How to Tame a Snow Owl in ARK

 

    The Snow Owl is one of ARK's few flyers that is both a knockout tame and a fully breedable creature, and the wiki documents both paths rather than leaving them to guesswork. Per the infobox, it belongs to the Birds group, eats a Carnivore diet, and carries an Aggressive temperament; the wiki's domestication table separately confirms it is Tameable, Rideable, and Breedable, though not Torpor Immune. It was first added to ARK: Survival Evolved with the Extinction expansion on November 6, 2018, and per the infobox it now spans six DLCs: Extinction, Genesis: Part 2, Lost Island, Fjordur, Astraeos, and Lost Colony. This guide sticks to the wiki's stated method — Knockout — and to the exact figures on its taming, torpidity, and breeding tables; anywhere the source doesn't give a number, that gap is called out instead of filled in.

 

The Knockout Taming Method

 

    The wiki's domestication table states the Taming Method plainly: Knockout. The same table lists Tameable: Yes, Rideable: Yes, Breedable: Yes, and Torpor Immune: No — so a Snow Owl is dropped with tranquilizers like most other knockout tames, and can also be bred once you have a pair. Preferred kibble is Superior Kibble; preferred non-kibble food is Raw Mutton. The Snow Owl Saddle unlocks at Level 61, and Rider Weaponry is listed as No — you can't fire a weapon while mounted. The in-game dossier, credited to survivor Helena Walker, names the species "Bubo chinookus" of the "Post-Holocene" period and says of the domesticated animal: "With its swift flying and frigid attacks, Bubo makes an excellent single-rider support mount or scout," crediting its "tremendous vision," shared "with its rider via its antenna."

 

Preferred Food and Taming Kibble

 

 

    The wiki lists two preferred foods: Raw Mutton and Superior Kibble. Superior Kibble is crafted from "2 × Citronal, 1 × Prime Meat Jerky, 1 × Large Egg, 5 × Fiber, 2 × Rare Mushroom, 1 × Sap, 1 × Water," per the wiki's ingredient list. Its per-level taming table gives the exact kibble quantity and feeding time at each documented level: 2 kibble in 0:01:12 at Level 1, 3 in 0:01:47 at Level 30, 4 in 0:02:23 at Level 60, 6 in 0:03:34 at Level 90, 7 in 0:04:09 at Level 120, and 8 in 0:04:45 at Level 150. The Level 150 bill is exactly four times the Level 1 bill (8 ÷ 2 = 4). No quantities are given for any level outside these six rows, so this guide doesn't interpolate one, say, for a Level 45 Snow Owl.

 

Torpidity and Knockout Numbers

 

 

    The same taming table gives a torpidity-depletion rate and a "time until all torpidity is depleted" figure per level: 0.3/s and 00:33:20 at Level 1; 0.5/s and 00:54:58 at Level 30; 0.66/s and 01:09:49 at Level 60; 0.79/s and 01:20:35 at Level 90; 0.92/s and 01:29:03 at Level 120; 1.04/s and 01:36:01 at Level 150. The Level 150 rate is roughly 3.5 times the Level 1 rate (1.04 ÷ 0.3 ≈ 3.47), yet the wake-up window only grows about 2.9 times longer — 5,761 seconds versus 2,000 seconds (5,761 ÷ 2,000 ≈ 2.88) — since a higher-level owl also starts with more banked Torpidity to burn through. The same rows each list six raw "KO" shot-count multipliers (at Level 1: ×60, ×25, ×7, ×4, ×3, ×2), but the column headers naming which weapon or ammo each number belongs to weren't captured in the source text used here, so this guide doesn't assign a weapon to any figure — treat them only as a sign that some taming tools need far more hits than others, not as a labeled shot count.

 

Egg Incubation, Growth, and Breeding

 

 

    Because the Snow Owl is Breedable, the wiki also documents its egg and growth cycle. The egg is the Snow Owl Egg, with an Incubation Range of 12–13.5°C / 54–56°F (an Egg Incubator set to 13°C / 55°F sits inside that range). Growth-stage timers: Incubation Time 2h 56m 27.389s, Baby Time 5h 26m 47.842s, Juvenile Time 21h 47m 11.369s, Adolescent Time 1d 3h 13m 59.211s, and a stated Total Maturation Time of 2d 6h 27m 58.422s. Adding the three post-hatch stages by hand confirms what that total measures: Baby + Juvenile + Adolescent sums to exactly 2d 6h 27m 58.422s, matching the stated total — confirming it's counted from hatching, not from when the egg is laid. Breeding Interval is listed as 18h – 2d between mating attempts. The wiki also notes the Snow Owl "excretes pellets instead of normal feces" — the Snow Owl Pellet, said to be "far more effective as fertilizer" — and separately lists Drag Weight 35 and 8 XP for a kill.

 

The wiki's own KO guidance: the Snow Owl "can be knocked out through the standard Knockout method using Tranq Arrows," but it "may die if arrows are used as the owl has fairly low base health, especially if it has been in a fight" — a Longneck Rifle with Tranq Darts is advised instead. It also "takes reduced damage from headshots, so aim for the body." A ranged weapon works well generally — "a Crossbow, rifle, or compound bow will work perfectly here" — and the Net Projectile can immobilize a Snow Owl "for a full minute," long enough to finish tranquilizing with a decent Crossbow or Longneck Rifle. Snow Owls are also "very fast and commonly come in a group of 2 or 3," so plan for more than one target.

 

Running your own ARK server

 

    Between a multi-hour egg incubation, a growth run from Baby to Adolescent that alone adds up to more than a day, and a Breeding Interval that can run up to two full days before your pair mates again, a Snow Owl breeding project isn't something you want to lose to a random server restart. A private, always-on ARK server keeps the incubator running, the growing chick fed, and your tribe's Superior Kibble stockpile intact throughout — whether you're taming one at Level 1 or working toward a Level 150 for its saddle and stats. It also lets your tribe schedule a knockout attempt with a Longneck Rifle and tranq darts on your own time, not whoever else is online.

 

Conclusion

 

    Everything above traces to the wiki's own tables: Knockout as the stated Taming Method, Raw Mutton or Superior Kibble as preferred foods, a saddle at Level 61, exact kibble and torpidity figures at Levels 1/30/60/90/120/150, and a full egg-to-adult breeding timeline that checks out arithmetically against its own stated total. The one gap worth repeating: the six per-level "KO" shot-count numbers aren't labeled to specific weapons in the source captured here, so they're reported as unlabeled figures rather than guessed weapon assignments.

 

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