Minecraft’s wildlife features not only the familiar creatures like sheep or pigs but also very exotic and fictional animals. Among them is the new Sniffer, a large and slow creature that likes to dig around in the ground and can give you rare items. The Sniffer has many exciting mechanics, which are not always easy for players to understand. Perhaps you don’t even know how to obtain this mob at all. Therefore, we present everything important about the Sniffer in this guide!
Finding and Breeding Sniffers
You won’t find Sniffers in the Overworld of Minecraft, as they do not spawn naturally and must be found and then hatched by you. In terms of lore, Sniffers are very old and already extinct animals that you, as a player, can essentially revive. For this, you need a Sniffer Egg.
This can be found through an archaeological excavation. We have already written a large article on this topic (Minecraft Archaeology: Discover All Excavation Sites & Rare Items) , if you want to learn more about it. For the Sniffer Egg, you should focus on warm ocean ruins. It’s best to use a potion of night vision and underwater breathing to search for suspicious sand with your brush. Sniffer Eggs have a 6.7% chance of appearing. And you’ll need at least two eggs for an effective farm.
Hatching and Breeding Sniffer Eggs
You need to hatch the egg, and it’s best to do so on a moss block. With our article on a moss farm (Automatic Minecraft Moss Farm: Generate Infinite Bone Meal) , you’ll surely have plenty of them! Simply place it and wait around ten minutes for the egg to hatch. In the meantime, the egg will crack and emit green particles to signal its progress. Eventually, a small Sniffer baby will hatch, which will then take another twenty minutes to grow into a full-fledged Sniffer.
We mentioned that you should look for at least two eggs. Because when you have two Sniffers, you can breed and raise them yourself. For this, you’ll need torchflower seeds. You use these like items in normal breeding but will receive another egg to hatch. But you’re surely wondering how to obtain these seeds for breeding. That’s where the unique ability of the Sniffer comes into play!
Rare Plants for Your Minecraft World
Sniffers live up to their name and like to sniff around on the ground. Every eight minutes, they have a chance to dig up one of two rare seeds. This is where the aforementioned torchflower seeds and pitcher plant pods come into play! Both have a 50% chance of being dug up by a Sniffer. The seeds or pods can then be collected by you.
This only works on the following blocks:
- Dirt
- Grass Block
- Podzol
- Coarse Dirt
- Rooted Dirt
- Moss Block
- Mud
- Muddy Mangrove Roots
Uses and Applications of the New Crops
Interestingly, the pitcher plant and torchflower are not flowers but actually crops! You need to cultivate the seeds with farmland, just like wheat or carrots. Both flowers are really beautiful and much more detailed than any other plants in Minecraft. It’s worth searching for Sniffers just for that. You won’t get seeds from growing them, only the flowers. However, you can still build automatic fields with water (Build an Automatic Wheat Farm in Minecraft: Unlimited Wheat with Minimal Effort) .
At the end of the day, both flowers are primarily intended for decoration. You can turn them into orange or cyan dye, but it might not be worth it for such rare plants. They can also be composted or used for breeding bees. Additionally, the torchflower can be used to create a suspicious stew that gives you the night vision effect for five seconds.
Building Your Own Automatic Sniffer Farm
So, to have enough seeds, you need enough Sniffers and preferably an automatic way to collect the dug-up seeds. We present two different methods for doing this. Both are equally effective but use different Minecraft mechanics.
Starting Point: For both farms, a very similar setup is necessary. First, measure out a field of 10x10 blocks and fill it with a block that the Sniffer can dig through. Normal grass is perfectly sufficient. Surround the field with a 3-block high wall, with glass or fences being the best options. The roof should be made of slabs to prevent monsters from spawning on it. Illuminate the farm itself with torches.
Once you’ve installed one of the two mechanisms, you can bring your Sniffers into the farm using a lead. And, of course, you can hatch more baby Sniffers and expand your farm.
Allays as Helpers
Allays are helpful creatures that we have also discussed in detail in another article. Their ability is to collect items and give them to the player. However, with the help of note blocks, we can also make Allays drop items over a hopper.
On one side of the cage, you should build a small collection basin for the Allays’ drops. To keep the note block ringing continuously, use two observers facing each other to emit a constant signal. The Allays will then fly to the note block and drop the dug-up pitcher plant pods and torchflower seeds into the hoppers. Two Allays are completely sufficient, and you give each one of the seeds for the exotic plants.
Rail System with Hoppers
If you haven’t found any Allays yet or prefer another method, you can also build a simple rail system with a hopper minecart under the 10x10 field.
Again, start on one side and place two hoppers and a double chest in front of them. Then lay out a rail network that covers each block once. In between, you’ll need 4 sections with 3 powered rails each, powered by a lever. This allows you to have a hopper minecart run indefinitely, collecting the pods and seeds from the earth layer above and placing them in the chest.
Conclusion
Sniffers are incredibly cute and fit perfectly into Minecraft! They have unique abilities that allow you to cultivate long-forgotten plants and use them for decoration. Rent your own Minecraft server with us and embark on a quest with your friends to find the rare Sniffer eggs, start your breeding, and build an automatic farm.
