Minecraft Wool Farm Guide: How to Easily Automate Wool Farming in All Colours

Sheep are one of the animals you can find and breed in Minecraft. They not only provide you with delicious meat but also wool. This can be farmed without killing the animal. With shears, you can collect massive amounts of wool for your constructions! Wool comes in many different colours and is a wonderful block to make your Minecraft world more colourful. To save you the hassle of shearing your sheep manually, there is a fully automatic wool farm. This farm is not only easy to build but can be set up for all colours. In this post, we’ll show you exactly how to do it!

Wool in Minecraft: Collecting Colours and Farming Efficiently

First, let’s take a closer look at wool. This block has been present in Minecraft since the Alpha version and can be obtained from sheep. In the overworld, it is rarely found, except in woodland mansions. Therefore, sheep are your best bet to collect enough wool.

Finding and Farming Sheep: Natural Spawns in Minecraft

You will find sheep scattered around the overworld in most biomes. They often appear in herds, so you may find several sheep together. However, when you create your Minecraft world, it’s predetermined how many sheep spawn where. If you kill them, no new sheep will spawn, and you’ll have to search for a new herd. Most wild sheep have white wool, but sometimes it can be brown, black, grey, or light grey. In very rare cases, there are even pink sheep!

You can shear sheep with shears made from iron ingots and a right-click. Sheep drop 1-3 wool blocks. The wool regrows when the sheep eats grass from a block. This is the natural cycle, and you can make use of it! Breed sheep and gather enough wool. We’ve talked about animal breeding in a previous article (Building a Minecraft Farm: Simple Guide for Food and Resources) if you want to refresh your knowledge. You can also dye sheep with dyes to obtain a specific wool colour. A flower farm is perfect for this, and we’ve already written an article about it on this blog.

Using Wool in Your World

You can craft various items from wool, including beds, carpets, and banners. These come in 16 different colours and are perfect for making your world more vibrant. You can dye wool as you like, with no restrictions. However, the colour is irrelevant when using wool for paintings.

With white, brown, grey, and black wool, you can trade with villagers for emeralds. You’ll need 18 pieces, at least for a normal trade.

One of the newest uses for wool is in the Deep Dark, the new biome found underground. There, you need to move quietly to avoid transmitting sound waves. Wool is a very practical block that muffles sounds.

Building a Minecraft Wool Farm: Step-by-Step Guide

An automatic wool farm is really easy to build and can be expanded into a large farm thanks to its compact design. You only need one sheep per colour, so 16 in total. The design can be applied to a small area and can be built in almost any world. It works fully automatically as long as you have enough shears available. If you need iron, check out our tutorial for an iron farm (How to Build an Iron Farm: Unlimited Supply of Iron) .

Materials for an Automatic Minecraft Wool Farm

For one chamber of the wool farm:

• 6 full glass blocks
• 1 observer
• 1 dispenser
• 1 redstone dust
• Chest
• 1 hopper
• 1 minecart with hopper
• 1 rail
• 1 trapdoor

Step-by-Step Guide

First, use the six glass blocks to build a small enclosure. This is the foundation where the sheep will be kept. It’s best to build this farm on a flat area with grass blocks, as these are necessary for the sheep to regenerate its wool. This way, you also won’t see what happens under the farm. Everything blends well into the landscape. Glass is also important to ensure the grass gets enough sunlight. Therefore, you should not build a roof on the farm.

The redstone mechanism is easy to explain. Dig one block deep on the open side of the farm. Place the observer facing the grass block. This way, it detects when the sheep eats and regenerates its wool. Above it, place the dispenser facing the glass blocks. Place the redstone dust on the block behind the observer and next to the dispenser. Fill the dispenser with enough shears.

The collection mechanism uses the minecart with hopper because it can pick up items through a solid block. Dig a small tunnel under the farm. There should be two blocks free under the grass block between the glass. Place a hopper with a chest under there, a rail on the hopper, and then the minecart with hopper. Fill the hole again and install a trapdoor in front of the glass to access the chest.

When the sheep eats, the observer detects it and activates the dispenser. This shears the sheep, and the wool effectively falls through the floor into the minecart with hopper and thus into the chest.

You can now lure the sheep into the chamber using a lead or wheat. We’ve added a wool block above the dispenser to indicate the colour.

You can repeat this setup for 15 more sheep and dye them according to all the colours in Minecraft. Design your wool farm with different wool blocks or even with coloured glass! It looks even cooler and highlights the colourful nature of the game.

Conclusion: Why You Should Build an Automatic Wool Farm in Minecraft

You should definitely build a wool farm in your world because it’s not only super easy to set up but also runs completely in the background without your intervention. Over time, you’ll accumulate wool in all 16 Minecraft colours with just a little effort. Build colourful carpets or venture into the depths to find the Warden. Generate an endless amount of wool in all colours on your own server. Rent your Minecraft server and expand your building options!