If you’ve ever trekked across a sprawling Minecraft desert, you’ve probably spotted tall, goofy camels wandering past cactus patches and abandoned villages. These passive mobs are one of the most useful mounts you can get in the game, thanks to their ability to carry two players and walk over gaps without taking fall damage. But if you want to add one to your stable, you first need to know what do camels eat in Minecraft, and how to use those foods to get the most out of your new mount. I’ve spent dozens of playthroughs testing camel mechanics, and I’m breaking down everything you need to know below.
What Do Camels Eat in Minecraft: Their 2 Favorite Food Items
First, let’s get the core question out of the way. Camels have two primary food sources in Minecraft, each with different uses for taming, healing, and breeding. Cactus is their go-to snack for taming and minor healing, and it’s super easy to find anywhere in the desert biome where camels naturally spawn. You don’t even need to cook it or process it, just break a cactus block and pick up the drops. The second food item is hay bales, which are used specifically for breeding two adult camels to get a baby camel calf, and for healing more significant health damage if your mount gets hurt during a journey.
It’s important to note that camels won’t eat any other common Minecraft food items, no matter how much you try to feed them wheat, carrots, or meat. I’ve wasted half a stack of wheat trying to get a skittish wild camel to come to me before I learned this the hard way, so save yourself the trouble and only bring cactus when you go camel hunting. You can reference this quick breakdown of their diet to avoid mistakes:
- Cactus: Tames wild camels, restores 2 hearts of health per piece, speeds up baby camel growth by 1 minute per piece
- Hay bale: Triggers breeding between two adult camels, restores 10 hearts of health per bale, speeds up baby camel growth by 3 minutes per bale
- No other food items: Camels will ignore wheat, carrots, apples, meat, and all other common mob food sources
You can farm both of these food items easily at your base if you want to build a permanent camel herd. Cactus grows on sand blocks with access to light, and hay bales are crafted from 9 wheat stalks, which you can grow on any tilled grass block with water nearby. I usually set up a small cactus farm right next to my wheat patches if I’m building a base in or near a desert, so I never run out of camel food.
How to Use Cactus to Tame a Wild Camel
Taming a camel is way simpler than taming a horse or a donkey, as long as you have enough cactus on hand. First, you’ll need to find a camel spawning in a desert biome, usually near villages or desert temples. Make sure you don’t have any weapons equipped, because if you hit a camel by accident, it will run away from you for a few seconds. If you’re still double checking what do camels eat in Minecraft before your trip, just pack 5 to 10 cactus pieces and you’ll be covered even if you find multiple camels to tame.
Hold the cactus in your hotbar and select it, then walk up to the camel slowly. Right-click (or tap the interact button on console/mobile) to feed it the cactus. You’ll see red hearts pop up above its head once it’s tamed, usually after 1 to 3 pieces of cactus. Once tamed, you can put a saddle on it to ride it, and it will never run away from you even if you leave it unattended for hours. You don’t need to feed it regularly to keep it alive, unlike pets like dogs or cats, so you can leave it tied up outside your base for days without worrying about it despawning or dying.
I usually bring at least 5 pieces of cactus when I go looking for camels, just in case I find two that I want to tame and bring back to my base. One quick tip: always break cactus from the bottom block so you don’t take damage from the sharp top blocks. It’s a silly mistake, but I’ve lost half a heart more times than I can count grabbing cactus too fast when I’m in a hurry to catch a wandering camel.
How to Breed Camels With Hay Bales
If you want to build a whole herd of camels, or just get a baby camel for your base, you’ll need to breed two adult tamed camels using hay bales. First, make sure both camels are close to each other, and that there are no blocks blocking the space between them. You’ll need at least one hay bale per camel, so bring two total minimum to trigger breeding. You don’t need to build a fancy pen for breeding, but I usually put up a 2-block high fence around them so they don’t wander apart before they can mate.
Hold the hay bale in your hand, and right-click each camel to feed it. You’ll see hearts pop up above both camels, and they’ll walk towards each other to mate. After a few seconds, a baby camel calf will spawn next to them. Baby camels take 20 minutes to grow into adults naturally, but you can speed that up by feeding them cactus or extra hay bales if you want to use them as a mount faster. Baby camels can’t be ridden until they’re fully grown, so you don’t need to waste a saddle on them until you see them reach their full adult height.
Breeding camels is especially useful if you play on a multiplayer server, because each camel can carry two players, so you don’t have to make multiple trips to bring friends across the desert. I usually set up a small camel pen near my desert base with a cactus farm and a wheat farm to make hay bales, so I never run out of food for my herd. If you breed camels repeatedly, you can even set up a small camel trading post for other players on your server to get their own mounts.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Feeding Camels
Even though camel feeding mechanics are pretty straightforward, there are a few common mistakes new players make that waste resources or make taming way harder than it needs to be. First, don’t try to feed cactus to a camel that’s already tamed unless you need to heal it or speed up a baby’s growth. Tamed camels don’t need to be fed regularly to stay alive, unlike some other passive mobs like cows or sheep, so you don’t have to stockpile tons of cactus just to keep them alive. If you’re still confused about what do camels eat in Minecraft for different use cases, just stick to cactus for taming and healing, and hay bales for breeding, and you’ll never go wrong.
Never feed a camel cactus that’s still placed on the ground, because you’ll take damage from the cactus block and the camel won’t eat it anyway. You have to have the cactus as an item in your hand to feed it to them. Another mistake is trying to breed camels with cactus instead of hay bales. I’ve seen new players spend 10 minutes feeding stacks of cactus to two camels wondering why they won’t breed, and it’s always because they didn’t know only hay bales work for breeding.
One last thing to remember: if you’re riding a camel across the desert and it takes fall damage from jumping off a cliff, you can feed it cactus or hay bales while you’re still riding it to heal it up, no need to get off first. That’s a huge time saver if you’re in the middle of a long trip to a desert temple or a distant village, and you don’t want to stop to dismount and heal your mount.
Camels are one of the most underrated mounts in Minecraft, especially for long desert journeys or multiplayer play sessions. Knowing what do camels eat in Minecraft lets you tame, breed, and keep these handy mounts healthy without wasting resources or time trying to feed them the wrong items. Next time you head out to explore a desert, throw a few pieces of cactus and a hay bale or two in your inventory, and you’ll be able to bring home a new camel companion before you know it. Don’t forget to build a covered pen for them at your base so they don’t wander off, and enjoy skipping all those annoying desert ravines without taking fall damage.