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Farming and gathering resources in Minecraft is one activity that will likely consume most of the player's time. However, given that the most important items required to advance the game take time to complete, it's become simply a part of the experience.
Farming Slimes is considered one of the trickier aspects of the game, namely due to how rare Slimes can be. While there are ways to get slimeballs and to encounter Slimes naturally, the most reliable way is to start a Slime farm by finding a Slime chunk. Here's how it all works in Minecraft.
Why Farm Slimes?
Slimes drop a resource that's pretty much impossible to find easily in any other way, other than by killing a Slime: slimeballs. These are used in a few very important crafting recipes:
- Lead: Four pieces of string and one slimeball can be used to make a lead. This allows players to leash mobs and attach them to fence posts to keep them from wandering.
- Magma Cream: Combine slimeballs with Blaze Powder to make this special potion-brewing ingredient. Magma Cream can be used to make Potion of Fire Resistance, which are very useful when traveling and mining for Ancient Debris in the Nether dimension.
- Sticky Piston: One regular piston and a slimeball are required to make a sticky piston. This piston sticks to a block and moves it by one block when detecting a Redstone signal. It's ideal for building hidden doors or automatic doorways.
How To Farm Slimeballs
While it's possible to get slimeballs as a mob drop from baby pandas whenever they sneeze, it's a much more unreliable way. For one, pandas are a rare mob that only spawn in bamboo jungles in Minecraft, and for two, breeding pandas is a lot of effort compared to just finding a slime chunk that spawns slimes.
Some would argue that simply living near a swamp biome is enough to farm slimeballs. However, the most efficient time to do this is during a full moon, which the player has to wait for. During this time, an exceptional number of Slimes will spawn. Finding a Slime chunk remains a better option, still.
Once players find a Slime chunk, they can use this information to their advantage and build a Slime farm. One of the best designs out there, and fairly easy to build for anyone just starting out in Minecraft survival mode, is this Slime farm by LogicalGeekBoy. This design works in Minecraft versions 1.17 and 1.18.
How To Find Slime Chunks
Minecraft worlds are divided into chunks. Chunks represent a 16 by 16 block area. One out of 10 of these chunks is marked as a Slime chunk, which naturally spawns Slimes. However, this only works at below elevation Y=40.
Slimes are not sensitive to light like other hostile mobs, so once a player finds a Slime spawning chunk, they can simply light it up with torches to mark it. Slime chunks spawn randomly in Java Edition in every individual seed (or world), but in Bedrock, the coordinates for Slime chunks are the same regardless of the seed.
The best way to find Slime chunks reliable is to use a tool like Chunk Base. Input the name of the seed and the generator will mark Slime chunks automatically. Sometimes, players can also come across a Slime chunk naturally if they spot a Slime underground. It's a good idea to mark down the coordinates of the area and keep an eye out for any future Slime spawns.
Minecraft was released on November 18, 2011, and is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, and many other platforms.