How to Build a Drowned Farm in Minecraft for Tridents
A river drowned farm for tridents, copper and XP. Where drowned spawn, moving them to a kill spot, why you must kill them yourself, and real trident odds.
A drowned farm is a walled-off, roofed-over section of river or ocean where drowned spawn in the dark, get carried by water currents to one spot, and are killed there by you. It’s the realistic way to farm tridents, since a trident is otherwise a matter of luck. You also collect copper ingots, rotten flesh, the odd nautilus shell and steady XP along the way.
Why rivers
Drowned spawn in both ocean and river biomes, but rivers spawn them far more often relative to their size. They’re also narrow and shallow, so walling off a section takes a fraction of the blocks an ocean needs. If you have a choice, pick a long straight river close to your base.
The water has to be dark. That’s why most farms roof over the area with solid blocks: a roof stops sunlight and moonlight, so drowned can spawn at any time of day.
The basic build
- Wall off a section of river. Glass walls let you see in. Fill in any shallow spots so the whole area is deep water.
- Roof it over to keep the water dark. Leave no gaps.
- Make the floor push drowned to one point. The usual method is to drain the area, lay a sloped or channeled floor, and refill it so flowing water carries drowned toward a central pit. Soul sand under water makes bubble columns that lift mobs; magma blocks pull them down. Either one can deliver drowned to your kill spot.
- Build a kill spot. Bring the drowned up into a small chamber where only their feet are reachable, or drop them into a space where you can hit them through a gap.
- Find your AFK spot. Stand where the whole spawning area is inside your spawning range but caves and other water are not. On Java, mobs spawn 24 to 128 blocks from the player.
Hostile mobs won’t spawn within 24 blocks of you on Java, so if you build the kill spot right next to the spawning area, make sure the spawning water starts beyond that distance.
Why you have to kill them yourself
Tridents only drop when a player (or a tamed wolf) kills the drowned. A farm that kills drowned with fall damage or magma gives you copper and rotten flesh, but not tridents. Use a Looting III sword: each level adds 1 percentage point to the trident drop chance.
What to expect
Keep your hopes for tridents modest on Java. Only about 1 drowned in 16 spawns holding one, and only 8.5 percent of those drop it without Looting. On Bedrock the drop chance is 25 percent, which makes farming much faster. Dropped tridents come out with random damage, so expect to repair them by combining two in an anvil or by putting Mending on one.
Copper ingots, rotten flesh and XP pile up regardless, so the farm earns its keep even on a slow day.
Once you have one, how to get a trident covers the other sources, and the best trident enchantments page explains the Loyalty, Riptide and Channeling choice. If you’d rather farm ocean XP, a guardian farm is the bigger project with bigger rewards.
Common questions
Do zombies converted into drowned carry tridents?
No. A zombie that drowns and turns into a drowned never has a trident, in either edition. Only drowned that spawn naturally can carry one, which is why trident farms are built over rivers and oceans.
How likely is a trident drop?
On Java, about 6 percent of naturally spawned drowned hold a trident, and a held trident drops 8.5 percent of the time when you kill it, plus 1 percent per level of Looting. Bedrock's drop chance is higher, at 25 percent.
Do drowned only spawn at night?
No. Drowned spawn underwater in darkness, which deep or roofed-over water provides even at noon. That is why most farms cover the water with a roof.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
Keep reading