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Wendy Portrait
What demented thoughts must lie behind those eyes.

Wendy

Beefalo is neutral Animal that spawn in the Savanna biome. It can be domesticated.

It is a vital source of Beefalo Wool and Beefalo Horn. It can be shaved with a Razor while asleep, to drop 3 Beefalo Wool. The Beefalo hair then regrow in 3 days.

Killing one adds 4 points to the player's Naughtiness.

Baby Beefalo

Wortox Portrait
It belongs with its momma.

Wortox

Baby Beefalos are the offspring of Beefalo. They grow into a Toddler, then a Teen, and finally, an adult; each stage takes 3-5 days.

They follow their parent, cannot attack, and run away when approached. If the parent is killed, they will walk towards the murder spot, even if chased away a long distance. They roam around freely once they become adults.

Killing one raises Naughtiness by 6 points.

Brain Behavior

Beefalo drop Manure every 40-60 seconds, provided there is only 1 other Manure within 20m, and none within 8m.

Beefalo chase, to attack, for up to 6 seconds. This timer is reset whenever Beefalo attempts an attack, resulting in the Beefalo being rather persistent in chasing down to attack until they are far from their anchor. Beefalos attack walls along their movement path when they have a hostile target.

When a Beefalo is attacked, up to 5 other Beefalos within 30m would assist.

When the Beefalo is belled, it would run to stay within 18m of its Beefalo Bell.

They wander 20m away from their herd location during the day, 5m otherwise.

Herds

A sleeping herd.

Beefalos, of up to 12, forms a herd. The arithmetic average of their location form the herd center. This center is updated every 6-8 seconds. Beefalo herd member that is more than 20m away from the herd center gets dropped from the herd center computation, but remains in the herd. Grouping of herds is redone on reload.

A herd with less than four members may merge with other herd within 40m, provided the new herd doesn't exceed 12 members.

Beefalo enter the mating state collectively as a herd. An untamed Beefalo that was not in heat, may immediately be in heat when the cave exit has an unfilled herd because that Beefalo joined the Beefalo herd on surface.

A full herd does not spawn any offspring, but will still be in heat as usual.

Mating state

Beefalo in heat

In-heat Beefalo have red rears.

Beefalo can be in heat. They appear to have red rears and flick their tail. They are hostile, attacking any mob, player or pet, within 5m. Beefalo in heat will also wake up if approached, for instance, for shaving. Player are also unable to feed the Beefalo if approached, and unable to hitch them to Beefalo Grooming Station. Player, only themselves, can safely approach the Beefalo and feed them if they are wearing a Beefalo Hat.

There are 2 schedules for Beefalo to be in mating state. One lasts all Spring. The other is for 3 days, 20 days since the last mating state and at least 20 days since herd creation. All Beefalo are usually synchronised in entering mating state, but may differ due to herd creation. For instance, a lone Beefalo brought into cave will create its own herd.

Baby Beefalo spawns after 1.5-2 days of being in heat. They can only spawn offscreen, meaning when all players are at least 80m from their spawn point, their parent. A single Beefalo can pretty much populate an entire herd after the long Spring mating season.

Spear Hunting

Player can strike 5-7 times before dodging. Striking 7 times before dodging would require tight timing.

Although Beefalo is faster than the default player, it must stop for a moment before attacking, allowing player to evade the attack as long as the player is running away from the Beefalo.

One may lure a single Beefalo away from the herd by attacking it, bonding it with a Beefalo Bell (Don't Starve Together icon), or feeding it.

They take three blasts from the Ice Staff to be frozen; Baby Beefalo are immune.

Saddle Domestication

Wilson Portrait
This one is slightly less smelly than the others.

Wilson, when examining a Domesticated Beefalo.

Overview

Taming a Beefalo takes a considerable amount of time and resources, but can usually be started in the first few days of the game, making a Beefalo among the fastest practical ways for the player to explore the non-ocean parts of the world. Food for the player and Beefalo can be gathered while mounted and taming. In addition to providing high-speed transportation, a mounted Beefalo is a melee weapon with unlimited durability and a shield for up to 1000 hp of melee damage absorption, which also regenerates health. A dead fully tamed Beefalo is expensive to recover, hence player might want to be careful in using tamed Beefalo.

