Zookeeper Class in 99 Nights in the Forest — 70 Diamonds, Three Pets, and a 60-Animal Wall

The Zookeeper is the cheap way into the animal game.

For 70 Diamonds you get an Old Taming Flute, faster taming-flute XP, and three pets from Level 1 instead of the default two. That is the entire Level 1. It is a small class and it is honest about being a small class — and it is also the cheapest class in the game that meaningfully changes what a run looks like.

Where it differs from the Beastmaster is the whole story. The Beastmaster pays you combat: five pet slots, wolves summoned with Steak, an Alpha Wolf at Level 3. The Zookeeper pays you taming itself — every one of its three perks acts on the tame loop rather than on the fight. If you want animals to fight for you, both work. If you want to own more animals sooner with less Diamond, only one of them is 70 Diamonds.

Last verified: 2026-10-03.

Zookeeper Class at a Glance

Cost70 DiamondsStarting kit1× Old Taming Flute (Level 1)TypeTaming / support pet buildPet cap3, from Level 1 — regardless of flute levelLevel-up requirementTame animals: 30, then 60 — one counter onlyAdded inThe Taming Update; reworked in the 2× Gem Weekend / Classes MK III updateWeaknessNo combat perk of any kind; everything hangs off tamingBest atLearning taming, early three-pet packs, long runs you will keep farming animals inWeakest atFirst-nights where you have no food, and players who tame once and never again

The Perks, and the One Number That Runs Them

LevelPerkRequirement to reach it1****Your taming whistle levels up faster, and you can keep 3 tamed animals regardless of your flute levelUnlocked on purchase2Feeding a tamed animal restores more of its healthTame animals: 30; the flute level is unchanged3You need one less step to tame an animalTame animals: 60

Two things in that table are easy to misread.

"3 pets regardless of flute level" is the real Level 1. Without the class you can still hold three animals with a Good Flute — the cap is what the flute tier buys you. The Zookeeper's wording matters because it removes that dependency: you start with an Old Flute and you can still run three pets. For a beginner that is the difference between "I can only have two until I upgrade" and "I have three all night."

The Level 2 and Level 3 perks sit behind a single counter, and it is a big one. The requirement is written as tame animals — 30 for Level 2, 60 for Level 3. Not damage, not kills, not summons. Sixty animals, counted across everything you tame.

The Sixty-Animal Wall

This is the part the guides skip, and it decides who the class is for.

The Level 2 perk needs 30 tames. The Level 3 perk needs 60. Both are cumulative over the class, and they are the only thing gating the two perks people actually want — the better pet healing and the one-less-step shortcut.

Two honest unknowns sit on top of that number, and neither is published anywhere:

Whether the counter is per-class or per-run. If it is per-run, reverting or switching classes resets it and Level 3 is reachable in a single efficient session. If it is per-class, it is a cross-run bank that most players will never fill. No source we can find states it, and it is the single number that decides whether the Zookeeper is a 70-Diamond bargain or a 70-Diamond decoration.

What counts as a tame. The wording says tamed animals. A Bunny is one tame and one Carrot. A Mammoth is one tame and ten Pumpkins plus five Cakes. Sixty tames measured in Bunnies is a different amount of game time from sixty measured in apex animals.

The fast method is published, and it exists because the number is large. Two wiki pages describe the same shortcut: join a run, tame Bunnies using the Carrots that spawn naturally, and reset the run — the tame counter is credited, the work done costs one Carrot per Bunny. That is a farming loop for the class requirement, not a way to build a battle pack, and it is the clearest evidence that the counter is meant to be ground rather than earned through normal play.

What One Less Step Is Actually Worth

The Level 3 perk does not make taming easier to control; it removes a cycle from every tame you start.

Our own taming guide lists the cycle counts per animal. Subtract one cycle from each and the saving looks like this — this is our arithmetic on published cycle counts, not a sourced claim:

Read the bottom two rows and the class becomes clear: on an apex animal, one less step is a whole cycle's worth of the rarest ingredients back. A Mammoth stops wanting 10 Pumpkin and 5 Cake and wants 8 and 4. That is the difference between a Mammoth you can attempt on night six and one you can only attempt once your farm is running.

But read the first rows too. On anything with one or two cycles the perk does nothing. If your run is Bunnies, Wolves and one Fox, Level 3 has changed nothing about your run by the time the 60th tame lands. The perk is an apex-animal perk wearing a general name.

How the Flute Fits In

The Zookeeper's Level 1 also speeds the flute, and that interacts with everything above.

The taming guide records the usual route: tame Bunnies and Wolves for XP, take the flute to the Upgrade Station, then target Alpha Wolves and Bears. The upgrade loop, the bench and what each tier buys are on the Taming Flute page. Two wiki pages publish a shorter version of the same idea: taming two Wolves is enough for a Good Flute, and two Alpha Wolves for a Strong Flute. Treat the shortcut as wiki-sourced rather than official — it agrees with our own route in direction, and it is the fastest known way to reach the apex animals the Level 3 perk saves food on.

One more published detail from those same pages: the Upgrade Station's fishing pond almost always yields Salmon, which is the ingredient Alpha Wolves want and the one that is slowest to farm by hand.

None of this is unique to the class, but the Zookeeper gets there faster, and that is the class's actual product.

The Minigame Perk Older Guides Still Describe

If you have read that the Zookeeper widens the green zone and makes the taming minigame easier — that is a description of an older build.

