Can you butcher a bore with a flint knife?

[Coloneal Sanders]

I am new to the game, I was able to kill a bore and tried to skin it with a Flint knife, but ended up starving to death because it wouldn't let me finish skinning it after quite awhile.

[idiomcritter]

welcome to the forum @Coloneal Sanders

yes, flint knife will carve up all the dead animals.  wondering how much durability was left on the knife, if its too little, it won't work.  (should be a message that pops up, but doesn't, when encountering that, since its kind of the same thing when using a tool in the crafting grid with not enough duribility)

Edited July 9, 2025 by idiomcritter

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, idiomcritter said:

wondering how much durability was left on the knife, if its too little, it won't work.  (should be a message that pops up, but doesn't, when encountering that, since its kind of the same thing when using a tool in the crafting grid with not enough duribility)

Durability shouldn't affect whether or not you can butcher the carcass. The worst that will happen with a low durability knife is it will just break, but the carcass should still be lootable.

Though I will note that I am still playing on 1.20.7 due to playing on a friend's modded server. It's possible something changed with knife durability and carcass harvesting between then and now, but I don't recall seeing anything in the patch notes on it.

6 hours ago, Coloneal Sanders said:

I am new to the game, I was able to kill a bore and tried to skin it with a Flint knife, but ended up starving to death because it wouldn't let me finish skinning it after quite awhile.

Welcome to the forums! Just to make sure all the bases are covered, were you holding shift while right-clicking on the carcass? Flint knives are fairly slow at the job, so it'll take a couple of seconds for the harvesting animation to finish and the loot window to appear.

[Maelstrom]

I have occassionally had corpses not finish the loot loop, usually because of some grass that the knife targets (and we all know how easy it is to butcher grass).   Best thing to do is stop current buthering attempt and restart.  If the second time doens't work, stop and restart.  jk.   Clear any grass on the block of the boar and attempt butchering again.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 7/10/2025 at 6:59 AM, Maelstrom said:

I have occassionally had corpses not finish the loot loop, usually because of some grass that the knife targets (and we all know how easy it is to butcher grass).   Best thing to do is stop current buthering attempt and restart.  If the second time doens't work, stop and restart.  jk.   Clear any grass on the block of the boar and attempt butchering again.

Also make sure you are close enough... I've had butchering fail because I wasn't close enough to the animal when I attempted to do it.

[Maelstrom]

Good catch!