Turtles in Minecraft: How to tame, breed, & get scutes

Turtles in Minecraft drop items called scutes, which can be useful to you. If you still haven’t interacted with a turtle in Minecraft, here’s how you can breed them as well as what food items to feed them and where to find them.

Minecraft’s Overworld has a mix of both animals as well as fantasy-themed hostile and neutral mobs. Many of these mobs like Iron Golems often help you defend villages or against mobs like skeletons, spiders, and zombies at night, but others like foxes and cats are mostly kept as pets as they’re considered adorable and non-hostile.

Horses are great animals to have as well, as they can be used in speedy transportation over long distances. However, you may be wondering about having turtles as pets, as they can drop an item unique to them, known as scute, so here’s how to find, tame, and breed them.

• Where to find turtles in Minecraft
• What do turtles eat in Minecraft?
• How to tame turtles in Minecraft
• How to breed turtles in Minecraft
• How to hatch turtle eggs in Minecraft
• How to get scutes from turtles in Minecraft
• Why you should collect scutes in Minecraft
• Do turtles drop scutes when killed?
• Are scutes rare in Minecraft?

Where to find turtles in Minecraft

You can find turtles in Minecraft’s beach biomes where they spawn on sand blocks. Naturally, finding a turtle is the first step toward breeding it.

Do note that turtles do not spawn on snowy or stone beaches. You’ll find them only on sand blocks which makes them slightly rare.

Lastly, turtles spawn four blocks within the sea level and in places with light level 8 or higher. These conditions should make your turtle hunt in the game more effortless and precise.

Turtles walk slowly on the land but their movement speed increases significantly in the water. Being passive mobs, they flee when attacked.

What do turtles eat in Minecraft?

Turtles in Minecraft eat seagrass and this food item also helps in breeding them. To find seagrass, you must explore the bottom of oceans and other water sources. The plant grows near kelp and is fairly easy to obtain.

It is worth noting that seagrass can only be mined with shears. If you use any other tool, it will drop nothing. Use this crafting recipe to make shears in Minecraft:

To manually grow seagrass, you can place bone meal on a non-transparent underwater block.

How to tame turtles in Minecraft

You cannot tame a turtle in Minecraft but if you’re holding seagrass, it will follow you. This greatly helps in controlling turtles’ movement and getting them to breed. A turtle follows you if you’re holding seagrass and are located within ten blocks.

Turtles cannot be attached to leads like horses and dogs. Having said that, you can put them in boats or carts.

How to breed turtles in Minecraft

You need seagrass to breed turtles in Minecraft. Go to a beach biome and search for turtles on the shore. Use the plant to attract nearby turtles and when two turtles are close to each other, feed them both seagrass.

With this, the turtles should enter love mode and one of them will go to its home beach (the beach where it originally spawned). It will dig the sand block nearest to its spawn point for a few seconds and lay 1-4 turtle eggs. You must follow the turtle to its home to hatch the eggs.

Luckily, turtles in Minecraft do not have a breeding cooldown. As soon as a turtle lays the eggs, it is ready for breeding again, and this way, you can have a massive turtle farm in no time.

How to hatch turtle eggs in Minecraft

Turtle eggs in Minecraft mostly hatch during the night and the entire process takes up to 4-5 in-game nights. There’s a 90% chance that the eggs with hatch before seven nights. You have to stay near the eggs (within 128 blocks) for them to hatch.

You can’t really speed up the hatching process but protecting turtle eggs from hostile mobs like zoglins, zombies, and husks is a must. Place a torch or a light source near the eggs to protect them from undead mobs. With time, you’ll be able to observe cracks and three different stages that signify that the eggs are about to hatch.

Moreover, to relocate/mine the eggs, you’ll have to use the Silk Touch enchantment on your tools. However, mining also resets the hatching progress to zero.

All in all, protecting the turtle eggs from mobs while they naturally crack is the only way to effectively hatch them.

How to get scutes from turtles in Minecraft

Baby turtles in Minecraft drop scutes when they mature into adults. This is the only way to obtain scutes. To boost the growth of a baby turtle by 10 percent, just feed it seagrass. Repeating the procedure will allow you to have mature turtles quickly.

Turtles might not be as useful as cats or llamas, but having them near your in-game house won’t really take up any valuable resources except seagrass.

Why you should collect scutes in Minecraft

Here’s why scutes can prove to be effective in Minecraft:

• Scutes help in making a turtle shell that increases your underwater breathing time by 10 seconds.
• The turtle shell is also an ingredient used to make The Potion of the Turtle Master. The potion increases resistance but also adds slowness.

Do turtles drop scutes when killed?

No, turtles don’t drop scutes when killed, and baby turtles don’t drop anything at all. This can make it a little harder for you to get scutes quick, as you can’t use enchantments like Looting on your swords and kill turtles to obtain more then one scute.

Are scutes rare in Minecraft?

Scutes are somewhat rare in Minecraft as there’s only one way to obtain them, which is when they grow up. In addition, one baby turtle only drops one scute, and the process of the mob growing up into an adult takes a full Minecraft day, which is around 20 minutes of real-time. While all this doesn’t make scute the rarest resource in Minecraft, it still makes it pretty scarce, especially if you haven’t made a turtle farm.

That’s everything to know about Turtles and scute in Minecraft. For similar content, check out:

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