Guide to Animals

Animals play a large role in Kenshi. There are many Zones which are considered dangerous exclusively due to the animals which inhabit that zone. Animals can range from herbivores, scavengers, or man-eating predators. Animals can own locations such as Tower of Goats and Tower of Spiders, however a majority of animal locations are randomly spawning Nests. Many animals only spawn in Homeless Spawns in Zones, either in squads or alone. Robotic (synthetic) animals share some of the characteristics of living animals.
Certain animals can be Playable Characters after being purchased from Animal Traders. These Animal Player Characters come with their own risks and benefits.
== Wild Animals ==
=== Carnivorous Animals ===
These animals will eat unconscious characters. Characters may be awakened from unconsciousness in a desperate attempt to save their lives, but often characters remain unconscious throughout being eaten alive. Importantly, Beak Things are the only carnivorous animal with a sense of smell. This means they can follow the scent of blood to the location of a fight, ongoing or finished. Blood Spiders and Skin Spiders will only eat victims they fought or whose bodies they happen upon accidentally. They can't follow the scent of blood over a significant distance.
* Beak Thing - Will eat a unit from bottom to top. (With right leg first, followed by left leg and so on)
* Blood Spider - "Sucks nutrition" instead of eating limbs.
* Skin Spider - "Sucks nutrition" instead of eating limbs.
=== Scavenger Animals ===
These animals will eat dead bodies, but not living ones. One bizarre exception is that Skimmers will only eat corpses if they spawn in a nest. All other scavengers have an innate desire to eat them. Of the list below, the only animals that will actively seek out corpses are Bonedogs, Boneyard Wolves, River Raptors, and Swamp Raptors.
* Black Gorillo
* Bonedog
* Boneyard Wolf
* Gorillo
* Land Bat
* River Raptor
* Swamp Raptor
* Skimmer
=== Territorial Animals ===
These animals are either patrolling an area or are nesting animals which will become hostile if characters enter their territory.
* Beak Thing
* Bonedog
*Boneyard Wolf
* Crab
* Gorillo
* Leviathan - May become hostile if the Leviathan is a loner and if you have a squad of 3 or more.
* Skimmer
=== Hungry Animals ===
These animals may choose to eat growing crops at a player outpost, which triggers the player characters to fight them. Often these animal attacks can be prevented by clearing out nearby Nests before they seek out an outpost's farms.
* River Raptor
* Swamp Raptor
=== Apathetic Animals ===
These animals will primarily roam in groups and will not initiate combat with characters on sight.
* Goat - Excluding the Goats in the Tower of Goats.
* Swamp Turtle
* Wild Bull
=== Defensive Animals ===
These animals are normally neutral but can be provoked without attacking them. Similar to territorial animals, but they do not have a fixed territory or nest.
* Garru - Wild Garru may growl when the player moves nearby. If this happens and the player stops moving (disable jobs and press R) and remains still, the Garru will remain peaceful. However, if the player continues moving near them, the herd may attack. The herd may also attack if another squad enters combat with the Garru. One of your characters will say something if the Garru might attack. letting you know the stop moving.
=== Relics and Robots ===
Many regions of Kenshi are heavily damaged environmentally. In these areas, Robots take the place of wildlife.
=== Mega Animal Variations ===
Mega Animals are rare versions of regular animals and comparatively have very high stats, especially body part health. Mega Animals can be found in a single set location.
* Great White Gorillo
* King Gorillo
* Megacrab
* Megaraptor
== Purchasable Animals ==
You can buy these and play them like regular characters! While they are rated in every skill—just like typical humanoid characters—they can't actually use very many (eg. Goats can't use Armor Smith, even if highly proficient).
=== Vendors ===
The primary faction to purchase animals from is the Nomads. The nomads can consistently be found in their two towns, Settled Nomads and Settled Nomad Village. They can also potentially spawn Merchant Nomads in many zones. These merchants sell Goats, Pack Beasts, Bonedogs, Pack Bulls, and Wild Bulls. The Nomads also have Goat Herders, who exclusively sell goats. In Settled Nomad Village, Cornelius can be purchased from Goat Man.
