How to Make Kibble in RimWorld: Recipe, Feeding and Calculator

How to Make Kibble in RimWorld: Recipe, Feeding and Calculator

Kibble is a butcher-station job — you won't find it on a stove. Add the Make kibble bill, throw in 1.0 nutrition of meat or animal products and 1.0 nutrition of plant food or hay, done. Twenty milk plus twenty hay is the easy example: 50 kibble from a butcher table, 35 from a spot. No research. Stick the bags on a shelf (blocks deterioration) or a roofed ground stockpile the animals can actually walk to. Wargs won't eat kibble at all — raw meat only.

RimWorld 1.6.4871 (Steam rev598)
RimWorld kibble iconOutput 50 / 35 RimWorld butcher table iconCraft at Butcher table RimWorld hay iconGreens hay / plants RimWorld milk iconProtein meat / milk / eggs
Animal feed calculator five steps recipe math 50 vs 35 faq
20 milk and 20 hay produce 50 kibble at a butcher table or 35 at a butcher spot.
Twenty milk and twenty hay = 2.0 nutrition. Same bill on both stations, different output: 50 on the table, 35 on the spot.

Illustrated from original game textures (not a live screenshot).

Workstation Path

Five steps on a butcher station

  1. Build a butcher table (Woody stuff 75 + 20 wood does it; steel is optional). A butcher spot works too if you're still early.
  2. Open Bills, add Make kibble. Zero research needed.
  3. Leave the ingredient filters alone unless you actually want fertilized eggs or insect jelly in there. Both are banned by default.
  4. Stock protein (meat, milk, unfertilized chicken eggs) and greens (veg or hay) inside the bill radius.
  5. Flip Cooking on for whoever you want running the bill. Haul the finished bags to a shelf in the pen, or a roofed ground stockpile the animals can get to.
Butcher table Butcher table 50 kibble / bill
Butcher spot Butcher spot 35 kibble / bill
Hay Hay allowed Greens slot
Egg Eggs / milk OK Protein slot
A colonist at a butcher table beside a simplified Make kibble bill panel.
The mock bill here targets 150 kibble. Your number will depend on herd size.

Illustrated from original game textures (not a live screenshot).

Walkthrough built from original game textures with synthesized English narration. Timing and camera moves are demonstrative, not recorded gameplay.

Campfires and stoves never list Make kibble. If you only see meal bills, you're at the wrong station.
Nutrition Math

Count nutrition, not item stacks

The bill cares about nutrition value, not stack count. Twenty rice (0.05 each) plus twenty meat (0.05 each) fills both sides neatly. Four unfertilized chicken eggs at 0.25 each cover the whole protein slot by themselves. Other eggs are different — ostrich unfertilized 0.5 / fertilized 0.6; cassowary, emu, turkey, and goose all sit at 0.5. Check the item info tooltip before trusting a preset. That old shorthand about "one meat plus one vegetable" only works when each stack already adds up to 1.0 nutrition, and early-game food usually doesn't.

Ingredient example Nutrition / item Items for 1.0 side Notes
Hay / rice / corn / milk / typical meat 0.05 20 Default calculator preset
Unfertilized chicken eggs 0.25 4 Chicken egg preset (0.25)
Other eggs (examples) 0.5–0.6 2 Ostrich unfert 0.5 / fert 0.6; cassowary/emu/turkey/goose 0.5
Fertilized eggs varies — Default-banned on the bill
Insect jelly 0.05 — Default-banned on the bill

With exactly 2.0 nutrition in, the table yields 50 × 0.05 = 2.5 out (+25%) and the spot yields 35 × 0.05 = 1.75 out (87.5%). If a slot overshoots 1.0 because the item sizes don't divide cleanly, your actual conversion will be lower.

Table vs Spot

50 on the table, 35 on the spot

Same Make kibble bill on both stations, different output. The butcher table runs at full efficiency. The spot applies a 0.7 factor to the work-table step — same 1 + 1 nutrition in, but you only walk away with 35.

Station Kibble / bill Nutrition out Efficiency When to use
Butcher table 50 2.5 125% (2.5 / 2.0) Default forever once you can build it
Butcher spot 35 1.75 87.5% (1.75 / 2.0) Emergency or temporary setup before building a table
A wood butcher table (Woody stuff 75 + WoodLog 20) gives the full 50 yield already. Steel is optional. The spot still works; you just burn more ingredients per kibble.
Feeding Layout

Shelf in the pen beats a distant pile

A closed pen with a cow and chicken able to reach kibble stored on a shelf.
Place the shelf where penned animals can actually walk to it. Ground piles need a roof; shelves handle themselves.

Illustrated from original game textures (not a live screenshot).

Kibble has no rot timer. A shelf blocks deterioration on its own; a roofed ground stockpile also works. Outdoor shelves already cover their contents — you don't need a separate roof for them. Bare ground piles, though, still want cover.

