You're standing over a downed Rex. The sun is setting on the Island, and you've got a pile of Raw Prime Meat that’s spoiling faster than you can say "Alpha Predator." If you’re still taming high-level creatures with just meat or berries, you're basically wasting hours of your life.
It’s slow. It’s risky.
Honestly, the only way to get those perfect +74 bonus levels is to learn how to make kibble in Ark. But here’s the thing—if you’re looking at old wikis from 2017, you’re going to be incredibly confused. Wildcard completely overhauled the system a few years back. We moved away from the "Dino A prefers Dino B egg" mess. Now, it’s all about quality tiers.
The Modern Kibble System (And Why It’s Better)
Back in the day, you needed a dodo farm to tame a Pteranodon, and a Scorpion farm to tame a Rex. It was a logistical nightmare that forced players to keep hundreds of useless dinos just for their eggs.
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Then came the Kibble Rework.
Basically, the game now uses six tiers of kibble. Each tier is color-coded. If a creature wants "Superior" kibble, any egg within that size bracket works. It doesn't matter if the egg came from an Allosaurus or a Snowy Owl; as long as it's a Large Egg, the pot produces the same Superior Kibble. This changed everything. It meant you could actually focus on a few specific "egg layers" rather than a massive, lag-inducing zoo.
Most people get stuck because they forget one specific ingredient or use the wrong egg size. It happens. But once you memorize the "Base Six," you can tame anything in the game from a Dilophosaur to a Giganotosaurus with maximum efficiency.
What You Need Before You Start Cooking
You can’t just throw eggs into a campfire and hope for the best. You need a Cooking Pot or, if you’re further along in the game, an Industrial Cooker.
The Industrial Cooker is a godsend. Seriously. It hooks up to a water pipe so you never have to manually refill water skins. If you’re still using a stone Cooking Pot, you have to place a Waterskin, Water Jar, or Canteen inside that is at least 25% full.
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Pro tip: Do not use Charcoal as fuel in a wooden Cooking Pot if you’re making dyes at the same time. The Charcoal will react with the berries and ruin your kibble recipe. Stick to Thatch or Sparkpowder to keep things clean.
Every single kibble recipe requires three universal ingredients:
- Fiber (usually 2 or 3 units).
- Mejoberries (usually 1 or 2 units).
- A Water Source.
From there, the recipes branch out based on the egg tier and specific "additive" ingredients like jerky, rare flowers, or vegetables.
Breaking Down the Six Tiers
1. Basic Kibble (Grey)
This is for your early-game tames like Parasaur, Dilophosaur, and Dodos. It’s cheap. You just need Extra Small Eggs. Think Dodo, Kairuku, or Parasaur eggs.
Mix one egg with:
- 5 Amarberries
- 10 Tintoberries
- 9 Fiber
- 1 Cooked Meat (or Jerky/Fish)
- Water
2. Simple Kibble (Green)
This tier covers things like the Raptor, Iguanodon, and Triceratops. You’ll need Small Eggs—Compy, Oviraptor, or Archaeopteryx work well here.
The "special" ingredient here is Rockarrot. You'll need one of those, plus some cooked fish meat. It’s a step up, but still very manageable once you have a small crop plot going.
3. Regular Kibble (Blue)
Now we’re getting into the mid-game essentials. You need this for Ankylo, Doedicurus, and the Baryonyx. This requires Medium Eggs (Ankylo, Baryonyx, Carno, etc.).
You’ll need:
- 1 Cooked Meat Jerky
- 2 Longrass (Corn)
- 5 Savoroot (Potato)
- The egg, fiber, and water.
4. Superior Kibble (Purple)
This is where players often hit a wall. Superior Kibble is used for the heavy hitters like the Allosaurus, Argentavis, and Megalosaurus. You need Large Eggs. Allosaurus, Rex, and Spino eggs are the gold standard here.
The kicker? You need Prime Meat Jerky. Not just cooked prime, but the stuff that’s been sitting in a Preserving Bin with oil and sparkpowder for ages. You also need Citronal and 2 Rare Mushrooms.