The Holy Nation has Holy Farms which players can purchase animals from. The Holy Farm Leader will sell players Bonedogs and Domesticated Bulls.
The Crab Raiders sell Crabs in both of their towns. Players do not need to be allied with the Crab Raiders in order to purchase crabs from them.
=== Health ===
Animal player characters cannot lose limbs. However, due to what is most likely an oversight, the limbs description will read that it is destroyed and useless like it would when a limb is lost for humanoids. In due time the limb will heal normally, despite the text. There aren't animal specific beds, however a humanoid player character can pick up an animal and place it in a bed manually. While animals are unconscious their heal speed is doubled. (Maybe due to a bug) If placed in a bed when unconscious an animal will only have their heal speed doubled until they regain consciousness. Many Hostile Factions can potentially attempt to chop up your animals for food.
Animal player characters will automatically eat any available food out of a Backpack or an Animal Feeder. Animals will also pick up food which is not stolen, dropped on the ground near them. Bonedogs will also grab severed limbs to eat.
All animals which can be purchased/controlled have a stat called "self healing". What this stat does is provided an animal is conscious their wounds will not degenerate, and they will automatically have bandaged health applied to them equal to 40% of the health they would normally heal.
=== Abilities ===
All purchasable animals can fight, with Pack Bulls being the most effective in running down their two-legged opponents. 
Bulls and Garrus can wear backpacks that stack certain items in stacks up to five and six respectively. Pack animals backpacks have a massive -90% encumbrance on their backpacks allowing them to carry much more than any human can without slowing down.
Animals can be used as "cheap" scouts and decoys in battle. Note that the cost of using them in this way could amount to one animal per use. Goats and Bonedogs are recommended as they are easier to replace in numbers from animal vendors. 
Note that most (adult to elder) animals (With the exception of Goats) cannot normally enter into buildings and therefore benefit from their safety and services inside. They can, however, be carried into a building and walk out on their own later. Some animals, like Pack Bulls, could be ordered to enter via a large door (for example into a Stationhouse) and they will comply with the order they would not normally execute. Sometimes even large animals such a Bulls can also enter buildings when executing a "staying close" command.
=== Racial Animal Weapons ===
Like all characters in Kenshi, animals use weapons behind the scenes to attack with. These directly modify the damage output from their stats. They are also slightly randomized, so an animal may be slightly stronger or weaker depending on the "weapon" it spawned with. 
Of note, the weapon selected randomizes every game load, using a seed generated from squad data. Shuffling your squad members around in the list, then saving and reloading, will potentially cause your animals to spawn with a different weapon model. This can change damage by very large amounts as the vast majority of their damage comes from stats.
For comparison to normal weapons, here are their damage values listed below. For the damage formula for every animal (Excluding swamp turtles) go to their actual page.
Animal 	Cut damage 	Blunt damage	Bleed rate
Wild Bulls 	0.50 - 0.65	0.30 - 0.50 	1.5
Pack Bulls 	0.50 - 0.65	0.30 - 0.50 	1.5
Domesticated Bulls	0.20 - 0.26	0.24 - 0.40 	1
Pack Beasts 	0.20 - 0.26	0.24 - 0.40 	1
Goats 	2.00 - 2.61	0.03 - 0.05 	1.2
Bonedogs 	2.00 - 2.61	0.03 - 0.05 	1.2
Crabs 	0.50 - 0.65	0.30 - 0.50 	1
=== Trivia ===
During development, the Kenshi Development Team has hinted that the ability to tame certain animals could be added to the game. It was supposed to be a luxury feature and bits and pieces in the FCS hinted at this feature being developed. Most likely candidates for taming could have been Beak Things and Crabs, since they already had eggs in the game.
ru:Руководство по животным
Category:Guides