You’re standing over a downed Rex. Its torpor is dropping fast. You realize, with a sinking feeling, that you’ve only got Prime Meat in your inventory. By the time that Rex wakes up, its taming effectiveness is going to be garbage. You'll lose those precious bonus levels. This is exactly why knowing ARK Survival Evolved how to make kibble is the difference between being a beach bob and actually dominating the Island.
Kibble is the gold standard. It's the high-octane fuel of the taming world. If you use raw meat, you're waiting hours. If you use kibble, you're done in minutes. But the system changed a few years ago. If you’re looking at old wikis talking about Dodo eggs for Pteranodons or Scorpion eggs for Rexes, stop. That system is dead. It’s gone.
The Great Kibble Overhaul
The developers at Studio Wildcard realized the old system was a nightmare. You needed a literal zoo of fifty different species just to tame one specific creature. Now? It’s all about tiers. There are six types of kibble. That’s it. Basically, you just need to know which egg fits into which category.
It's simpler, sure. But it's also a bit of a grind if you don't have a farm set up. You can't just throw random stuff into a pot and hope for the best. There is a very specific chemistry to it.
The Essentials of Your Cooking Station
Before you even think about the eggs, you need a pot. A standard Cooking Pot works, but honestly, it’s kind of a pain. You have to manage charcoal, and if you accidentally leave charcoal in there with the wrong ingredients, you might end up with Dye instead of kibble. It’s frustrating.
Upgrade to an Industrial Cooker as soon as you hit level 89. Seriously. It hooks up to a water pipe, so you don't have to manually refill waterskins. It's a massive quality-of-life improvement.
Every single kibble recipe requires three base things:
- A Water Source: (Full Waterskin, Water Jar, or Canteen).
- Fiber: Usually 2 or 3 pieces.
- Mejoberries: Usually 2 berries.
If you’re using the basic Cooking Pot, you need to use Thatch or Sparkpowder as fuel. Wood creates Charcoal. Charcoal + Water + Berries = Red Dye. You don't want Red Dye. You want a high-level Spino.
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The Six Tiers of Kibble
Let’s break down the actual recipes. Remember, a higher tier of kibble will work for lower-tier tames, but it won't work the other way around. You can feed Extraordinary Kibble to a Dilophosaur, but you can’t feed Basic Kibble to a Yutyrannus. That would be a waste of resources.
Basic Kibble (White)
This is for your starters. Think Dilophosaurs, Parasaur, or Dodos. You need Extra Small Eggs. These come from Dodos, Kairuku, Parasaur, and Dilophosaurs.
Mix the egg with 5 Amarberries, 10 Tintoberries, 10 Azulberries, 1 Cooked Meat, 5 Fiber, and Water. It's the only recipe that uses that many different berries.
Simple Kibble (Green)
You'll use this for Raptors, Iguanodons, and Trikes. You need Small Eggs. Think Raptors or Compy eggs.
The recipe: 1 Small Egg, 1 Cooked Fish Meat, 2 Rockarrot, 5 Mejoberries, 5 Fiber, and Water.
Regular Kibble (Blue)
This is where things get serious. You'll need this for Ankylo, Doedicurus, and even the Pelagornis. You need Medium Eggs. Ankylo, Baryonyx, and Carno eggs are perfect here.
Recipe: 1 Medium Egg, 1 Cooked Meat Jerky, 2 Savoroot, 2 Longrass, 5 Fiber, and Water.
Note the Jerky. You need a Preserving Bin with Oil and Sparkpowder to make Jerky. It takes forever. Start making it now.
Superior Kibble (Purple)
For the big hitters like the Allosaurus, Argentavis, and Megalodon. You need Large Eggs. Think Allosaurus, Rex, or Spino eggs.
Recipe: 1 Large Egg, 1 Prime Meat Jerky, 2 Citronal, 2 Rare Mushroom, 5 Fiber, and Water.
Prime Meat Jerky is even harder to get. You need to cook Prime Meat first, then put it in the Preserving Bin.
Exceptional Kibble (Yellow)
Now we’re talking. This is for Rexes, Brontos, and Gigas. You need Extra Large Eggs. These come from Rexes (yes, Rex eggs work here too), Quetzals, and Therizinos.
Recipe: 1 Extra Large Egg, 1 Focal Chili, 10 Mejoberries, 1 Rare Flower, 5 Fiber, and Water.
