Rust animal harvest yields

Harvesting an animal in Rust returns meat, fat, leather, cloth and bone fragments, and how much you get depends on the tool. The table below publishes the skinning knife yield for all 14 harvestable targets.

The tool matters more than most players expect. The skinning knife is the highest-yield option on every target in the data set; blunt tools such as a rock or a salvaged hammer return roughly half as much leather from the same corpse.

Yields are per corpse and do not scale with how the animal was killed, so there is no advantage to a particular weapon beyond getting the kill. What does matter is harvesting before the corpse despawns.

Working out a specific case? Skinning guide

Quick answers

Targets covered
14: Bear, Boar, Chicken, Crocodile, Horse, Newman, Panther, Polar Bear, Scientist, Shark, Snake, Stag, Tiger, Wolf.
Best tool
The skinning knife returns the highest yield on every target in the data set.
What you get
Raw meat, animal fat, leather, cloth and bone fragments, in proportions that vary by animal.
Yield is per corpse
The weapon used for the kill does not change the harvest — only the tool used on the body does.

Harvest yields for all 14 Rust animals

Yields shown are for the skinning knife, the highest-yield tool on every target. The skinning guide compares every tool for a given animal.

Harvest yield for every animal and entity in Rust, using the highest-yield tool.
AnimalToolResources returnedTimeCondition loss
BearSkinning Knife20 Raw Bear Meat, 100 Animal Fat, 50 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 100 Leather, 150 Bone Fragments6 sec-
BoarSkinning Knife40 Animal Fat, 10 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 8 Raw Pork, 20 Leather, 50 Bone Fragments5 sec-
ChickenSkinning Knife2 Raw Chicken Breast, 6 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 12 Bone Fragments4 sec-
CrocodileSkinning Knife19 Raw Crocodile Meat, 120 Animal Fat, 30 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 170 Leather, 170 Bone Fragments5 sec-
HorseSkinning Knife5 Raw Horse Meat, 10 Animal Fat, 25 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 50 Leather, 50 Bone Fragments4 sec-
NewmanSkinning Knife5 Raw Human Meat, 2-22 Animal Fat, 1 Head Bag, 1 Human Skull, 10 Bone Fragments5 sec-
PantherSkinning Knife19 Raw Big Cat Meat, 100 Animal Fat, 50 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 100 Leather, 150 Bone Fragments6 sec-
Polar BearSkinning Knife22 Raw Bear Meat, 120 Animal Fat, 50 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 125 Leather, 170 Bone Fragments5 sec-
ScientistSkinning Knife5 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 30 Bone Fragments4 sec-
SharkSkinning Knife40 Animal Fat, 20 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 18 Raw Fish, 40 Leather, 50 Bone Fragments6 sec-
SnakeSkinning Knife5 Raw Snake Meat, 10 Animal Fat, 4 Snake Venom, 1 Head Bag2 sec-
StagSkinning Knife10 Animal Fat, 25 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 50 Leather, 4 Raw Deer Meat, 50 Bone Fragments4 sec-
TigerSkinning Knife19 Raw Big Cat Meat, 100 Animal Fat, 70 Cloth, 1 Head Bag, 70 Leather, 150 Bone Fragments5 sec-
WolfSkinning Knife10 Animal Fat, 35 Cloth, 5 Raw Wolf Meat, 1 Head Bag, 75 Leather, 40 Bone Fragments, 1 Wolf Skull7 sec-

Frequently asked questions

What is the best tool for skinning animals in Rust?

The skinning knife. It returns the highest yield on every target in this data set — a bear gives 100 leather with one, against 50 with a rock.

How much leather do you get from a bear in Rust?

A bear harvested with a skinning knife returns 100 leather, along with 20 raw bear meat, 100 animal fat and 150 bone fragments.

How many animals can you harvest in Rust?

14 targets are covered here — Bear, Boar, Chicken, Crocodile, Horse, Newman, Panther, Polar Bear, Scientist, Shark, Snake, Stag, Tiger, Wolf. Each returns a different mix of meat, fat, leather, cloth and bone.

Does the weapon you kill an animal with affect the loot?

No. Harvest yield depends only on the tool used on the corpse, not on how the animal was killed. Killing efficiently matters for ammunition cost, not for what you take home.

What do you get from harvesting a scientist in Rust?

Scientists return 5 cloth and 30 bone fragments rather than leather. The Scientist row in the table has the full list.

Harvest yields come from the RustTools skinning data set. Values are read from the RustTools game data set, the same data the calculators run on. Data on this page was last verified against Rust in August 2026. Facepunch balance patches can change these values — see the changelog for what has been re-checked. RustTools is an unofficial fan project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Facepunch Studios.