Fully domesticated Beefalo is generally a step up benefit. It will no longer go into heat. The Beefalo statistics generally improved, resulting in benefits such as maintaining their saddle.

The Statistics of Taming

These are statistics tracked while taming a Beefalo:

  • Domestication - the over-all progress toward having a tendency locked into a fully domesticated Beefalo.
  • Hunger and Health - Beefalo slowly gain domestication while their hunger is above zero.
  • Obedience - the Beefalo's current willingness to be Saddled, mounted, or ridden.
  • Tendency - determines which special perks the Beefalo will have once fully tamed.

Domestication

Beefalo gains 1/960 domestication every 10 seconds (5%/day) while being ridden OR while its hunger is above zero. Brushing once a day adds 1/60 Domestication (1.67%) for a maximum total of 6.67% domestication/day.

Beefalo loses from 0.017% (1/5760) to 0.052% (1/1920) every 10 seconds when not being ridden AND at zero hunger. The loss increases linearly with the time elapsed since last gaining Domestication and reaches a maximum of 2.5%/day after 10 days of not being ridden, fed, or brushed. This results in a 100% loss of domestication, and accumulated tendency points, after 45 game days. Parking a Beefalo at a Salt Lick will keep its Domestication from declining over time. Domestication loss from neglect for the first 480 seconds requires 120 seconds of riding/feeding to recover; for the first 960 seconds, it requires 480 seconds of riding/feeding to recover.

When riding, the base time before the Beefalo bucks the rider off is determined by the amount of Domestication: from 50 seconds at 0 Domestication to 800 seconds at maximum; moreover, there are fractional multipliers: a partially tamed Beefalo has a 0.3 multiplier, and a shaved or moody one has a 0.2 multiplier each. This means that an untamed Beefalo will start with 15 seconds of ride time.

A Beefalo attacked by any player loses 30% of Domestication, and overfeeding removes 1%

At 100% Domestication, the Beefalo must be fed once more to become fully tamed, with a Tendency locked in based on the conditioning (see the Tendencies section below). There would be a plucking sound when the Beefalo is fully tamed, and the Beefalo's hair on its side would be longer and curl upward. If Domestication drops to zero and the creature loses all hunger, it returns to the normal, undomesticated state. A Beefalo can be tamed in a minimum of 15 days with a brush, 20 days without.

Hunger and Health

Beefalo have a maximum of 375 Hunger Meter and lose 300 Hunger Meter per day so fully taming one can cost up to 640 Twigs over 20 days. Economical foods for hunger include Twigs and Steamed Twigs. Beefalo are strictly vegetarian and won't eat Meat-based food, generics like Glommer's Goop and Butter, or goodies like Frozen Banana Daiquiri, Jellybeans and Royal Jelly.

While riding, hunger does not further increase Domestication, but feeding is still required to increase Obedience to remount and maintain the saddle. Economical foods for obedience include Cut Grass, Foliage, Light Bulbs, Petals, Stone Fruit, and Twigs.

In Don't Starve Together icon, Beefalo has a maximum of 500 Health Meter, and for Don't Starve icon, a maximum of 1000 Health Meter.
An injured Beefalo regenerates 6.9 Health Meter every 10 seconds, hence they fully regenerate in 1.5 days for Don't Starve icon, 3 days for Don't Starve Together icon.

Beefalo takes 4 times the foods' health effects, whether positive or negative. This makes healing foods much more effective than Healing Salves. Economical foods for Health include Trail Mix, Butter Muffin, Roasted Toma RootDon't Starve Together icon, Dragonpie, Beefalo TreatsDon't Starve Together icon, Blue Cap.

Beefalo takes 0.4-8.3 seconds to chew their food, increasing approximately linearly with Hunger Meter. Beefalo has a base time of 0.4 seconds for 9.375 Hunger Meter food, and then this base time increases linearly to 8 seconds for 150 Hunger Meter food. Then there is then a further 0-0.3 seconds per food.