Wait, Focal Chili? Yeah. You have to cook a whole separate dish just to make this kibble.
Extraordinary Kibble (Cyan)
The king of kibbles. This tames anything. It's mandatory for Griffins and Thylacoleos if you want to keep your sanity. You need Special Eggs. These come from Wyverns, Rock Drakes, Magmasaurs, or Yutyrannus.
Recipe: 1 Special Egg, 1 Lazarus Chowder, 10 Mejoberries, 1 Giant Bee Honey, 5 Fiber, and Water.
Lazarus Chowder is another complex dish. And getting Giant Bee Honey usually involves getting stung or taming a Queen Bee.
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The Vegetable Problem
You probably noticed that almost every recipe needs crops like Rockarrot or Savoroot. You cannot find these in the wild. You have to farm them.
Build a few Medium Crop Plots. You’ll need a Greenhouse if you want them to grow fast, but a regular plot under the sun works too. Don't forget the fertilizer. Use a Dung Beetle or a Compost Bin. If you try to do this without a steady supply of crops, you're going to spend your whole day flying around looking for rare seeds.
The Egg Farm Strategy
Don't just run around looking for wild eggs. That's a fool's errand. You need an egg farm.
Tame a male and a few females of the species you need. For Regular Kibble, get some Carnos. For Superior, get some Argies. Put them in a pen and set them to "Enable Mating" or just leave them there.
Pro Tip: Get an Oviraptor. Level it up in weight, put it on "Wander" inside a cage so it doesn't run away, and it will give a massive boost to how often your dinos drop unfertilized eggs. You'll see a little purple egg icon over their heads. That means it’s working.
Common Mistakes People Make
Most people mess up the water. If you're using a Cooking Pot, you have to put the full Waterskin in the pot. Once the kibble is made, the pot gives you back an empty Waterskin. If you have five recipes in there but only one Waterskin, it will only make one kibble. Then it stops.
Another big one: using fertilized eggs. You can use them, but it’s usually a waste. If you’ve spent three days breeding a high-stat Rex, don't accidentally turn its baby into a snack for a Pteranodon. Pay attention to what you're grabbing from the floor.
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Also, the Focal Chili and Lazarus Chowder recipes are no joke. Focal Chili requires 9 Cooked Meat, 5 Citronal, 20 Azulberries, 20 Amarberries, 20 Tintoberries, and 5 Mejoberries. Lazarus Chowder needs 9 Cooked Meat, 5 Savoroot, 5 Longrass, 10 Mejoberries, and 2 Narcotic.
Yes, you have to make the Narcotics first. It’s a rabbit hole.
Why You Should Care About Taming Effectiveness
When you knock out a level 150 Rex, you want it to stand up as a level 224. That extra 74 levels comes from Taming Effectiveness.
Every time a dino eats while it's unconscious, that effectiveness drops. Meat and berries make it drop fast. Kibble makes it drop almost not at all. If you use Raw Meat on a high-level creature, you might lose 20 or 30 levels. Those are levels you can never get back. They are gone forever.
In a PvP scenario, those levels are the difference between your Rex winning a fight or becoming a localized meat snack for the enemy tribe. Even in PvE, it makes resource gathering so much more efficient.
Actionable Next Steps
If you're ready to start your kibble empire, don't try to do it all at once.
- Start with a Beehive. Go to the Redwoods, find a hive, and tame a Queen Bee. Having a consistent source of Giant Bee Honey is the hardest part of Extraordinary Kibble.
- Build a Preserving Bin. Get your Cooked Meat and Prime Meat in there with Oil and Sparkpowder immediately. Jerky takes 36 minutes (real time) to make one piece. You cannot rush this.
- Tame a Yutyrannus. Yuty eggs are "Special Eggs," meaning they can be used to make Extraordinary Kibble. Since Extraordinary Kibble works for every tame, you can technically bypass all other recipes if you just have a massive Yuty farm.
- Automate your water. If you're still carrying skins to a pot, you're wasting time. Get that Industrial Cooker piped up.
Kibble is the mid-game hurdle that separates the casual players from the pros. It takes a lot of prep work, but once you have a fridge full of those colored icons, the entire map opens up to you. You can drop a trap, knock out a high-level flyer, and have it tamed before the sun sets. That’s the power of knowing ARK Survival Evolved how to make kibble properly.