Harvesting from ennemies/animals

[Jimmy Yeet]

Hi, i'm new to the game, and i was wondering if it was normal to have low drop on harvesting corpse/dead animals with a knife.

So far, i have mostly harvested salmon, which either gave a raw fish or nothing. Hare and chicken so far haven't given me anything, same for ennemies, but that i was told was to be exepected.
I tried different method ; being really close/far, aiming for the center of mass of the animal, using different stone for the knife (i'm still in the stone age), waiting a moment before carving.

I did check before making this post on the wiki, and it say there's a 100% drop on salmon for raw fish, and at least 1 red meat guaranted on hare.

So i'm either really unlucky or there is something wrong.

Any idea how i can fix this issue ?

 

[Professor Dragon]

Hello Jimmy,

Welcome.

> I did check before making this post on the wiki, and it say there's a 100% drop on salmon for raw fish. . . 

That's not right for Salmon. It's a 50% chance. See here: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Salmon#Harvesting
"Since salmon don't have a diet or way to eat, they always drop 0.5 fish meat."
Anyway, that means a 50% chance (not 1/2 a salmon), so it looks like you are probably seeing the expected drops from salmon.

The hare information does say that you should be getting at least one though: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Hare#Drops
(Keep in mind that the Wiki can be wrong.)

Surface Drifters do not drop food. They may very occasionally drop some flax.

Animals drop rates can vary such as temperature and season. Hovering over them will show their "weight".

The kill method or timing or type of stone has no bearing - at least in the vanilla game.

To be clear, you need to harvest (right click with knife) to get a chance of drops. No animal gives food drops straight from a spear or knife hit.
After a failed harvest, you need to see the body disappear and turn into a pile of bones - if it hasn't, you haven't actually harvested it. Try again aiming at a different spot.
A successful harvest will bring up a small inventory box you can remove the looted items from (nothing, bones, meat, fat etc).

Some questions:

• What version are you on? Is it the current stable version 1.20.12?
• Are you seeing NO drops at all, even after harvesting a lot of animals? How many? More than 10? If a smaller number, you may just be unlucky with the roll.
• Are you playing vanilla with no mods? If mods, try without.
• What about sheep or pigs?

Professor Dragon.

 

Edited August 23, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

38 minutes ago, Professor Dragon said:

Are you seeing NO drops at all, even after harvesting a lot of animals? How many? More than 10? If a smaller number, you may just be unlucky with the roll.

This is my primary suspicion. Small creatures like fish and hares frequently don't drop meat, so it's possible to get unlucky with the rolls and not get any meat despite having a handful of kills, even moreso if you are playing a class like Tailor(which penalizes animal drops). In 1.21(currently unstable), the drops from fish have been improved, so that they consistently drop at least one fillet on average, sometimes two(unless it's a reef fish--those aren't for eating). However, the satiety value of fish was also cut in half for balance, in regards to that change.

In any case, it sounds like the fish are working as intended. If you've killed several hare and chickens, you should have gotten some meat though...but that's assuming you're the one that killed them. If you're harvested another predator's leftovers or a crushed carcass, the drops will be reduced, and it's unlikely that you'll get meat if you do get a drop. I'll also note that for hares to have drops, they also need to be adults--the babies(small brown ones) won't drop anything.

[Jimmy Yeet]

Hi

Thanks for the answers !

I tried with a LOT more fish, and it  goes around one out of two that give meat, so i might have missread the wiki.
I also tried with hares and i figured i migh just be unlucky with that, no pelt in 13 hares so far.

Ennemies on the other end do like to drop me a lot of flax, so i take i'm just unlucky.

To answer the questions
I'm on the stable 1.20.12
I finished by seeing drop after a lot more of dead salmon, (around 40) and it is consistenly a 50/50 if i get meat or nah, and i didn't get any pelt in 13 dead hares.
No mods
for now, pigs and sheep kill me.

In short, i think it's just some bad luck on my end, but i will keep on trying anyway.
Thanks for the support

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, Jimmy Yeet said:

I also tried with hares and i figured i migh just be unlucky with that, no pelt in 13 hares so far.

In my experience, hides always seem to drop from hares whenever I don't need them, and don't drop when I'm actively hunting for them. If you need small hides specifically, foxes and raccoons tend to be a better source. For pelts, I prefer hunting pigs, since they give a good bit of meat in addition to the fat needed to oil hides for pelts. 

I would chalk it up to bad luck on the drops though. It happens.

[Jimmy Yeet]

Long time not posted.
I played a bit more, and finally got some pelt on hares.

I think i was just unlucky at the start, spawning in a place devoid of greenery might have not helped.

Anyway, i marked the first post from Professor Dragon as the answer, in case someone else is salty about the drops from thoose damn rabbits or any mobs for that matter.

(ennemies dropping flax are bankrolling my flax production tho, i guess i'm lucky elsewhere)