Obedience

Obedience is a scale from 0-100 representing a Beefalo's willingness to be ridden. A wild Beefalo has an obedience of zero and becomes hostile if someone tries to put a saddle on it. A Beefalo cannot be saddled with Obedience lower than 10%, shakes off its saddle below 40%, and refuses to be mounted below 50%.

Obedience increases by 40% when brushed (once/day max), 10% when fed.

Obedience decays 50%/day; obedience decays at 150%/day when the Beefalo hunger is starving. Overfeeding decreases it by 30%; mob attacks by 1%; being shaved or attacked by the player reduces it to zero; fully domesticated Beefalo however, have a minimum Obedience that will not decrease.

Tendencies

The tendency can be identified by the facial features of the Beefalo. The tendency will change in response to tendency points gained, but gives no benefits until the animal is fully tamed; a Beefalo being tamed has Default tendency characteristics, regardless of the face.

Here are the 4 tendencies and their attributes. Damage and speed are also affected by saddle choice which is broken out in a table below.

  • Base Obedience is the minimum obedience level of the fully domesticated Beefalo.
  • Base Speed is with no saddle, or unmounted.
  • Damage is without a War Saddle.
  • Training Method describes how to accumulate points for that specific tendency before domestication is complete.
Tendency Base Obedience Base Speed Damage Training Method Notes
Default
Default
80% 7 34 Dominant tendency total < sum of other 2. Same stats as a wild Beefalo.
Ornery
Ornery
45% 7 50 +0.004/attack made or received. Must be fed before mounting.
PudgyDomesticatedBeefalo
Pudgy
60% 6.5 20 +0.000416/sec when hunger > 50%.


+0.02 each overfeeding.

Sanity +6.25/min.
Rider
Rider
95% 8 25 +0.000416 per second when mounted. Useful for fast travel (and kiting with a strong weapon in Don't Starve icon).

Taming Strategy

Obtaining a fully Domesticated Beefalo

  • Consider using a mod to make the Beefalo's Obedience, Domestication, Hunger, and Health visible.
  • Bond a Beefalo with the Beefalo Bell
  • Brush the Beefalo once a day if a Brush is available. Additional brushing will waste Brush durability without adding Domestication.
  • Feeding before riding is for obedience only.
  • Feeding after riding is to keep hunger above zero in order to continue the gain of Domestication. The most economical food for this is Steamed Twigs.
  • The player can attend to other matters and leave the Beefalo (and its bell) by a Salt Lick to avoid Domestication loss
  • To domesticate by riding (Some of this is necessary to tame a Rider tendency):
    • Feed the Beefalo 10 items to achieve 100% Obedience. Economical foods for obedience like Twigs, Cut Grass, Foliage, Petals or Lightbulbs are ideal.
    • Saddle and mount.
    • After 15 seconds, the player can dismount, or be bucked off. Bucking does not hurt, but dismounting is quicker and does not stun-lock the player, so the player might want to count the seconds and choose to dismount somewhere safe, rather than be stunned and attacked by hostile mobs.
    • Initially, the ride time increases by about 1 second each mounting. The timer increases in bigger increments later on. At 20% domestication, about 5 days, the Beefalo will let you ride for about 60 seconds before bucking. If not using a mod, the ride time can be used to infer the Beefalo's Domestication value.
    • Remount. If the Beefalo does not allow this, feed it to reach 50% obedience. If the Beefalo is sleeping, attempting to remount would wake up the Beefalo, then the player can feed it.
    • If the Beefalo shakes off the saddle, feed it above 40% obedience before resaddling. If the Beefalo is sleeping, run 4.5 tiles (or more) away to force the Beefalo to wake up and chase. Then feed and resaddle.
      • Saddle durability decreases when shaken off; it can be avoided by feeding 5 items about every 160 seconds or removing the saddle with Saddlehorn.
  • To domesticate by feeding (some of this is necessary to obtain a Pudgy tendency):
    • Feed the Beefalo 300Hunger Meter every 480 seconds. Steamed Twigs is the most practical food for this.
  • Start checking for your preferred Tendency by 70% Domestication. This gives enough time to alter the tendency before reaching 100%.
    • If the Beefalo is about to be fully Domesticated but the player has not obtained the preferred Tendency, the player can hit the Beefalo once to reset the domestication meter to 70%, but this is a waste of about 4+ days of work.
  • If the Beefalo has reached 100% Domestication and has the desired tendency, feed it one last item to transform it into fully tamed. There is a plucking sound when the Beefalo is fully tamed. The Beefalo's side hair becomes longer and curls upward.

