If you’ve ever stumbled across a group of slow-moving turtles sunning themselves on a sandy Minecraft beach, you’ve probably wondered how to keep them around, or even breed a whole colony to get rare scutes for turtle master potions. A common first question for new players is what do turtles eat in Minecraft, and the answer is simpler than you might think, but there are a few quirks to turtle care that most players miss their first time around. I’ve spent dozens of hours building turtle farms on both single-player and public survival servers, and I’ve picked up all the small hacks to make raising these mobs way less frustrating, even if you’re playing on a hard mode world with lots of hostile mobs around. This guide will cover everything from their favorite food to how to use that food to get the rare scute drops you need, plus all the common mistakes to avoid so you don’t waste hours of your time like I did my first try.
What Do Turtles Eat in Minecraft, and Where Do You Find It?
If you’re still confused about what do turtles eat in Minecraft, the short answer is seagrass, and only seagrass. Seagrass is the only food that Minecraft turtles will eat, both for luring them to your base and triggering breeding mode. Unlike many other passive mobs that have multiple food options, turtles are extremely picky, and won’t even glance at other aquatic food items you might have in your inventory. Turtles will ignore every other food item you offer them, even raw fish that most other aquatic mobs like dolphins and axolotls go crazy for.
To get seagrass, you’ll need a pair of shears. If you break seagrass with your hand, a pickaxe, or any other tool besides shears, it will break without dropping any items, so don’t make that mistake. You can find seagrass growing naturally on sand or dirt blocks under water in almost every ocean biome, from shallow warm coral reefs to deep frozen arctic oceans. It’s usually very easy to spot, as it grows in tall green clumps that stick up from the sea floor.
If you can’t find seagrass near your base, you can grow it yourself in seconds. All you need is a single bone meal, and a block of sand or dirt that’s submerged under at least one block of water. Place the bone meal on the submerged block, and seagrass will start growing immediately. I used to waste 10 minutes swimming around looking for seagrass before I realized I could just pop a single bone meal on a submerged sand block right next to my beach base and get all I needed in 2 seconds. You can even build a small seagrass farm right next to your turtle pen so you never run out, even if you’re breeding dozens of turtles at a time.
How to Use Seagrass to Lure and Breed Turtles
Now that you know what do turtles eat in Minecraft, you can start luring them to your base to set up a farm. You don’t technically “tame” turtles like you do wolves or cats, but holding seagrass in your main hand or offhand will make any nearby turtle follow you, as long as you stay within 10 blocks of them. I recommend keeping seagrass in your offhand when moving turtles, so you can hold a weapon or building block in your main hand to defend yourself from drowned or other hostile mobs that spawn near the water.
To breed turtles, you just need to feed seagrass to two adult turtles. Once you do, they’ll enter love mode, and one of the turtles will become pregnant with eggs. Here’s the big quirk most new players don’t know: If you’re breeding turtles away from their original spawn beach, they won’t lay eggs at your base unless you first transport them to your desired beach and wait for them to lay their first set of eggs there. Turtles always return to the beach they spawned on to lay eggs, so if you lure them from a beach 300 blocks away, they’ll immediately turn around and swim all the way back after breeding if you don’t trap them.
I made this mistake my first time trying to build a turtle farm. I lured two turtles all the way from a coral reef biome to my base, fed them seagrass, and then watched confused as they immediately booked it back the way I came. I had to chase them for 20 minutes just to get them back to my base, and I ended up having to wait three in-game days for them to lay their first eggs there before I could start breeding them regularly. Once those eggs hatch, the baby turtles will consider your base beach their home, so all future breeding pairs will lay eggs right there without any extra work.
Each breeding pair will produce 1 to 4 eggs, which take between 5 and 10 in-game days to hatch. Eggs hatch faster if they’re placed on regular sand (not red sand) and exposed to direct sunlight, so make sure your turtle pen is in an open area with no blocks covering the sand. You also want to make sure the pen is fenced off, because zombies, drowned, foxes, and cats will all try to trample turtle eggs if they get close enough.
