Breeding – All in 1 Temps inc Maps + Suggested Pen Sizes

Breeding in Ark can be tricky. Below is a table with the recommended temperatures and pen sizes for optimal breeding as well as some maps and a quick guide.

Why put the dinosaurs in a pen?

When Dinosaurs mate they need to be near each other, while wandering around. If the area that they walk around in is too large, the mating process will cancel out making it take longer. Below is a table that shows the foundations required in order for breeding to be maintained at all times.

To view maps, click here.

Download a printable sheet to help keep track of your Dinosaurs stats!

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TBA* Game didn’t cooperate in testing to achieve exact range. If you know the information, please let me know so that I can update the data for everyone!

<a href="#BREEDINGTIPS">Quick Guide for Breeding.</a>

• Put a male and a female in a pen.
• Enable wander on both dinosaurs.
• The dinosaurs will mate.
• If the dinosaur lays an egg – Check the egg to ensure that it says “incubating”. ^{Too Hot – Place the egg somewhere cooler / closer to an air conditioner unit. Too Cold – Place the egg somewhere warmer / closer to a lit fire (or a handful of fires)}
• If the dinosaur gestates – Keep an eye on the mother until the baby appears between the mothers hind legs.
• Once the baby appears, press “E” to imprint / claim it.
• Place food in it’s inventory until it reaches the juvenile stage and can feed itself from a trough.

Place a male and female dinosaur on wander. It’s best to do this while the dinosaurs are locked in a pen together. The female will show a “mating status” on her hover over, much like when taming.  Once the bar has completed an egg will drop with a red alpha glow. It will also state that it is a “Fertilized”. Fertilized eggs do not stack in the inventory with each other or non-fertilized eggs. They can be eaten as normal egs, so be careful. The eggs show the parents as well as their levels when it was born. Eggs also have a health bar that decreases if they are left in the wild in the wrong temperature.

The female will begin a cool down for when she can next mate while the male is free to mate again with another female of the same species. The timer can be seen by hovering over the dinosaur and looking at the lower right hand side of the box.

The egg will then need to be incubated at the correct temperature (see table above). Once the yellow taming bar has gone all the way to the left the baby will hatch. You need to watch the eggs to sure that they aren’t taking damage due to incorrect climate. Depending on where your base is you may have to heat the egg via fires or cool it down via air conditioners. Alternatively, you can transport the egg while holding it in your inventory to hatch somewhere with an acceptable climate. If the egg is kept at the incorrect temperature for too long, it will lose health. When the health reaches zero, the egg expires and disappears. You can alter the temperature of the environment by placing fires and an air conditioning unit at the same time.

To make sure you’re in the correct natural temperature, press “H”. You need to go by the climate, not your characters temperature found in your “inventory” page.

If you succeed in hatching the egg, you will hear a soft “cracking” egg sound. Immediately press “E” to claim the dinosaur then place food in the inventory of the baby dinosaur. At first, it will only hold a handful of food. As it feeds, it can hold more. This needs to happen very quickly, if the baby dinosaur doesn’t receive food within the first few moments of it’s life, it will die.

Should the baby not require an egg and just appear from the mother, the exact same technique is required in order to raise the baby. Claim it and then slide food into the inventory as quickly as possible.

You will need to continue sliding food into it’s inventory until it reaches the Juvenile stage. Once it reaches the Juvenile stage, it will feed from the Feeding Trough / Food Bin. It will continue to grow until it reaches adulthood.

There are three stages that the dinosaur must go through before it reaches maturity, baby, juvenile and adolescent. If there is any combat near the dinosaur during any of these stages, it will flee.

Changing the times on your server

If you run your own server, or know someone who does and want to amend the time it takes in order to complete the breeding you’ll need to add these to the Game.ini file, under the “[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]” section.

• MatingIntervalMultiplier=1.0
  • The smaller the number, the faster you’ll be able to breed your dinosaurs again. EG: 0.20 reduces the time from every 1-2 hours to 10-30 mins.
• EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=1.0
  • The larger the number is, the quicker the eggs will hatch. EG: 50 speeds up the time to being a few mins for eggs to hatch.
• BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=1.0
  • The larger the number is, the faster the baby matures. EG: 50 speeds up the time to being a few mins for the baby stage and then allows a much faster maturation process.

If you have any feedback please feel free to Tweet me at @ShillianthYT,  via Facebook or Reddit.

Thanks to ultrafragen, Hurdis4 and fineri for corrections via Reddit.