5. Exceptional Kibble (Yellow)
This is for the big boys. Brontos, Gigas, Rexes, and Quetzals. You need Extra Large Eggs. Think Rex, Giga, Quetzal, or Therizinosaurus.
You also need Focal Chili. Yes, you have to cook a dish (Focal Chili) to put inside the kibble recipe. It’s recursive cooking. It’s annoying. But it’s the only way to get that 150 Rex tamed before a roaming raptor decides to eat it. You also need 10 Mejoberries and Rare Flowers.
6. Extraordinary Kibble (Cyan)
The final boss of kibble. This tames anything in the game. It’s the preferred food for the Thylacoleo and the Griffin. You need Special Eggs. These are eggs from "Special" creatures like Wyverns, Rock Drakes, Magmasaurs, or—most commonly for farmers—Yutyrannus.
The recipe requires Lazarus Chowder, 1 Giant Bee Honey, and 1 Lazarus Chowder.
The "Yuty" Strategy: One Dino to Rule Them All
If you want to be smart about how to make kibble in Ark, you don't actually need to learn all six recipes.
Here’s the secret: Higher-tier kibble works on lower-tier tames.
If a creature wants "Simple" kibble, you can feed it "Extraordinary" kibble, and it will work perfectly. It won't give extra levels, but it won't lose any either. This is why veteran players stop making the lower tiers entirely.
Once you have a breeding pair of Yutyrannus, you just collect their "Special" eggs. Since Extraordinary Kibble is the highest tier, it works for every single creature in the game. Instead of maintaining six different gardens and four different types of jerky, you just farm Yuty eggs and honey.
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It’s expensive to start, but it saves hours of inventory management. You just carry one stack of Cyan kibble and you’re ready for anything the map throws at you.
Why Your Kibble Might Be Failing
I’ve seen this a hundred times on community servers. Someone puts everything in the pot, lights the fire, and... nothing. Just a lot of wasted wood.
First, check your water. If you’re using a Waterskin, it leaks. If it’s been sitting in the pot for five minutes while you were gathering fiber, it might be empty. Use a Canteen if you can; it holds more "charges" of water and doesn't leak.
Second, check your "Cooked Meat" types. The recipes are very specific. Basic Kibble accepts any cooked meat, but Regular Kibble requires Jerky. Exceptional Kibble doesn't use meat at all—it uses the Focal Chili.
Third, the Oviraptor. If you aren't using an Oviraptor, you're making life hard on yourself. Set one to "Enable Wandering" (weigh it down with stones so it doesn't actually move) near your egg-layers. It provides a buff that makes your dinos lay eggs significantly faster. You'll see a little purple egg icon over their heads.
Actionable Next Steps for Efficiency
Don't try to build a massive kibble farm on day one. It’s a recipe for burnout. Instead, follow this progression to get your taming game on point:
- Build a small 2x2 greenhouse. You need the four crops: Savoroot, Longrass, Rockarrot, and Citronal. Without these, you can't get past the "Simple" tier.
- Tame a few low-level female Parasaurs. They are easy to knock out and produce "Basic" eggs constantly. This gets you started with utility tames.
- Get a Preserving Bin running early. Jerky takes forever to make (about 30 minutes per piece). Start turning your Prime Meat into Jerky immediately so you have a stockpile for Superior Kibble later.
- Hunt for a Yutyrannus. Even a low-level one is fine. Once you have those "Special" eggs, you’ve essentially "beaten" the kibble system.
- Transition to the Industrial Cooker. As soon as you hit level 89, craft it. The ability to bulk-craft 100 kibble in seconds without worrying about water skins is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade in Ark.
Mastering the kibble system is the difference between being a "beach bob" and a dominant tribe leader. It turns a six-hour tame into a thirty-minute breeze. Stop feeding Raw Meat to your high-level creatures; they deserve better, and your time is more valuable than that. Get those pots boiling.