How to breed Turtles in Minecraft

Alex Garton
Minecraft Turtle

Turtles are a great addition to the sandbox world of Minecraft but it can be difficult to catch and breed them, so here’s exactly how to breed Turtles in the game and the rewards you can get for doing so.

If you want to harvest resources from animals in Minecraft, you typically have to kill the creature before you receive their unique items in the form of loot drops, however, with Turtles in the game the process is a bit longer.

To reap the rewards that Turtles can provide in the game, you’ll need to keep the animals safe, have them breed, and make sure their offspring grow up healthy.

Without further ado, here’s how to breed Turtles in Minecraft, and all the rewards you can obtain.

Contents

An image of a turtle in Minecraft.
You’ll need to breed Turtles in Minecraft before you can get rewards.

How to breed Sea Turtles in Minecraft?

Breeding Turtles in Minecraft is as simple as getting two together and feeding them sea grass. This will put the turtles into love mode. Once the turtles are in love mode, one will become pregnant and try to make their way back to their home beach (where they first spawned) to lay their eggs.

Turtles lay eggs in clutches of 1-4, and the eggs will hatch in 4-5 days. Eggs will only hatch if they are placed on a sand or red sand block and if they are above water level. However, eggs can be destroyed quite easily, either by the player or by being trampled or walked over by the player or any mobs wandering the world of Minecraft. However, turtle eggs can be farmed with a tool enchanted with Silk Touch, allowing the player to pick them up and relocate them somewhere safe. This also allows you to re-set these newborn turtles’ home beach, so breeding those turtles will have them lay their eggs where you placed the eggs they hatched from.

How to find and catch Sea Turtles in Minecraft?

Sea Turtles can be found throughout your Minecraft world in beach biomes. They can be found swimming in the oceans nearby or just scuttling across the sand.

Unfortunately, turtles cannot be attached to leads and dragged back to your base for breeding, so they will have to be lured back instead.

Turtles will be attracted to a player holding sea grass and will follow them. However, if your base is a long way from the beach, no worries. Sea Turtles can be lured into boats and minecarts for quick transportation.

An image sea Turtles in Minecraft.
You’ll need to use sea grass to catch Turtles in Minecraft.

Sea Turtle rewards

Breeding Sea Turtles is the only way to get scute in Minecraft. When baby turtles hatch and grow into adults, they will drop scute naturally (there’s no need to kill them). So as long as you keep enough turtles laying eggs and nurture the babies into adulthood you can easily farm scute.

Scutes are useful not only for trading with cleric and leatherworker villagers, but they are the only way to get a turtle shell.

In addition, if you have a turtle shell and it is damaged, the only way to repair a turtle shell is to combine it with scute in an anvil.

How to make a Turtle Shell in Minecraft

The recipe for Minecraft’s turtle shell.

The recipe for crafting a turtle shell is 5 scutes. Simply arrange them in the pattern seen above.

What is a turtle shell used for in Minecraft?

Turtle shells are extremely useful because they will grant the Water Breathing status, which gives you 10 seconds of extra breathing time underwater.

However, the downside of a turtle shell is that it replaces a helmet and cannot be enchanted. This means that you will have less armor to protect you, and you can miss out on enchantments like Aqua Affinity (helmets can also be enchanted with Respiration, which helps you breathe underwater as well).

The turtle shell offers the same amount of defensive points as gold, chainmail, and iron helmets, so it’s not completely useless. In addition, the shell is incredibly useful while exploring underwater caverns and hidden areas.

Hopefully, that’s taught you exactly how to breed turtles in Minecraft and why doing so can yield such big rewards. Check below for more Minecraft guides!

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About The Author

Alex Garton is a former writer for Dexerto. He has a BA in English Literature and has been a Games Writer for over four years. He has previously written for Gfinity and TOP10Esports. Specializing in Call of Duty and Apex Legends, he also enjoys diving into new releases to create informative guides.