Craft Improvised Arrows in DayZ Standalone

The Improvised Ashwood Short Bow can be a useful tool due to its silent attack. However, players will rarely find enough composite arrows to use this weapon extensively. Crafting your own Improvised Arrows is the solution to this problem. The arrows can be crafted quickly after you have gathered the needed resources.

In This Guide:

• Resources and Tools Needed
• Hunting Chickens for Feathers
• Finding and Creating Wooden Sticks
• Sharpening Sticks
• Crafting Improvised Arrows
• What You Need To Know

Note: DayZ is currently available in for early access during their Alpha Testing. Future versions can involve changes that can effect the information provided. This article was written based off version .49, but will be updated if needed as new versions are released.

The basic resources below are needed for crafting the Improvised Arrows.

• Chicken Feathers
• Wooden Sticks
• Machete, Combat Knife, or Butcher Knife

To most players, chicken feathers are the hardest resource needed to craft Improvised Arrows. Many have never seen a chicken in the game, and may even believe that they have not yet been added. However, it seems that chickens are difficult to find due to being killed quickly by zombies.

Msta

I have been able to locate the chicken several times in Msta, a town near the southeast corner of the map. It is to the east of Staroye, which is directly north of the coastal city of Elektrozavodsk. I have found this chicken in the back yard of the pub in three separate games, each in different lobbies. You will have the best chance of finding the chicken directly after a server restarts.

As of today, I have not been successful in finding the chicken in any other town or city. This does not mean that they can not be found in another location.

Chickens

Every chicken that I found was white, with a bright red face. They are often in tall grass, which can make them hard to spot from long distances. It is a small animal that is unable to outrun a player or zombie. This makes it easy to kill with a range or melee weapon. In one game I killed the chicken with a Pickaxe.

Currently, one chicken can produce around 140 feathers, after being prepared several times.

Preparing a Chicken

You will need to use a Machete, Combat Knife, or Butcher Knife to prepare the chicken. This will produce 20 feathers and some raw chicken breast. You can repeat this action until it stop producing feathers. Make sure you move the meat around in order to make sure there are no feathers hiding under it.

Chicken Feathers

20 feathers can be stacked in a single block of space inside your backpack or an article of clothing. However, they are easily ruined when damage is done to the article of clothing that they are currently in. I normally keep them in my backpack in order to protect them for long periods of time.

Like Ashwood Sticks, wooden sticks are not commonly found while looting. There are three methods for obtaining these sticks.

1. Search in Forrest
2. Chop Kindling
3. Craft From Firewood

Search in Forest

This method does not require any special tools, but can take more time than the other methods.

1. You first must go into the forest and look for an area where the ground appears to be a combination of sticks and leaves.
2. Select your action button, white text should appear on your screen "Search for Kindling"
3. Select your action button again.
4. Wait for the animation to finish, text will appear in the lower left hand side of your screen. If the text reads "I have found something!" then you have located a wooden stick. It will be added to your inventory if you have space or will be in the vicinity if you do not.
5. If the text reads "I have not found a thing" then move to another spot and go back to step 2.

Chop Kindling

A Machete, firefighters axe, chopping axe, or combat knife is needed for this method. This is much faster than searching for kindling and can often be done directly in a town or on the outskirts. This method will drop a bundle of three sticks.

1. Find a bush or small tree.
2. Hold one of the tools or Melee Weapons listed above in your hand.
3. Approach the bush or small tree, the text "chop for kindling" should appear on your screen.
4. Press your action button.

Craft from Firewood

You will need a fireman's or chopping axe in order to use this method. Chopping down a single tree often gives a player multiple pieces of firewood, each piece can be converted into three wooden sticks. This can also be done with the piece of firewood that drops when chopping down the Ashwood Tree for the stick needed to craft the Improvised Ashwood Long Bow.

1. Drag your firewood over the Machete or approach firewood while holding an axe.
2. Select the option to craft wooden sticks from firewood

In order to sharpen a stick, you will need a machete, combat knife, or a butcher knife. Be sure to check to monitor the current status of your knife, sharpening it when it becomes badly damaged will prevent it from becoming ruined.

Steps for Sharpening a Stick:

1. Open your inventory so that both the stick and your bladed tool are visible
2. Drag a stick over the bladed tool, the stick background should turn orange
3. Release the button, and a menu will pop up
4. Select "sharpen a stick"

Crafting the arrows is easy once all the resources have been gathered.

1. Drag a feather over a sharpened stick, the feather background should turn orange.
2. Release the button, a menu should appear
3. Select "Craft Improvised Arrow from Chicken feather and Sharpened Stick"

• Wooden Sticks are also used to craft backpacks, splints, and fireplace kits.
• You can stack a total of 5 wooden sticks in 2 vertical spots. Sharpened sticks also take up 2 vertical spots, but can not be stacked. 5 Improvised Arrows can be stacked in 2 horizontal spots. It is often a good idea to wait on sharpening sticks until you have the chicken feathers needed to make the arrows.
• Improvised arrows can be reused when you can find them. This makes them ideal for target practice in a controlled environment. However, I have been unable to retrieve an arrow that hit a zombie or animal.