One of the biggest appeals of Ark: Survival Evolved is the ability to keep and tame dinos. However, taming them also means that you will need to tend to their each and every need. While most of the dinos are mostly self-sufficient, it can still be a hassle whenever you want to speed up their growth.
Healing your dinos is a core mechanic in Ark and ensures success in bigger environments. These creatures can be used to gather resources, attack enemies and even defend your base. However, they will inevitably get hit multiple times in the process causing them to lose health.
A dino will die as soon as its health reaches zero. Therefore, it is essential to use periodic healing on your tames in and out of battle. With that said, there are multiple methods to ensure a speedy recovery for your dinos. The most effective ones are listed below:
- 1. Plant Species Z
- 2. Making Sweet Vegetable Cakes
- 3. Force-Feeding Prime and Cooked Prime Meat
- 4. Using a Snow Owl
- 5. Daeodon’s Pheromone Effect
There are times when you will need to instantly recover your tames in order to continue your journey. A higher level dino dying due to losing their entire HP can feel aggravating. Therefore, this guide will show you the best ways to heal your tames.
Healing Dinos in Ark Survival Evolved
As mentioned, there are multiple methods of healing in Ark. However, most speedy methods are linked to certain prerequisites. Therefore, try to take a look at each one of them and pick the one that best suits your requirements.
1. Plant Species Z
The plant species z is available in the following DLCs. Make sure to have at least one of them before proceeding.
- Aberration
- Genesis: Part 1
- Crystal Isles
Plant Species Z was first added in V 275.0 and is essentially a flash-band producing tool. Its design is originally intended to scare away any troublemakers that might be aiming for your stronghold.
The wild variants of this plant can heal your character and dinos. However, this can only be done when you’re not in combat for at least 5 minutes.
How to Produce Plant Species Z
Just like any pot-based plant, the method of growing Plant Species Z is rather simple. They can be grown by placing plant species z seeds in a crop pot. The size of this pot needs to be large in order to accommodate the organism.
With that said, you will need to add water and fertilizer in order to make the plant grow. Ark features multiple echelons for fertilizers. They are priced according to the duration of effect.
With that said, here are all the fertilizers available in Ark Survival Evolved for your planting needs:
| Fertilizer type | Fertilizer Units | Fertilizes For |
 Human Feces | 1,000 | 10m |
 Small Animal Feces | 3,500 | 35m |
 Medium Animal Feces | 7,500 | 1h 15m |
 Unicorn Residue (Mobile Version) | 7,500 | 1h 15m |
 Large Animal Feces | 15,000 | 2h 30m |
 Massive Animal Feces | 35,000 | 5h 50m |
 Snow Owl Pellet(Extinction DLC) | 50,000 | 8h 20m |
 Fertilizer | 54,000 | 9h |
 Bonemeal Fertilizer (Primitive Plus DLC) | 90,000 | 15h |
If you stay near the plant for 70 seconds, it will retreat its tentacle and will grant you a plant species Z seed. This interval will repeat any number of times and will reset when every player leaves the vicinity.
2. Making Sweet Vegetable Cakes
Sweet vegetable cake is a consumable that can heal your herbivores. While it can also be force-fed to the carnivorous tames, it is usually not recommended. However, everything works in critical times. Therefore, you can attempt making these cakes in bulk to keep your dinos healthy. Here is the official description for this consumable:
“A sappy vegetable cake which Herbivores find delicious, which will be automatically eaten when needed for healing. Alas, humans and carnivores tend to find its taste repugnant.”
However, keep the spoiling time in mind while making this item. You would not want your hard work to waste before a key moment. Here are the human statistics for the sweet vegetable cakes:
| Type | Dish |
| Food | 20 |
| Health | 10 |
| Spoils in | 1h 20m |
Sweet Vegetable Cakes: Crafting Method
Before diving into the process, it is essential to know what you are working with. Therefore, let’s view the prerequisites needed to make sweet vegetable cakes. Some of these are relatively basic and easy to find while others can make you spend a sizable amount of effort.
