With the Pet Mutations update now live and requiring pets to be at age/level 50 for the feature, leveling them up has become more important than ever in Grow a Garden. While long-time players may already be close, newer players might find the grind pretty tough. In this guide, we’ll share the best tips and tricks to help you level up your pets quickly and reach level 50 faster in Grow a Garden.
1. Feed Pets On Time
Before you can mutate pets in Grow a Garden, leveling up is a must. Feeding pets in Grow a Garden is often overlooked, but it’s essential for their age. Once you fill a pet’s hunger bar, it slowly depletes over 12 hours. If the bar hits zero, the pet gains less XP and stops roaming your plot, which affects its growth and usefulness.
To level up faster, make sure your pets are always well-fed and actively using their passive abilities. Although pets continue to grow offline, you need to be online when it’s feeding time to keep their progress efficient.
You can check a pet’s hunger by opening the Pet HUD from the right-side menu or by clicking on a specific pet. To feed them, hold a large fruit like Burning Bud or Sugar Apple and press the Feed button or click the F key after going near the pet. You can feed low-weight fruits as well, but bigger fruits will fill the hunger bar faster. Keep doing this regularly to maintain their hunger bar and maximize XP gain.
2. Use XP-Boosting Pets
Now that you understand how the hunger bar works, the next step to level up your pets to level 50 faster in Grow a Garden is to use XP-boosting pets. These special pets increase the XP gain for themselves and others on your plot, helping the pets age more easily. Pets like the Night Owl, Cooked Owl, and Blood Owl are some of the best choices for fast leveling.
Here’s a list of all the XP-boosting pets in Grow a Garden you should use for faster progression:
- Cooked Owl: Grants bonus experience per second to all active pets
- Blood Owl: Grants bonus experience per second to all active pets
- Owl: Grants bonus experience per second to all active pets
- Night Owl: Grants bonus experience per second to all active pets
- Capybara: Prevents hunger loss and grants experience every second nearby
- Sea Turtle: Occasionally grants bonus experience to a random active pet
- Ostrich: Pets hatched from eggs start with an increased age
- Iguanodon: Active Dinosaur pets gain additional experience
3. Upgrade Pet Equip Slot
Players start with 3 pet slots in Grow a Garden, and they can upgrade this to 5 more slots, bringing the total to 8 active pets. Since the Pet Mutation machine requires pets aged 50, it’s crucial to fill your plot with multiple XP-boosting pets to speed things up.
You can unlock extra pet slots using Robux or by trading aged pets at the Egg Shop. To do this, hold an aged pet and talk to the Raphael NPC, then select the ‘I want to sell my pet’ option to trade it in for a new slot. Keep in mind, there are two upgrade types: Pet Slot, which increases the number of pets that can roam your garden, and Egg Slot, which increases how many eggs you can hatch at once.
That said, here’s a list of requirements to unlock each pet slot upgrade in Grow a Garden:
| +1 Slot | Age 20 | 249 |
| +2 Slots | Age 30 | 399 |
| +3 Slots | Age 45 | 799 |
| +4 Slots | Age 60 | 1,699 |
| +5 Slots | Age 75 | 1,699 |
4. Use Pet Toys
Introduced with the Pet Mutations update, pet toys are a great way to boost your pet’s levels faster in Grow a Garden. These toys increase XP gain, boost happiness, or enhance passive abilities when used correctly. You can either craft them at the Crafting Table or buy them from the Gear Shop using in-game currency.
Below is a list of all pet toys in Grow a Garden, including how to get them and the benefits they provide:
| Small Toy | 1x Common Egg1x Coconut Seed1x Coconut1M Sheckles | Give your pet a small boost to their passive ability |
| Small Treat | 1x Common Egg1x Dragon Fruit1x Blueberry1M Sheckles | Give your pet a small boost to their xp over time |
| Medium Toy | 4,000,000 Million Sheckles | Give your pet a medium boost to their passive ability |
| Medium Treat | 5,000,000 Million Sheckles | Give your pet a medium boost to their xp over time |
| Levelup Lollipop | 10 Billion Sheckles | Increases your pet’s age by 1 |
These are all the ways you can level up your pets in Grow a Garden faster and reach age 50 easily. Have you started leveling them up yet? Which one of your pets is close to being the level 50 mark? Let us know in the comments.
