Game · Items
Meat Cleaver
Tech Level 12. Early systems tool that opens the Pet → Butcher flow once basic furnaces and logging are online. Attack sits near 25, so it can swing as weak melee, but the real job is ranch and party management: equip the cleaver, switch a Pal from Pet to Butcher, and the game permanently removes that Pal for its item drops. That removal is final, so only use Butcher on pals you are ready to spend.
Recipe: Ingot ×5 + Wood ×20 + Stone ×5. Twenty Wood is the bulk sink, so keep logging pals feeding the chest. Five Ingot and five Stone are easy once early smelting runs, so park all three mats beside the weapon bench for unlock night.
Keep Meat Cleaver in the ranch chest for deliberate Butcher sessions, not as your main field weapon. Use Metal Spear when you want early poke damage without touching the Butcher switch. Figures are for Palworld 1.0.5; recheck Tech level, craft counts, Attack, and Butcher behavior in game after a later patch.