Extra Uses for Seagrass When Raising Turtles
Seagrass isn’t just for luring and breeding adult turtles, it’s also the best way to speed up the growth of baby turtles. Baby turtles take roughly 20 in-game days to grow into full adults on their own, but feeding them seagrass cuts that time down significantly. Feeding a baby turtle one piece of seagrass cuts 10% off the time it takes for it to grow into an adult. That means if you feed a baby turtle 9 pieces of seagrass as it grows, it will reach adulthood almost immediately, which is a game-changer if you’re trying to farm scutes quickly.
Scutes are the rare items you get only when a baby turtle grows into an adult, and they’re used to craft turtle shells and turtle master potions. If you’re running a scute farm, feeding your baby turtles seagrass regularly will double or even triple your scute output per hour. I run a small farm with 10 breeding pairs, and I can get enough scutes to make 3 turtle shells per in-game week just by feeding baby turtles seagrass whenever I walk past the pen.
There are a ton of other benefits to feeding your baby turtles seagrass regularly, not just faster growth:
- You can get scutes up to 90% faster if you feed baby turtles seagrass every time they finish a growth stage, so you don’t have to wait weeks for your first turtle shell
- Grown turtles from your farm will always lay their eggs on your farm beach, so you never have to worry about them wandering off to spawn elsewhere
- Feeding baby turtles regularly reduces the chance that they get killed by zombies, skeletons, or foxes before they reach adulthood, since they spend less time in the vulnerable baby stage
You don’t even have to hand feed every baby turtle if you have a large farm. Just place a few seagrass blocks in the shallow water around your baby turtle pen, and the babies will eat it on their own as they swim around. A fully grown turtle shell (made from 5 scutes) gives you 10 extra seconds of underwater breathing, which is game-changing for early ocean exploration before you get a respiration enchant on your helmet. Turtle shells also let you brew turtle master potions, which give you resistance and slowness effects that are perfect for fighting bosses like the Wither or Ender Dragon.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Feeding Minecraft Turtles
Even though feeding turtles is pretty straightforward, there are a few common mistakes that can cost you hours of time and ruin your turtle farm before it even gets off the ground. First, don’t feed seagrass to two adult turtles until you have them trapped in a pen on the beach you want to use as their spawning point. If you feed them out in the open, the pregnant turtle will immediately start heading back to its home beach, and you’ll probably lose it if you don’t have a way to trap it quickly.
Second, don’t break seagrass with anything other than shears. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen new players punch seagrass with their hand and get confused when nothing drops. Shears are super cheap to make, so keep an extra pair in your inventory whenever you’re heading out to find seagrass or turtles.
Third, don’t hold seagrass around too many turtles at once if you’re still building your pen. Turtles will crowd you and push you into the water, and they can easily slip out of gaps in the fence while you’re trying to place blocks. I once had 12 turtles escape my half-built pen because I was holding seagrass while I tried to fix a gap in the fence, and I spent an hour chasing them all down around the beach.
Never feed seagrass to turtles if you have your farm pen open, because they will follow you out and wander off before you can close the gate. If you’re playing on a multiplayer server, you also want to make sure your turtle pen is protected with claims, because other players might steal your seagrass or kill your baby turtles for scutes. I lost a whole colony of 20 turtles once on a public server because I forgot to claim the area around my pen, and another player came through and killed all the babies for their scutes while I was off mining.
At the end of the day, figuring out what do turtles eat in Minecraft is the first step to building a fun, useful turtle farm that gives you access to rare scutes and powerful turtle master potions. Seagrass is easy to find, easy to farm, and the only thing you need to keep your turtle colony happy and growing. Next time you’re exploring a beach and spot a group of turtles, grab some shears, harvest a few stacks of seagrass, and try setting up a small pen of your own. You’ll be shocked at how useful these slow, gentle mobs can be for your survival playthrough, even if you don’t think you need turtle shells or potions right now.