Eggs
Eggs are dropped by certain creatures and can be found anywhere they decide to drop one. Currently, they can be used as a food source (players can consume them for large amounts of nourishment), for creating Kibble (a useful item for fast and effective taming), and for hatching (to raise baby creatures; fertilized eggs only).
The ability to hatch fertilized eggs was added in v219.0 through breeding. To mate creatures, you must have a tamed male and female of the same species. They have to be near each and both have to be set on wander or set to mating, not overloaded, not following and not mounted (for mountable dino). A mating bar will appear, and once finished, the female will lay a fertilized egg (differentiated by a red cloud surrounding the egg). Not all creatures can be bred. It is also notable that the creatures have to stay close and the wandering mechanic might drive them apart.
The only exception to fertilized eggs would be the Wyvern, Rock Drake, Deinonychus, and Magmasaur, none of which can be tamed in the wild and their fertile eggs must be obtained from the wild nest.
Said eggs spawned in with commands will disappear as soon as they are dropped, and thus can not be hatched. This is due to the egg having little to no health on the command-spawned egg; if it is dropped in an area where it can incubate and the health does not deplete, it can hatch. Any creatures hatched in this manner will always be level 1 due to absence of Maternal and Paternal details.
Eggs all have different colors and sizes while out of the players inventory, and each have a different weight, too. While they are great for kibble production and human consumption, they offer no nutrition to tamed dinos, (except for the Oviraptor, Titanoboa and Basilisk).
Behavior
Some dinosaurs will seek you out if you have an egg of their species in your inventory. Any species of herbivore will become aggressive if players pickup an egg from the ground nearby them (except for Dodos, Moschops, and Parasaurs) but simply carrying an egg won't. The Oviraptor has the ability to take eggs without creatures noticing.
- Raptors, being an aggressive carnivore already, will most assuredly hunt you down.
- Brontosaurus will also become aggressive if you take an egg near one. But also look out for T-Rex, as they are attracted by Bronto Eggs as well.
- Giganotosaurus will immediately hunt you down at rapid speed if you take their egg, and being the most dangerous carnivore already known, is a fatal mistake if unprepared.
- Nearby Wyvern and Rock Drake, usually aggressive at a few distance, will immediately hunt down would-be thieves for taking, or transferring, any of their egg.
Egg Farming
Farming eggs efficiently can be very useful to obtain more eggs in a shorter amount of time. Both wild creatures and tamed creatures can be used to build creature farms for eggs.
Frequency and Probability
“ | Dodos don't lay eggs like other dinos, every time dodos poop they have a chance to lay an egg. | „ | |
~ Jen[1] |
Only female dinosaurs can lay eggs. Every creature which is capable of laying an egg has exactly the same laying rate (except for Dodos). Currently female dinos will drop eggs continuously if they're mate boosted, no matter if the player is around or not, as long as they are not in stasis - in which there is a 1% chance for an egg to be laid when the creature comes out of the state.
One male can mate boost multiple females of the same species around him, and vice versa.
- A mate-boosted female creature will have a chance to lay an egg every 17 minutes.
- An Oviraptor set to wandering provides a buff that reduces the egg laying timer from 17 minutes to 11 minutes 20 seconds.
- Dodos have different egg laying mechanic: They have a chance of 13% to lay an egg instead of a feces when defecating, which happens randomly after 100 to 300 seconds.
- There is a limit on how many eggs can be present within a certain range: for most creatures this limit is 6. An exception is Titanoboa which has a limit of 8.
Eggs can also be obtained from wild creatures. Oviraptors can be used to steal eggs from wild or enemy dinos. Whistling "attack my target" on an egg will cause the Oviraptor to pick it up and bring it back to you.
Obtaining Wild Eggs
“ | They're pretty rare to find in the wild, it's best to just collect them from your own tames. :) | „ | |
~ Jen[2] |
Mate-Boosted females in the wild that are capable of laying eggs in the wild may drop them, where the egg sits on the ground nearby. These eggs are not fertilized, and cannot be used to hatch a creature. They can, however, be used for kibble and thus are extremely valuable.
If a player approaches and takes the egg into their inventory, the animals the egg belongs to (for example: all Trikes if Trike Egg, all Raptors if Raptor Egg) nearby will anger and attack. An Oviraptor can be used to rob the eggs for the player, but then the creature is exposed to the danger of marauding parents. Make sure you can handle the power of the parents if you plan on stealing their eggs!
Egg Types
Notes/Trivia
- When a fertilized egg dies (Egg Health reaches 0), it disappears regardless of the decomposition settings, not becoming a non-fertilized egg either.
- Certain real-life creatures cannot lay eggs in the game.
- Fertilized eggs cannot be found in the wild by player. The only exception to fertilized eggs would be the Crystal Wyvern (wild crystal wyverns can be tamed with crystal or primal crystal) and the Wyvern, Rock Drake, Deinonychus and Magmasaur none of which can be tamed in the wild and their fertile eggs must be obtained from the wild nest.
Gallery
Video Tutorial
A quick video tutorial on hatching eggs.
Changelog
Patch | ARK: Survival Evolved Changes |
---|---|
175.0 | Only female creatures can lay eggs now. |
186.1 | Made Eggs about 200% more likely to be found, and they now last for 8 days in regular inventory, rather than 2. |
187.0 | Only Female Dinos lay eggs now. |
188.0 |
|
188.1 | Mate-boosted Tamed Dinos now have 2x chance of producing eggs. |
193.0 | Tamed Dinos now lay Eggs over time without having to leave them alone. |
194.0 |
|
202.0 | The destruction time of eggs on the ground is now the same for all eggs, 30 min. |
214.0 | Dropped Eggs are no longer invisible after loading a singleplayer game. |
219.3 |
|
220.0 | Fixed issue where new fertilized Eggs dropped onto the ground would not be interactable on clients. |
232.4 | Dimetrodons (and Kairuku) now insulate Eggs. |
252.6 | Taking various Eggs now aggro the respective species. |
255.1 | Fixed issue seeing the tooltip for Fertilized Eggs. |
256.3 |
|
259.0 |
|
265.0 | Eggs no longer fall through structures during rendering. |
265.17 | Fixed an issue where eggs could not be picked up by the player after a server restart. |
265.284 | Fixed eggs falling through structures. |
275.4 | Prevented fertilized eggs from being transferred to servers not using the allow foreign dino setting. |
275.52 | Further prevented fertilized eggs from being transferred to servers not using the allow foreign dino setting when the egg is in player inventory. |
278.66 | Prevents crossark transfers of "foreign" dino eggs (if prevented by server config) going forward. |
288.113 |
|
310.19 | Fertilized Eggs now have a warning when a player attempts to consume them. |
311.87 | Fixed eggs and babies being teleported to 0,0 when in stasis. |
329.14 | Fixed a client crash related to eggs and the egg incubator. |
329.51 | Fixed a bug where eggs would incubate instantly. |
333.13 | Prevented being able to drop eggs in the non-overworld Mission zones (such as Survive The ARK). |