A fully tamed Beefalo can be obtained with about 500 seconds of active and exclusive time. About 30 seconds per day is spent feeding and brushing the Beefalo, for 15 days. A little more time is necessary if you want a specific tendency.

Using Beefalo for Combat

Mounting a Beefalo during a fight can be treacherous. Multiple enemies can keep either the Beefalo or the player stun-locked. The Beefalo can ignore the player's attempts to mount, or feed it healing foods, preferring to fight instead (especially while in heat). At night, the Beefalo can also fall asleep.

Player can remount the Beefalo just before the start of fight to maximise the time before they have to remount in battle.

The problem with Beefalo healing is that it requires a dismount which can easily result in death of player and beefalo, or a boss can despawn during a fight. Because beefalo recover Health Meter over time, healing is most useful after a fight where the beefalo barely survives - a situation to avoid whenever possible!

Beefalo Treats and Blue Caps wrapped in Polar Bearger Bin or Bundling Wrap are good urgent healing option. Player should note that Beefalo chew time increases with the food Hunger Meter, hence player should prefer Health Meter food with less Hunger Meter to allow the Beefalo to eat multiple Health Meter food quick.

A dead Beefalo is expensive to recover. Player should be more careful when using Beefalo for combat and perhaps restrict the usage to only fights the player is experienced in.

Advantages of Taming Beefalo

Advantages over other speed boosts

A day 1 Beefalo, even after accounting for the mounting and dismounting time, has an average speed faster than Walking Cane. Hence, an early Beefalo is considerable for early exploration.

The speed penalties from the Piggyback or Marble Suit does not apply when riding a Beefalo. Thus, a Beefalo can allow carrying more items or better protection from ranged attacks from Clockwork Bishops and MacTusk without the speed penalty.

Riding a Beefalo allows fast travel regardless of which hand or chest-slot items are equipped. A rider Beefalo with a Glossamer Saddle is about twice the player's base speed, which require multiple speed boosts, that are expensive, to match. A Beefalo is generally the option to move heavy items like Suspicious Marbles and Celestial altar pieces overland quickly.

Mounted Combat Mechanics

Mobs' melee attacks will hit the Beefalo instead of the player, If the rider is wearing either the Scalemail or the Bramble Husk in Don't Starve icon, their counterattack properties will still trigger when the Beefalo is attacked without losing durability. While the Scalemail must be used with caution lest the flames get out of control, the Bramble Husk could prove invaluable against hordes of enemies that could stunlock the Beefalo.

Ranged attacks, such as Clockwork Bishop, MacTusk will generally damage the rider directly. A Charged Volt Goat will also target the rider directly, although not being a ranged attack.

In Don't Starve icon, most hand-equipped items become the damage output, losing durability as normal. The Beefalo will only deal its own damage (including extra damage from War Saddle) if either nothing or one of the following items is equipped in the hand slot: Deconstruction Staff, Divining Rod, Lantern, Lazy Explorer, Pretty Parasol, Star Caller's Staff, Telelocator Staff, Umbrella; when attacking, these items don't lose durability. Another difference is that Characters' damage modifiers will also affect the output, for example: a Beefalo mounted by Wigfrid deals 25% more damage.

In Don't Starve Together icon, the combination of saddle and temperament determine the melee damage output. This allows characters, such as Wendy and Wes, to avoid their damage penalty. However Abigail's damage bonus does affect the Beefalo.

In Don't Starve Together icon, weapon durability is not consumed while fighting with melee. If the player wields a ranged weapon while riding, it will be used instead of the Beefalo's attack.

Evaluation of Tendency

Default vs. Ornery: Feed Before Mounting

A Default Beefalo and an Ornery one have the same speed. The difference between them is an increase in damage, from Tentacle Spike to Darksword, at the cost of having to feed before mounting.

