How To Build An Iron Farm In Minecraft (2024)

Iron is arguably Minecraft's single most useful resource, seeing use in countless crafting recipes. While you'll likely outgrow iron weapons and armor by the late game, you'll still find yourself needing heaps of the stuff for things like rails, anvils, and even beacon pyramids. But in spite of this, iron's ubiquity as a crafting ingredient is not reflected in how easy it is to find.

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For many players, the only option is to go mining, digging tunnels, or trawling caves in the hopes of stumbling across enough ore. There is, however, another way. Iron farms can be built, using Iron Golems to produce iron, and these fantastic contraptions will work away in the background, producing masses of iron as you go about your day. If you like the sound of that, you're in luck, because this guide will have everything you need to know to make an Iron Golem farm in Minecraft.

Getting Started

There are four key parts to any Iron Golem farm, and overall designs can vary wildly. This guide will use a design based on one by technical Minecraft YouTuber Gnembom to walk you through examples of each part, but feel free to find (or come up with) a design that works for you and your needs - the principles outlined here will apply to pretty much any iron farm.

The numbers will vary depending on the design, but at the very least this list should be an indicator of the sorts of things you'll need:

It's worth noting that in many places, the glass can be substituted for any other full-size block.

Building the Zombie Area

As of 1.14, for Iron Golems to continually spawn, Villagers must be in a "scared" state. There are a few mobs that can put them in this state, but the easiest to corral is a Zombie, so that's what we'll use. Iron Farms on larger scales are typically built using multiple spawning areas, with the Zombie moving between them.

This is not just to allow for more overall spawning but also because scared Villagers can't sleep. Sleeping is the other requirement for Golems to spawn - a scared Villager can only spawn a Golem if they've slept recently, so an Iron Golem farm needs to move a Zombie away from Villagers to allow them to sleep, then move it back to them to scare them. So if you're making a farm with only one spawning area, you'll still need to move the Zombie away from the Villagers to let them sleep.

The only real location consideration is to make sure you're not close to an existing Village, so once you have an area you're happy with, lay out a track in the above pattern, running between the larger platforms, and use the levers on the back of the solid blocks (stone bricks in the image) to power the rails. Refer to the topmost image in this section if you're unsure of the heights of the track. Iron Golems can take a little while to spawn once Villagers become scared, so to ensure one always spawns, we need to keep the Zombie near the Villagers for a while, which is the purpose of the platforms.

On the platforms, place slabs and pressure plates in the following layout, add a fence gate at the end of the path you've created as shown, and then place water at the start of the path as shown on the right. This will cause the Zombie to move through more slowly, ensuring a Golem will always spawn before the Zombie moves on.

After that, all that's left to do is cover over the track as shown, so that the Zombie doesn't burn during daylight. Once this is done, you're free to capture a Zombie in a minecart and drop it onto the track, where it will ride around indefinitely. Just make sure to name tag it, as this will prevent it from despawning. As with the Villagers you'll need to move later, more Minecart track can be a great way to get the Zombie up and into position.

Building the Villager Areas

The next key part is the areas in which you'll hold the Villagers. The idea here is to trick the game into thinking these areas are Villages, which will enable Golem spawning. These days, all that's required to constitute a "Village" is Villagers and beds, though for Golem spawning the population has to be at least three.

The key things to do in this section are to ensure that the Villagers have access to beds, have a line of sight to the Zombie (it can't scare them if they can't see it), and cannot escape. one block diagonally away from the corners of the track platforms, place a solid block for the Villagers to stand on, then add beds on the two sides of the block further from the track as shown. On the other two sides, place chests. Chests are slightly smaller than regular blocks, so they're ideal to hold the Villagers in as their smaller size will just allow the Villagers to see the Zombie over them when they're in bed.

Once that's done, place string on top of all the beds and chests, and carpet on top of that. This will prevent the Villagers from escaping, while still allowing them to see the Zombie and access the beds. At this point, you can move your Villagers in. This can be a nightmarish process, but it's worth the hassle for that sweet, sweet iron. Lastly, place a glass block above where the Villagers will stand, and put torches around it to keep the area well-lit. Repeat this for the other three corners.

If you're playing on a server, you might want to add the pictured 3x3 glass panels at the ends of the two outermost beds. Server lag can cause Villagers to glitch out of their holding area when they wake up, so these panels are a measure to prevent such problems.

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Building the Spawning Platforms

The bulk of the work is now thankfully behind you, with all that's left to do being the spawning, killing, and collection areas. The spawning platforms themselves are fairly simple: four blocks below where the Villagers stand, build a 7x7 platform with your slabs, and create a 2x2 hole near the middle, slightly closer to the track.

If different shapes or sizes of platforms are better suited to your needs, then you don't need to follow these specifications exactly; just make sure the platforms are close enough to the Villagers for Golems to spawn, and a good size to allow spawning while still getting Golems to the hole quickly.

Next, build glass walls two blocks high around the platform, and add fence gates over the hole you made. After that, all that's left to do is place water in the corners. If you've used slabs, make sure to place the water against the walls, not on the slabs - right-clicking the slabs won't place the water on top of them, but will instead waterlog them and cause the water to fall down below. Repeat this next to the other three Villager areas, and the above-ground section is complete. All that's left is to sort out how the Golems will be dispatched.

Building the Killing Area

After that, all that's left to do is build the killing area. Make a nice long drop under the holes of the platform (having Golems nearby can affect spawns at the next platform, so quickly dropping the Golems out of range is a good solution to this), and then place down hoppers where you want to collect the iron, and have them feed into a chest. Building the drop might require digging holes, or building shafts, depending on where you've built your farm, but 20 blocks or so is a good height to aim for.

Iron Golems are completely immune to fall damage, so we'll have to use other methods to finish them off. Two blocks above the hoppers, place some signs on the walls of the shaft, and some lava on top of those. This will cause the Golems to be burned, but not the precious iron they drop. And with that, you're done! Your farm will work away whenever you're nearby, producing you stacks of iron to pick up from the chests whenever you need it.

Improvements and Extras

If you're looking to take things further, the first obvious improvement you can make to the farm is larger, centralized storage. Using more hoppers, you can have all the iron brought to one area for you to pick up, rather than having to move between four different chests to get it. This will obviously also give you the capacity to hold more iron at any one time - the only limit on your storage is the number of chests you're willing to place.

Iron Golems also drop poppies, so another good improvement could be filtering them out to be tossed away, or stored separately. An auto-sorter module is a simple thing to build, so this is another great way to streamline your farm and improve its overall usability.

For long-term use, it might also be a good idea to protect your Villagers from lightning, as it if strikes them they'll turn into Witches and the farm will break. You can protect them either by building glass platforms high above their heads, or as of 1.17, using lightning rods nearby.

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