Valheim is a great multiplayer survival and building game. One aspect of it is taming various animals. You can tame Boar to begin with, then move on to Wolves, and you can later risk taming Lox. Until the Hearth and Home update you couldn’t do much with a tamed Lox, but now you can!
A tamed Lox has many benefits now. The best one for us by far is the overall cute factor of creating a baby Lox, or a Lox Calf.
Another benefit of taming Lox, perhaps at odds with the cuteness, is the ease at which you can now get Lox meat. You will have a ready supply, without needing to hunt wild Lox any more.
Finally, there is the cool factor of being able to ride your very own Lox!
Containing a Lox
To tame any animals you are better if they are contained. The trouble with Lox is that they can easily destroy most things you can build. The best way to contain a Lox is in a deep pit with steep earth walls which they cannot climb. It is easiest to build the pit first by digging down with a pickaxe and building up the walls with a hoe. To allow the Lox to enter you will need a wide entranceway with a gradual slope – they can’t be tricked into falling down a vertical face, and we were unable to entice them on to a wooden platform above the pit.
To get the Lox into the pen is easiest done with two players – one attracts their attention and leads them into the pit while the other uses the hoe to raise the terrain using stone around the entrance to block them in.
Taming a Lox
Lox will eat cloudberries, barley or flax. Simply throw a bunch of one of these on to the floor in front of them and walk away. The Lox will feed when they are not frightened, and will slowly acclimatise (tame) when not hungry. This will day a few in-game days to finish, so don’t be impatient. If you are having issues with the Lox feeding, then check that there is no roof on the pen (or at least, not one lower than around 4 wooden walls). They have issues with pathfinding under low objects, as well as narrow passages or steep slopes.
Once the Lox is tamed you will get a message which tells you, and the Lox will show as Tame. In this condition they won’t be frightened of you or run away from / attack you. You can pet your new tame Lox and you can rename him.
Breeding Lox
A tame Lox can be made to breed with another tame Lox. To do this give both Lox a piece of food and wait for them to produce a calf. They will both need to be in loving mode (pink hearts) and then they will conceive. A short while later their offspring will arrive. They will need a largish pen to breed, around 4-6m each side per Lox.
Once you’ve started building up a creche of small Lox, you can begin thinking about meat. The adult Lox can be slaughtered with a butcher knife for 4-5 Lox Meat and 2 Lox Pelt.
Riding
Another use of adult Lox is transportation. You will need to have developed Flax and spun Linen Thread at a Spinning Wheel before you can craft a riding saddle, but when you do you can saddle the Lox and mount it to ride around. You can’t shoot or swing a sword while riding, and the Lox won’t attack enemies either. But the Lox doesn’t mind if its rider is hugely encumbered (with ores, for example) and will sprint faster than a Viking will. They have stamina and this will drop over time. It recovers quite slowly, so be aware of this. The stamina use will reduce as your riding ability increases.
Defense
Your tame Lox will defend you and your territory if it sees enemy creatures approaching. They can be killed, but it takes a lot to do that. In the meantime, they have some very powerful attacks and can easily ward off a bunch of Fulings each. They can also be useful in farming Needles as they will defend themselves against Deathsquitoes very effectively.
