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At the moment, farming in ARK: Survival Evolved requires various materials but Fertilizer is a must-have in most of the cases. Depending on the style, ARK players could get Fertilizer from either Compost Bin or Dung Beetle. Usually, to get a Dung Beetle to make Fertilizer, all ARK players need to do is to put Feces in the creature inventory then set it on “wander”. That being said, reports about ARK Dung Beetle not making Fertilizer still surface every now and then.
What Must Be Done
Wait
In case you don’t know, a lot of processes in ARK take time and the production of Fertilizer by Dung Beetle is not an exception. Hence, if you notice ARK Dung Beetle not making Fertilizer, one of the things you could do is wait. On average, it takes fifteen minutes for a Dung Beetle to make Fertilizer from Feces. Feel free to carry out other tasks as you wait to collect Fertilizer.
Take A Look At Status
As mentioned above, Dung Beetle could only make Fertilizer if you set it on “wander”. That means if your Dung Beetle is not producing Fertilizer, it’s a good idea to check up on its status. Assuming that you have yet to set your Dung Beetle to wander, proceed to do so. On the other hand, if your Dung Beetle is already on wander, disable and re-enable it.
Take Mods Into Account
A lot of ARK game mods exist nowadays and some of them could alter aspects of Dung Beetle, Feces, Fertilizer, … While mods help ARK players customize their gaming experience, they sometimes cause a number of problems. Because of that, regarding ARK Dung Beetle not making Fertilizer, you should give mods some thought. For good measure, it’s strongly recommended that you disable all mods then determine whether the issue persists.
If your Dung Beetle starts making Fertilizer again, you may conclude that one of your mods is at fault. The last thing left to do is to identify the troublemaker and get rid of it.
Post Someone Around The Creature
Generally speaking, several species in ARK only produce products as expected if people stay near them. As a result, to be thorough, you should put together a schedule with other players if you belong to a clan. By doing so, you could ensure that there are always people around the Dung Beetle which keep the production of Fertilizer consistent.
Think About The Load
For your information, you could put all sorts of things including feces into the inventory of your Dung Beetle. However, it’s worth pointing out that Dung Beetle won’t produce Fertilizer if it’s encumbered. In the case that your Dung Beetle is encumbered, remove some items from its inventory to lighten the load.
Perform A Quick Fix
Since ARK Dung Beetle not making Fertilizer is not a new bug, people have developed quite a few fixes. If you have a hard time getting your Dung Beetle to produce Fertilizer, go through the following steps:
- Step 1: Access the inventory of your Dung Beetle
- Step 2: Remove everything from the inventory then disable wandering
- Step 3: Put the items back into the inventory then enable wandering
Tips And Tricks
- There is no need to do much to catch Dung Beetle. You should be able to locate some in caves, especially chitin caves at the edges of the map. Furthermore, if you come across death worms, there is a good chance that you would find caves with dung beetles nearby.
- While hunting for Dung Beetle. in caves, remember that more dangerous creatures may be lurking around. Hence you shouldn’t search for Dung Beetle unless you have support. It’s wise to go with a dire bear or other high-level animals that could help you eliminate dangerous creatures. Of course, pay attention so you don’t hurt the dung beetle in the process.
- Dung Beetle takes little time and effort to tame. All you’ll need to tame the creature are pieces of spoiled or raw meat.
- Tamed animals in ARK can get lonely, so you should always make sure to tame more than one of each animal.
- You must level up your Dung Beetle as soon as possible because they are weak at low levels and cannot protect themselves. Also, as you level up your Dung Beetle, it could carry more items in its inventory. Regardless, check up on the weight limit so you don’t overload your Dung Beetle.
- Always “house” or “stable” tamed animals including Dung Beetle away from dangerous locations. Tamed animals may die if they wander into a forge and alike.
- Dung Beetle is capable of climbing fences you build around them. Thus, if you need to restrict the movement of the creature, a cage is the best approach. Make sure that the cage is big to give room for Dung Beetle to wander and produce fertilizer/oil.
- One way to ensure you always have enough feces to give to your Dung Beetle is to tame Phiomia and Wyvern then feed them Stimberry. By doing so, you could increase the rate at which the creatures poop and you’ll have a steady supply of feces for your Dung Beetle.
Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s.
Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he’d stop emailing them asking for more work. Since 2019, he started providing game reviews & tips for Grateful Dead Game. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He’s also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.