With that said, here are the ingredients needed to make a sweet vegetable cake:
- 2 × Giant Bee Honey
- 4 × Sap
- 2 × Rockarrot
- 2 × Longrass
- 2 × Savoroot
- 4 × Stimulant
- 25 × Fiber
- 1 × Water
If you are unsure about the base ingredients, then you may refer to the list below to get a better grasp of the recipe:
| Base Ingredients | Quantity |
 Stone | 4 |
 Stimberry | 20 |
 Water | 1 |
 Rockarrot | 2 |
 Sap | 4 |
 Flint | 8 |
 Savoroot | 2 |
 Fiber | 25 |
 Longrass | 2 |
 Giant Bee Honey | 2 |
To get started, you will need to add one of the following with at least 25% water in the Cooking Pot:
- Waterskin
- Water Jar
- Canteen
You can skip this step if you’re using an industrial cooker. Simply add the remaining materials and wait for the crafting process to finish.
3. Force-Feeding Prime and Cooked Prime Meat
Prime meat is generally used for taming purposes. While it is not the most potent taming catalyst, it still ranks within the top 4. It can replenish the food reserves for your Dinos to heal. Prime Meat is a carnivore variant of sweet vegetable cakes and can be extremely useful in helping your tames recover.
Related: How to Stop Dinos from Spawning in Your Base in Ark
Certain dinos prefer raw meat while others want cooked meat. Therefore, it is better to break these traits down to form a better understanding.
Raw Prime Meat
This type of meat is preferred by most carnivores except for Thylacoleo which prefers cooked meat over raw. Here is the official description for raw prime meat:
“Eating raw food will sate hunger but is unhealthy for humans. This excellent cut spoils very quickly. Most wild carnivores love this meat.”
Raw prime meat spoils extremely fast. Therefore, it is better to keep it in a refrigerator. However, raw prime meat can be hard to obtain if you don’t know about the correct source. Therefore, here is a complete list of creatures that possess raw prime meat:
| Allosaurus | Hyaenodon | Quetzai |
| Argentavis | Mammoth | Rex |
| Brontosaurus | Managarmr | Sarco |
| Megalosaurus | Carnotaurus | Spino |
| Chalicortheriu | Mosasaurus | Stegosaurus |
| Dimetrogon | Paracer | Therizinosaur |
| Diplodocus | Plesiosaur | Titanoboa |
| Purlovie | Giganotosaurus | Wyvern |
It is advised to refrain from self-consuming this food. The reason for this is simple, you will lose 5.0 health per munch. Therefore, it is suggested to cook the meat before eating.
Cooked Prime Meat
Cooked prime meat is a cooked version of the raw prime meat that is highly beneficial for humans and creatures alike. However, it is still recommended to use raw meat for taming due to its high taming potency. With that said, here is the official description for cooked prime meat:
“Sates your hunger, and provides health while being digested. More effective than normal meat. Wild Carnivores like this meat a lot.”
You can toss a normal stack of prime meat inside a cooking element to gain cooked prime meat. Here is the average time required for prime meat to finish cooking:
| Quantity | Cooking Time: Campfire | Cooking Time: Industrial Grill |
| 1 x Cooked Prime Meat | 20s | 20s |
| 15 x Cooked Prime Meat | 5m | 40s |
| 30 x Cooked Prime Meat | 10m | 1m |
You can force-feed your tames by holding the E button. You can increase the healing potential of this method inside your base. Simply get a good Daeodon and activate the passive healing stat in the wheel. This will drain your meat reserves at an exorbitant rate though.
4. Using a Snow Owl
The snow owl is a DLC-only creature that possesses impressive healing properties that can heal both you and your tames in a matter of seconds. Here are the DLCs where the bird can be found:
- Extinction
- Genesis: Part 1
- Genesis: Part 2
A snow owl can heal your creatures at 40 HP/sec however, it takes away an insane amount of stamina during the process.
5. Daeodon’s Pheromone Effect
During combat, a Daeodon will release a pheromone effect that restores (Target’s max health * 0.0005) HP / Second. The total amount can stack up the more a battle is prolonged and can reach quite a large number. Simply place the Daeodon near the injured dinos to see the magic happen.
All in all, you can use any method you like to heal your dinos. However, every method has its own set of limitations. Therefore, make sure to fulfill all the prerequisites to succeed. You can also implement the larger-scale methods we mentioned above as long as you have the resources to back them up.