How to build a stray farm in Minecraft

A stray in Minecraft is a special type of skeleton that only spawns inside snow, ice, and frozen biome types.

Armed with unique slowness tipped arrows, the stray is typically considered deadlier than its regular skeleton counterpart. Slowness arrows make it particularly hard to gain ground to fight this mob up close, and also to run away from.

Technically, strays are indeed more lucrative to farm than skeletons. They have all the regular chances for default skeleton drops and also an additional base 50% chance to drop a tipped arrow of slowness, which is typically considered a relatively difficult item to craft.

This simple guide will explain how to build a simple, yet highly effective Minecraft stray farm that can be copied by Minecrafters in their own world.

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Best way to build a Stray + Skeleton grinder farm in Minecraft

As of Minecraft version 1.17, it's very easy to build a highly simple stray farm. This is because powdered snow will now convert any regular skeleton into a stray, no matter what biome the skeleton spawns in.

This little trick will be used in the stray skeleton farm design.

Things needed to build a stray skeleton farm:

• 4 water buckets
• 1 powdered snow bucket
• 1 hopper
• 2 chests

Players will also need to locate a skeleton spawner. For those unaware of how to do this, here's a helpful guide.

Steps for building the farm:

1.) Clear a 9x9 area around the skeleton spawner and ensure there is exactly a 3 block gap between the spawner and the roof.

The first step is to enclose the spawner inside a 9x9 clear area

An optional tip is to place some torches on the spawner to prevent random skeletons from spawning.

2.) Now place a slab of any type on top of the spawner directly, as seen below. Any slab block can be used, in this case a copper slab was used.

A slab must be placed on top of the spawner (Image via jjaaxxthelegend, YouTube)

3.) Dig four blocks down on the current floor of the spawner in order to suspend it in mid air, as seen below.

The spawner should now be floating in mid-air with 3 blocks to the roof and 4 to the floor (Image via jjaaxxthelegend, YouTube)

4.) Directly under the floor of the spawner, make a 3 block deep hole. This is where skeletons will be pushed into meeting their death.

3 block deep hole should be made directly under the spawner (Image via jjaaxxthelegend, YouTube)

5.) Now, place water in all 4 corners of the room. This will push skeletons into the hole.

Players must now use their water bucket to dump water in all 4 corners of the room (Image via jjaaxxthelegend, YouTube)

6.) Create a simple killing area to eradicate skeletons that fall down the hole.

A killing area can be made by making a small underground room connected by the hole skeletons fall in (Image via jjaaxxthelegend, YouTube)

7.) Place a hopper to collect loot which the strays will drop, then connect it to a chest to store said loot. After this, leaving a 1 block gap, place the bucket of powdered snow on top of the hopper.

Make sure to leave a 1 block gap between the hopper and the powder, as seen in the image below.

The powdered snow, hopper, and chest setup should look like this inside the killing room (Image via jjaaxxthelegend, YouTube)

8.) Now finally activate the farm by destroying any torches left behind in the spawner room.

If everything has been done correctly, skeletons should begin to spawn, which will quickly turn into strays after a couple of seconds of shivering due to the powdered snow.

Strays are successfully spawning in the farm (Image via jjaaxxthelegend, YouTube)

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