RimWorld – How to Make a Pen for Animals

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You will have an almost endless collection of resources, colonists, equipment, and animals in RimWorld.

Though most of these things are important, animals require a lot of attention from you, at least at the start.

Recommended Read: What Is the Best Clothing to Sell in RimWorld?

You will need to keep most of your farm animals inside a pen to keep them fed and part of your colony.

So, to help you keep these grazing companions inside the colony, here is how to make a pen for animals in RimWorld.


Table of contents


Why Do You Need a Pen for Animals in RimWorld

Farm animals in RimWorld will roam around the map and eventually leave the colony if you don’t keep them in a pen.

They will also walk all over the place since you can’t assign a zone for them, as you would for smarter animals, and they will produce huge amounts of filth around your colony.

Also, if you want to keep them fed, you will need to place them in a pen with a lot of space that will provide enough grass, hay, or dandelions for them to eat.


How to Make a Pen for Animals in RimWorld

A pen is an enclosed location on the map where animals are kept and that they can’t leave without the help of outside interference.

There are a lot of buildings that you can use to create the boundaries of a pen:

  • Fences
  • Fence Gates
  • Barricades
  • Walls
  • Doors

So, to make a pen, you will need to use one or any of the building structures from above to form a large, enclosed space.

Generally, it is easiest to just use wooden fences and fence gates to make the form of this pen. Also, make sure to use the fertility overlay (the plant overlay in the bottom right corner) to make sure that the space inside the pen has fertile tiles.

Since the animals will mostly eat plants off the ground, the ground will need to be fertile. Otherwise, you will have to personally feed them all the time.

Once you have created this large enclosed space using the structures from above, you just need to place Pen Marker inside the pen.

You can find the pen marker in the Misc buildings category. Place it anywhere inside the pen, and you will see a green outline inside the closed space that will also tell you how many animals fit inside without outside sources of food.


How to Get Animals into the Pen in RimWorld

If you have farm animals already roaming around the map, then any pawn with the Handle work enabled will rope the animals to the pen automatically. You won’t have to do anything once the pen exists.


That’s everything you need to know about how to make a pen for animals in RimWorld!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

Adrian Oprea

Based in London, United Kingdom, Adrian Oprea is a Guides Writer. As a professional single-player RPG player, Adrian has often been stigmatized. He has decided to pour his frustration into writing guides!

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