Troubleshooting

Why animals walk past your kibble

Work through these top to bottom. An unroofed pile can deteriorate, sure, but deterioration isn't why the animal refuses to eat.

  • Species diet: can this animal eat kibble at all? Wargs can't.
  • Feed present: is there actually finished kibble sitting on the shelf or stockpile?
  • Reachable: penned animals need the feed inside the pen or a connected shelter. Area-restricted animals need it inside the allowed zone. (No, there is no pen-marker "radius" that fails to cover a shelf.)
  • Already full, or something closer is winning the food check.
  • Downed care: healthy animals eat on their own; downed ones usually need a colonist to hand-feed.
  • Production / hauling: check for an unfinished bill, tight filter or radius, Cooking toggled off, or haulers stuck on something else.
Animal starving next to a full shelf? Check species rules, pathing, or a stalled bill — it's almost never the item itself.
Who Eats What

Meat in the recipe does not scare herbivores

Cows and chickens accept kibble while wargs require raw meat or corpses.
Cows, chickens — they'll eat kibble. Wargs want raw meat or corpses, period.

Illustrated from original game textures (not a live screenshot).

The finished bag counts as food type Kibble. Animals check that tag, not whatever ingredients went in. Herbivores will happily eat meat-based kibble, and most carnivores accept veggie-mixed bags.

  • Wargs: strict carnivores, won't touch kibble. Keep raw meat or corpses around.
  • Most other animals: fine as long as the species allows the Kibble food type.
  • Training: kibble works for taming and training where whole meals sometimes don't.
Wargs want raw meat, not kibble bags. Raw meat for wargs

Related: how to feed animals, taming, and animal pens.

Feed Choices

Kibble, hay, meals, or pemmican?

Feed Best job Rot? Catch
Kibble Mixed herds, training, dumping spare meat into hay No rot; shelf prevents deterioration Needs butcher station; spot is inefficient
Hay Simple herbivore pens Rots Humans cannot eat it raw; carnivores ignore it
Meals Human dining, some animal emergencies Rots Animals overeat whole meals; poor for tiny livestock
Pemmican Caravans / travel buffer ~70 days room temp Cook station food; see pemmican tool

Go with kibble when you've got spare hay and meat, you want 0.05-size bites instead of full meals, or you need shelf-stable pen feed and don't want to build a freezer. If the pen is pure herbivores, hay alone is fine — skip the cooking labor.

Colony Rules

Colonist mood and food policy

Your colonists can eat kibble. They'll hate it. Preferability is RawBad, the Ate kibble thought hits −12 mood for a full day, and FoodPoisonChanceFixedHuman is 0.02 (2%). On top of that, insect meat or human meat in the mix still fires its own thoughts and any Ideology precepts.

Human food policy Ban kibble in colonist food restrictions. Meals or paste for everyday eating.
Animal shelf Set it to Critical priority, near pens. Shelf or roofed ground stockpile. Restrict the allowed items to Kibble — otherwise your cooks will dump dinner meat in the barn.
Making kibble trains Cooking, yes, but it's awful as daily food: fixed 2% food-poison chance for humans plus a −12 mood hit. Keep the bags away from the dining room.
1.6 / Odyssey

1.6 and Odyssey notes

  • Kibble has a high animal feeding preference, so colonists will hand-feed it to downed animals quickly.
  • Odyssey (optional): fish count as meat for cooking bills. They can fill the protein side of Make kibble when the DLC is active, though nutrition varies by species.
  • Numbers on this page match RimWorld 1.6.4871 (Steam rev598): 50 products on the table, nutrition 0.05, mass 0.015, market value 1.1.
FAQ

FAQ

Where do you make kibble?
Butcher table or butcher spot. Stoves and campfires never get the bill.
Why did I get 35 instead of 50?
You ran that batch on a butcher spot. The spot's 0.7 efficiency factor means the same 1 + 1 nutrition bill only makes 35. Build a real butcher table and you'll get 50.
Can I use eggs or milk?
Yes, on the protein side. Four unfertilized chicken eggs (0.25 each) fill 1.0 nutrition. Milk is 0.05 each. Other eggs vary — ostrich unfertilized 0.5 / fertilized 0.6; cassowary/emu/turkey/goose 0.5. Fertilized eggs and insect jelly are banned by default.
Do wargs eat kibble?
No. Strict carnivores. Keep raw meat or corpses on hand.
Does kibble rot?
No rot timer. A shelf stops deterioration; a roofed ground stockpile works too. Outdoor shelves already cover their contents on their own.
Will herbivores eat kibble made with meat?
Yes. They care about the finished Kibble food type, not the original ingredients.
How bad is kibble for colonists?
Pretty bad. Ate kibble is −12 mood for a full day, preferability RawBad, and FoodPoisonChanceFixedHuman is 0.02 (2%). Ban it from your colonists' food restrictions.
Links

Wiki and related guides