Four current class pages — rblxguide, a September tier list, a Zookeeper-versus-Beastmaster comparison and a second wiki — all list the Level 1 perk as taming whistle levels faster plus three pets regardless of flute level. None of them lists a minigame effect. Two wiki pages state directly that the old Level 1 perk was the easier minigame and the old Level 3 perk was faster flute leveling, and that both were replaced in the 2× Gem Weekend / Classes MK III update, the same patch that brought the class its one-less-step perk.

So the current picture is: the minigame help is gone, the flute speed moved to Level 1, the flute speed moved out of Level 3, and one-less-step took its place.

We are flagging rather than declaring, because the evidence for the change is two wiki pages for the change itself plus four current perks lists that merely omit it. Confirm against your own in-game perk text before you build a route on it. We have corrected the same stale claim on our Wolf, Fox, Bear and Mammoth taming pages, which still carried the old description.

Zookeeper vs Beastmaster, Briefly

The full comparison lives on the Beastmaster page. The short form:

That last row is the honest tiebreaker. The Beastmaster's army is a food cost that resets each run; the Zookeeper's pack is just animals you own. If your runs are short, or you cannot guarantee Steak, the 70-Diamond class keeps its pets and the 400-Diamond class does not.

Where the Tier Lists Put It

They do not agree, and the disagreement is informative.

A class tier list published in October 2026 ranks the Zookeeper in C, phrased as "tames three animals at once, outclassed by Beastmaster." A taming tracker published separately calls it the learning pick — best for learning flute routes and animal food — and puts the Beastmaster clearly ahead as the premium animal class. A comparison page reports the same split from the other side: tier data that weights impact puts the Zookeeper in a low-impact group, while the wiki pages are far more favourable on what the class does.

Read together, that is not a contradiction. Every one of those sources is comparing the Zookeeper to the Beastmaster, and every one reaches for the same conclusion: cheap, good at taming, outmatched in combat. The class is not a bad class. It is a class whose ceiling is lower and whose entry price is five times smaller.

Weaknesses Nobody Lists

The class has no combat perk at all. Not one of its three perks increases damage, speed or survivability. Everything it does is either feeding or taming. Compare that to the Berserker, Brawler or Cyborg at the same or lower price if your goal is surviving the night.

Its pets still obey the same targeting rule as any animal: they hit enemies you have shot or that have shot you. High-ammo weapons remain the tool, though one wiki page specifically recommends infinite-ammo options for this class — air rifles and alien tech — because you can mark targets without watching a counter.

The whistle does not rescue you upstairs. The same single source reports the recall whistle failing on the second floor of the Cultist Stronghold; it is the same report attached to the Beastmaster, and it is one source.

It is outclassed by the Beastmaster in raw power, which both wiki pages and at least one tier list say outright. That is a real cost at 70 Diamonds, because 70 Diamonds could also go toward a different class entirely.

Tips

Tame to the counter, not to the fight. Level 2 and Level 3 are gated on tamed-animal counts, so the run where you tame three Wolves and stop is a run where you never see the class's two best perks.

Use the Bunny-reset loop early and once. It is the cheapest way to clear a slice of the 30, and it costs one Carrot per tame.

Spend Level 3 on the animals that cost the most. Mammoth and Bear are where the saved cycle is worth real food.

Own your third slot. Two pets is the default; the Zookeeper's Level 1 is two extra slots you already have on night one.

Judge it on how many runs you plan to play. If a run is short and you tame once, the class is a two-pet class with a nicer starter flute. If you will run 99 nights, the counter eventually pays.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• 70 Diamonds — the cheapest class that changes how you play
• Three pets from Level 1, independent of flute level
• Faster flute XP, which shortens the road to Good and Strong
• Level 3 removes a whole cycle from every apex tame
• Level 2 makes a pet army much more forgiving to feed in long fights
• No per-fight food cost, unlike the Beastmaster

Cons

• No combat perk whatsoever
• Level 2 and 3 sit behind 30 and 60 tamed animals, on a single counter
• Whether that counter is per-class or per-run is published by nobody
• The easier-minigame perk older guides still quote has been replaced — check your perks
• Outclassed by the Beastmaster in anything combat-shaped
• Ranked as low-impact by at least one tier list weighting
• One source says the whistle does not work on the Stronghold's second floor

FAQ

How much does the Zookeeper cost? 70 Diamonds. Every source agrees.

How many pets does it give? Three, and unlike other classes that number does not depend on your flute's tier.

What is the Level 3 perk? One less step to tame an animal — one fewer cycle on every tame you start.

How do you level the class? By taming animals. Thirty for Level 2, sixty for Level 3.

Is the counter per run or permanent? Unpublished. It is the question that decides whether Level 3 is reachable, so ask in your own run.

Does it still make the taming minigame easier? Not per any current perks list. Two wiki pages say that was the old Level 1 perk and was replaced in Classes MK III.

Zookeeper or Beastmaster? Zookeeper at 70 if you want to learn taming or run a small pack cheaply; Beastmaster at 400 if you want five wolves and a Steak-funded warband.

Is the starting tool a flute or a whistle? Four sources say an Old Taming Flute; one says a Taming Whistle. We follow the four, and flag the dissent.

Related Pages

• All Classes — the cheap end of the price table
• Best Class — where this sits against combat classes
• Beastmaster Class — the five-pet comparison, in full
• Taming Guide — flute tiers, cycle counts and the pet cap table
• Best Pet — which animals are worth a slot
• Pet Food — every taming ingredient and where it drops
• How to Tame a Wolf — the first real pet
• How to Tame a Bear — where Level 3 saves the most
• How to Tame a Mammoth — the other big beneficiary
• Cultist Stronghold — the run this class is weakest in