.

Default Beefalo have a movement speed of 9.8
Rider Beefalo have a movement speed of 11.2
Pudgy Beefalo have a movement speed of 9.1

Glossamer Saddle

• 8 uses
  
  
• +55% movement speed
  
  

  Item	#	To Acquire
  Living Logs	2	Totally Normal Trees in the forest are the simplest source although if you fail to find them early a treeguard can be spawned instead.
  Silk	4	At any point kill spiders with your or destroy a spider den for the silk.
  Butterfly Wings	68	Find an area with lots of flowers and attack them, you can feed your beefalo if you don't happen to have enough food for the day and within 5 to 10 days depending on your luck you will have enough. Taking to long will cause them to spoil.

Default Beefalo have a movement speed of 10.85
Rider Beefalo have a movement speed of 12.4
Pudgy Beefalo have a movement speed of 10.075

War Saddle

• 8 uses
  
  
• +25% movement speed
  
  
• +16 Damage
  
  

  Item	#	To Acquire
  Rabbit	4	Able to be easily found from their holes any season but spring, just place a trap and capture 4 rabbits after you've acquired the other resources.
  Steel Wool	4	By far the hardest resources to come by of all the saddles because you can't reliably produce 2 Ewecus to get everything. If you do manage to spawn 2 Ewecus this is by far the best saddle to get. Attack them with your Beefalo and you wont have to worry about the snot.
  Log	10	If you've managed to come this far, you can find 10 logs.

Default Beefalo have a movement speed of 8.75
Rider Beefalo have a movement speed of 10
Pudgy Beefalo have a movement speed of 8.125

Default Beefalo have an attack of 50
Rider Beefalo have an attack of 41
Ornery Beefalo have an attack of 66
Pudgy Beefalo have an attack of 36

Ride Time

Beefalo ride time is determined by a number of factors which will be gone over in this section. Ride time for a non-domesticated day 0 Beefalo is 50 seconds. Ride time for a fully domesticated Beefalo is 800 seconds. As you domesticate your Beefalo your ride time will go from 50 seconds to 800 seconds, the longer you can ride your Beefalo, the closer you are to finishing domestication.

Modifiers exist based on your Beefalo's circumstances adjusting the total ride times.

These modifiers are as follows:

• 0.2 Beefalo has been shaved (indicated by no hair)
  
• 0.2 Beefalo is in heat (indicated by red backside)
  
• 0.3 Beefalo is not fully domesticated (indicated by lack of groomed hair)

These modifiers can stack

As a result, all ride times until you fully domesticate a Beefalo are going to be 66% of what they should be. Additionally once the Beefalo goes into heat in the winter your ride time will be half of what it currently is. If your Beefalo is shaved in the winter your <800 seconds will become <160 seconds

To put is simple, as you domesticate a Beefalo your total ride time will be as follows.

Beefalo	Modifiers	Day 0	Day 1-19	Day 20
Modifiers	No modifier	50s	+40s per day	800s
Heat or Shaved	0.2	40s	+32 per day	640s
Not Domesticated	0.3	35s	+28s per day	560s
Not Domesticated + Heat or Shaved	0.5 (0.2+0.3)	25s	+20s per day	400s
Not Domesticated + Heat and Shaved	0.7 (0.2+0.2+0.3)	15s	+12s per day	240s

You can never have no modifier until you reach full domestication. The no modifier section is just a reference. Beefalo will never lose ride time as a result of domestication decay and once domesticated can no longer enter heat. Therefore the "Heat" modifier will only ever be present with the "Not Domesticated" modifier and once fully domesticated Beefalo can only experience the shaved modifier.

Upkeep (Not Finished)

Once you have made to the end of the long domestication process you are rewarded with a Beefalo who has special stats compared to the rest and special stats come with a different means of management.

Full domestication means you no longer need to feed your beefalo anymore, it also means that you no longer need to keep up the beefalo's obedience for keeping a saddle on. This isn't to say your work is done completely.

Beefalo once fully domesticated will have their domestication decay. As a result you need to keep the domestication from fully decaying or else the beefalo will revert back to what it once was and rejoin it's heard.

The most convenient way is with a salt lick, other mobs may use it so try and keep it away from them...

WIP

References

Because this guide is mostly about how to manage the early game domestication of a beefalo I recommend watching this video. It gave me the necessary information to get into beefalo domestication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6Jp6pOL2U&vl=en

This covers the non mathematical side of beefalo taming and will cover tendencies as well as a more simple outlook on domestication and obedience. I also recommend looking at the wiki to understand tendencies and how domestication works outside of this very efficient method I have described. It will help in situations where things go very wrong.

Don't Starve Fandom: How to domesticate a Beefalo[dontstarve.fandom.com]

Klei Forum Post: Beefalo Domestication[forums.kleientertainment.com]

Feel free to rate and comment about anything you want to know and if it's relevant I will add it to the guide for others to see.

[ZebraE]

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[Ozzey_Lee]

You're welcome

[flooremoji]

Thanks!

[Ozzey_Lee]

I will add it to the guide since I overlooked that. Basically minimum obedience prevents your beefalos' obedience from dropping below a certain point. If a beefalo shakes a saddle off at 40% but has a minimum obedience of 50% it will never be able shake it's saddle off because it can't get to 40%.

Once you have fully domesticated it you don't need to feed it nearly as much.

If you have a beefalo that has a minimum obedience above 50% (Rider) you don't need to feed it at all anymore. just leave it at a salt lick when you're not using it. If it is Ornery (45% minimum obedience) then leave it at a salt lick and when you want to ride it feed it a twig to boost it's obedience above 50%.

You will need a salt lick because you can still lose domestication on your beefalo. It will decay very slowly if they aren't being ridden, or fed. A salt lick will stop the decay for as long as it lasts which is 16 days for one creature off the top of my head.

[Ozzey_Lee]

The beefalo will lose domestication once it's domestication hits 0 so as long as you do about 25%-50% of what you had done to tame it in the first place you will be fine without a salt lick.

[flooremoji]

I'm curious about the minimum obedience levels? How do those work?

Also, once your beef is fully domesticated, does the upkeep change?

[Ozzey_Lee]

You're welcome

[宝哥哥hlb]

THANKS!!!

[Ozzey_Lee]

Thank you, I'm attempting to build on this beefalo taming however I don't know exactly what makes sense. I really want to make pigs relevant without too much issue.

[Retrolicious]

Ozzey lee you are our guide god & savior! You keep DST singlehandedly alive, since the recent klei update content is boring as fuc.k :c