When an Ornery Beefalo's obedience drops below 50%, it must be fed before mounting and may decide to fight or fall asleep rather than accept food. The delay can easily result in the accidental death of the survivor, Beefalo, or both. Be especially careful in the caves because the time of day is harder to track.

Speed vs. Damage Trade-offs

While an ornery Beefalo with any saddle(or default Beefalo with a war saddle) is fantastic for day-to-day mobs, the time and resource cost of taming one makes their death a devastating setback. Without very evasion, Beefalo will wear down quickly in long boss fights, and healing them requires getting off of them which can expose one to danger.

Most Beefalo are primarily ridden as rapid transportation, and/or as an infinite durability weapon against common smaller mobs, especially 400hp Terrorbeaks, 300hp Crawling Horrors, and 100hp Spiders. The number of hits to kill a mob determines how quickly you can dispatch one, which in turn can possibly determine how many opponents you can face at once. Assuming that anyone will upgrade the basic saddle to either a glossamer or war saddle, here are the available temperament and saddle combinations along with their speed and damage:

Additional Columns:

  • Boost Comparison - the most common non-Beefalo items that provide a similar Survivor Speed boost
  • Damage - in hp
  • Weapon - the most common weapon that deals that approximate amount of damage.
  • Hits to 400 - The number of hits it will take to kill a Terrorbeak, Spider Warrior, or Dangling Depth Dweller (all have 400 hp)
  • Hits to 300 - Number of hits to kill a Crawling Horror (has 300 hp). This is the most common shadow monster fought when "farming" nightmare fuel and a non-degrading weapon is ideal for this task.
  • Hits to 100 - Number of hits to kill a Spider, Red Hound, Blue Hound, Frog, Bee, etc. (all have 100hp)
Temperament & Saddle Speed Boost Comparason Damage Weapon Hits to 400 Hits to 300 Hits to 100
Rider & Glossamer 12.4 Unmatched 25 Axe (27.2) 16 12 4
Ornery & Glossamer 10.85 Cobblestones + Walking Cane + Magilum (10.5) 50 Tentacle Spike (51) 8 6 2
Default & Glossamer 10.85 Cobblestones + Walking Cane + Magilum (10.5) 34 Regular spear (34) 12 9 3
Pudgy & Glossamer 10.075 Cobblestones + Walking Cane (9.3) 20 Walking Cane (17) 20 15 5
Rider & Battle 10.4 Cobblestones + Walking Cane + Magilum (10.5) 30 Axe (27.2) 14 10 4
Ornery & Battle 9.1 Cobblestones + Walking Cane (9.3) 55 Tentacle Spike (51) 8 6 2
Default & Battle 9.1 Cobblestones + Walking Cane (9.3) 39 Battle spear (41.5) 11 8 3
Pudgy & Battle 8.45 Cobblestones + Thulecite Club (8.4) 25 Axe (27.2) 16 12 4
Rider & War 10 Cobblestones + Walking Cane (9.3) 41 Wigfrids Spear (42.5) 10 8 3
Ornery & War 8.75 Cobblestones + Thulecite Club (8.4) 66 Darksword (68) 7 5 2
Default & War 8.75 Cobblestones + Thulecite Club (8.4) 50 Tentacle Spike (51) 8 6 2
Pudgy & War 8.125 Cobblestones (7.8) 36 Regular spear (34) 12 9 3

Tips while taming

Try to accomplish useful work while riding, such as exploring the map, picking Cacti (the Beefalo will take damage for the player), picking Stone Fruit Bushes, Grass Tufts or Twigs, fixing Marble Sculptures. Taking down Beehives is much safer on a Beefalo.

If the Beefalo is in heat outside of Spring, taking the Beefalo into or out of the Caves should make it docile again. Alternatively, the player can relog, with the Beefalo Bell in inventory.

An unmounted Beefalo does not know when to run away from a fight and can quickly get itself into fatal trouble with a variety of hostile mobs, Frog Rain especially. Player may want to park the Beefalo in cave, with Salt Lick, in Spring.

A Saddlehorn is not required to swap between two saddles; attempting to put a saddle on a saddled Beefalo will remove the other saddle. This can be useful for a default Beefalo to swap between Glossamer Saddle for getting around and War Saddle for fighting, reaching the 50 damage threshold.

