Conan Exiles Animal Pen: Full Taming Guide

In the brutal lands of the Exiled Lands and the Isle of Siptah, survival often hinges on the companions watching your back. Building a conan exiles animal pen is the foundational step toward raising loyal combat pets, sturdy pack beasts, and productive livestock. Whether you need a massive Greater Sabretooth to shred bosses or a reliable source of dung for your farming plots, mastering the animal pen is an essential mid-game milestone.

Animal Pen Tiers: Costs, Specs, and Requirements

There are three main craftable tiers of the standard animal pen, unlocked under the Survivalist/Beastmaster knowledge lines, along with a compact variant for cramped bases.

1. Animal Pen (Tier 1)

• Level Required: 13
• Crafting Cost: 300 Stone, 400 Wood, 50 Twine
• Inventory Capacity: 5 slots
• Health: 250,000 HP
• Crafting Speed Multiplier: 1.0x

This entry-level pen gives you access to basic taming. It has a massive footprint (approximately 9x9 foundation tiles), so clear out a wide, flat space outside your main fortress walls before placing it.

2. Reinforced Animal Pen (Tier 2)

• Level Required: 27
• Crafting Cost: 300 Brick, 50 Insulated Wood, 50 Iron Bars
• Inventory Capacity: 5 slots
• Health: 375,000 HP
• Crafting Speed Multiplier: 1.25x

The Reinforced Animal Pen significantly reduces training time and boosts structural durability against Purge attacks.

3. Armored Animal Pen (Tier 3)

• Level Required: 42
• Crafting Cost: 400 Hardened Brick, 60 Insulated Wood, 50 Steel Bars
• Inventory Capacity: 5 slots
• Health: 500,000 HP
• Crafting Speed Multiplier: 1.66x

Ideal for end-game players who want to raise combat-ready armies rapidly. The significantly accelerated taming speed makes raising high-tier carnivores and pachyderms much less tedious.

4. Small Animal Pen (DLC / Specialty Variant)

If you own the Blood and Sand DLC or access certain server mods, the Small Animal Pen offers a compact footprint (roughly 3x3 tiles). While it holds only a single animal at a time, it is far easier to fit inside heavily fortified, mountain, or cave bases.

How the Conan Exiles Animal Pen Works: Step-by-Step

Taming an animal in Conan Exiles differs from breaking thralls on the Wheel of Pain. Instead of knocking out an adult creature with a truncheon, you must capture a baby animal and raise it from infancy.

1. Locate a Baby Animal: Cubs, calves, chicks, and piglets spawn near adult variants across the map. Common hotspots include the riverbanks near the southern desert (Hyena cubs, Gazelle calves, Ostrich chicks) and the northern highlands (Wolf cubs, Bear cubs).
2. Pick Up the Baby: Walk up to the infant and press the interact button (E on PC, Square on PlayStation, X on Xbox). The baby is placed directly into your inventory as an item with a weight value. Be mindful of encumbrance, as carrying multiple calves can slow you down.
3. Place the Baby in the Pen: Interact with your animal pen and move the baby animal from your inventory into the pen’s inventory.
4. Add Food: Deposit the appropriate diet item for that species. As soon as valid food is present alongside the baby, the crafting queue begins automatically.
5. Collect Your Pet: Once the crafting bar finishes, an adult pet item will appear in the pen’s inventory. Move it to your hotbar and place it down in the world like a building piece.

Feeding Diets and Breeding Greater Variants

The type of food you place into the pen directly influences the taming outcome. Every animal has a chance to evolve into an elite Greater version (such as a Greater Wolf, Greater Tiger, or Greater Bear). Greater variants boast substantially higher base health pools, better armor ratings, and higher damage multipliers.

Regular Food vs. Shadespice

Standard meats, berries, or plants offer low chances (usually 5% to 15%) of yielding a Greater pet. To maximize your odds—often up to 25% or 30%—you need to feed them Shadespice food.

Shadespice items are crafted in a Stove using the following ingredients:

• Raw Food: The animal’s preferred base food (e.g., Raw Pork, Raw Exquisite Meat, Plant Fiber, or Highland Berries).
• Shadebloom: A rare flower gathered inside the Midnight Grove dungeon or purchased using Flesh of Remembrance.

Optimal Food Choices for Top Pets

• Felines (Tigers, Lions, Panthers): Shadespice Perfect Cut of Meat offers the highest chance for a Greater variant. Regular Raw Exquisite Meat is the best budget alternative.
• Canines (Wolves, Hyenas): Shadespice Raw Stringy Meat or Shadespice Raw Pork yield the highest Greater conversion rates.
• Bears: Shadespice Honey or Shadespice Fish are top tier for raising a Greater Bear.
• Horses: Foals require plant matter (such as Plant Fiber, Seeds, or Bark) and grow into regular mounts; horses do not have a Greater variant.

Resource Farming: Passive Generation in the Pen

The animal pen is not just a nursery; it is also a resource-producing station. If you leave fully grown adult pets or livestock inside an active pen and keep it stocked with food, they will passively generate useful crafting materials over time:

• Dung: All animals produce Dung as long as they are fed. Combine Dung with Plant Fiber and Peat in a Compost Heap to produce Compost for farming.
• Feathers and Eggs: Generated by Ostriches and Shoebills when supplied with seeds or berries.
• Bark and Resin: Produced by certain herbivores fed specific diets like bark or wood chips.
• Silver and Gold Veins: Specialized rocknoses (raised from Rocknose Eggs bought from merchants) can produce iron, silver, or gold ore depending on whether you feed them Iron Ore, Silver Dust, or Gold Dust.

Strategic Placement and Base Defense Tips

Because the animal pen is physically massive, placing it poorly can ruin your base's defensive layout. Keep these best practices in mind:

• Build on Foundations: Avoid placing the pen directly on uneven terrain. Uneven placement can clip the structure through the mesh, occasionally causing baby animals or tamed pets to disappear or bug out. Lay a flat 9x9 or 10x10 stone foundation base first.
• Protect Against Purges: NPC Purges frequently target animal pens due to their low tier-to-size ratio. Surround the pen with at least a single layer of defensive walls or battlements.
• Decay Timers: On official multiplayer servers, ensure your pen is attached to your main foundation network. An isolated pen standing on bare ground can enter the decay state faster than your main base, causing your rare pets to vanish.

By investing in an Armored Animal Pen and stocking up on Shadespice recipes, you can efficiently produce elite combat companions and steady resource flows to secure total dominance across the Exiled Lands.