Prehistoric Farm Beginner Guide: First Fossil to Ranch

Last updated 2026-10-13

To raise your first dinosaur in Prehistoric Farm, equip your starter shovel, launch a boat to Cambrian, complete a fossil set, exchange it with Dr. Ivy at Home, incubate the egg, then place and feed the newborn on your ranch. Digging, egg warming and dinosaur growth are separate steps: a fossil in your bag has not yet become a rideable animal.

From Home to your first ranch dinosaur

1. Equip the shovel and leave from the dock. Use Launch Boat and sail toward Cambrian. CHALLS’ tutorial approaches it east of the starting area; use that as a recorded first-trip route, rather than a compass direction for every destination. Keep Home Island in mind because the fossil exchange is back there.
2. Approach a glowing dig site. The published digging screenshot says M1 Hold to dig. On PC, hold the digging action and release when its meter enters green. The original recordings include fossils, empty digs, cash and buried treasure, so a green release is useful timing rather than a guaranteed fossil. Repeat until your target collection is ready.
3. Check Fossils before selling. Ricoko’s recording describes a green collection as combinable. The older first-play recording also reaches Ready to extract DNA. A tutorial mentions five trilobite finds, while another scene says three out of six and three still needed. Follow your selected set’s displayed requirement; those scenes do not make five or six the recipe for every species.
4. Return to the DNA Lab at Home Island. Talk to Dr. Ivy and choose Get Egg for the completed fossil set. The recorded Home approach uses the waterfall as a landmark. Continue with Visit the Incubator, then Place the Egg and choose the egg you made.
5. Wait for that egg, hatch it and care for the newborn. Egg warming depends on the egg. After hatching, place the dinosaur on your ranch and keep its Belly above half; the growth guide says growth stops at half or lower. Meat and vegetables are named food options. Set aside food money before spending all your Coins on the next shovel.

Two recorded egg examples

Jurassic Dinoz’s October 5 first-play session gives a five-minute first egg and a two-minute-thirty-second second egg. Their captioned names are interpreted as Hallucigenia and Tiktaalik; the original spellings are “hallucenia/hallucinia” and “tick talic/ticktallic/Tectalic.” Those normalized names remain unconfirmed, and 300 or 150 seconds describes those recorded eggs, rather than every Cambrian or Devonian egg. Use your actual egg timer in the incubation planner.

Choose the next trip by what you need

The October 5 creator buys Bronze at Home for 2,500 Coins and then digs in Devonian. The later Silver recipe is 8,000 Coins, five Aquamarine Shards from Cambrian rocks and eight Red Jasper from Devonian rocks. Keep recipe stock separate from fossils you are comfortable selling. The DNA exchange guide covers readiness and return steps; growth and feeding explains a stalled newborn; Silver Shovel opens the next material and flying-pet objectives.