If one is unable to keep Beefalo's Obedience above 40% during training, remove the saddle with a Saddlehorn to preserve saddle durability. When choosing not to ride the Beefalo this way, leave the Beefalo's bell (and therefore the Beefalo) at a Salt Lick to avoid loss of Domestication.

When crafting a Glossamer Saddle or War Saddle, consider using a Construction Amulet to mitigate the high cost of these items.

Bees, Baby Tentacles, and Lureplants can be used to quickly gain Ornery points. Bees and Baby Tentacles deal rapid, yet small damage, and can be killed quickly. Eyeplants can be dispatched before they hit. Be wary with Baby Tentacles, as they can overpower and kill the Beefalo if deep in their field.

Taming a Beefalo can be additionally advantageous for the following characters:

  • Wormwood and Maxwell: Their health-related downsides are mitigated by the Beefalo absorbing the melee attacks. Wormwood attracts bees while blooming, so extra care must be taken in spring to not accidentally have bees swarm and kill an unmounted Beefalo.
  • Walter: Unlike Woby, Beefalo's hunger doesn't affect its speed and won't buck the player off when it takes damage. This makes kiting and sling-shotting more consistent. Protection from melee damage and dealing melee damage without losing durability are huge advantages for preserving sanity and inventory slots for slingshot ammunition

Prototype Tips

New Beefalo herd can be created by relogging with the Beefalo Bell, with a belled Beefalo. The new herd can be located near base for defence or near farming spot such as Walrus Camp, Ponds to automate killing.

An entire herd of belled Beefalo can be parked about 30m from the tamed Beefalo to reduce the chance of the tamed Beefalo dying to mobs like Depth Worm, yet at the same time ensuring the feral Beefalo does not consume Salt Lick.

When rushing the Ruins, one can bond a Beefalo using a Beefalo Bell in advance. It will follow the player into the Caves and into the Ruins, and can be killed whenever the player needs its Meat for a Ham Bat. This way the player can craft up to two Ham Bats when they find the ruins, without the meat spoiling before they get there.

Placeholder Trivia

  • Real Beefalo are man-made hybrids between American Bison and domesticated cattle, intended for increased beef production.
  • The Baby Beefalo sound clips are just the normal Beefalo sounds sped up.
  • A Baby Beefalo growing to its next stage has the same animation as an adult re-growing its wool.
  • Trapping a Baby Beefalo in a pen made of walls will cause it to try to get to its parents, but it is unable to due so because of the pen.
  • Maxwell has said the Koalefant is a distant cousin of the Beefalo. This might explain the slight visual similarities between the two.
  • Beefalo in DST take 4 times the effect of food that they eat, whether it's positive or negative. This means that, for example, a Blue Cap fed to a Beefalo will heal it for 80 .
  • Beefalo also have their own emotes, used when mounted by the player.
  • A Baby Beefalo and an adult Beefalo appear in the animated short Possessions.
  • Domestication and mounting were introduced to DST in A New Reign, and to DS in the Quality of Life update.
  • During the development of Wolfgang's Character Rework, it was once planned for him to be able to carry a whole Beefalo. However, this idea was ultimately scrapped.
  • Sound Designer Mattesque made a Beefalo Song, which was published on the official Klei YouTube channel. [1]
    • There is also an alternate version called Le Beefalo Chanson, which was posted on the Klei YouTube channel, but is only available via the link.
  • Developer autographs are included within the Beefalo files.

Mosquito Bugs

mouseover
  • Beefalo may sleep at Dusk instead of at Night.
  • In DST, an angry Beefalo may give chase indefinitely.
  • When entering or exiting a Cave, a Beefalo may spawn and follow the player.

Blueprint Gallery


  1. Mattesque said on forums: "Ok. So the song is done! My madness finally sees the light of day. Thank you all so much for contributing to this. It really wouldn't be as epic as it is with out all of you. Here are links to the MP3 and WAV versions of the song. MP3 is really the one for listening to. But I'm putting up the higher quality one to see what you guys will do next. Please remix, cover, do stuff to it. But please nothing commercial and attribute us on it as the original. Basically a Creative Commons license. (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International to be exact.)"
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