How do sniffer find ancient seeds in Minecraft 1.20 update

Minecraft is a game that features endless exploration and building, but with so many different items in the game, it can sometimes be overwhelming to know exactly where to find a specific type of item.

On top of having so many items, the game is constantly evolving, with the 1.20 update bringing even more items, including ancient seeds that can be found by the newest mob, the sniffer.

But how exactly can you get the sniffer to search for these seeds? Here's everything you need to know.

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How can sniffers find ancient seeds in Minecraft 1.20

Sniffers are the newest mob to join the blocky world, courtesy of the Minecraft Live 2022 Mob Vote. The sniffer beat out the competition of the Rascal and Tuff Golem, and it is now available to help sniff out some ancient seeds.

With the recent introduction of archeology to Minecraft in the 1.20 update, you will need to explore the desert biome to find sniffer eggs before you can use the sniffer. Suspicious sand (which is found in the biome) can be brushed away using the new brush tool, revealing hidden treasures like pottery shards, jewels such as emeralds and diamonds, and the coveted sniffer egg.

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Hatching the sniffer and getting to sniffing

Sniffers love to dig up torchflower seeds (Image via Mojang)

Once you have a sniffer egg in your possession, you can place it down to hatch a baby sniffer, which is called a snifflet. This cute creature takes 20 minutes to grow into an adult sniffer.

After growing up, sniffers will wander around the area randomly and start sniffing. When the sniffer detects a seed, it will then start a digging animation using its nose. After a few seconds, an ancient seed (which can grow new torchflowers) will be revealed.

Torchflowers are the sniffer's favorite food, and you can feed them torchflowers to get them to breed with other sniffers. You can also hold torchflowers to get sniffers to follow you. Feeding torchflowers to baby sniffers will significantly speed up their growth process and help them become adults more quickly.

With enough time and effort, sniffers can dig up tons of torchflower seeds in a given area. However, there are some restrictions on what sniffers can do when it comes to sniffing out ancient seeds in Minecraft.

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Sniffing out seeds has some restrictions

Sniffers can only sniff an area so much (Image via Mojang)

The interesting thing about sniffers searching an area is that they can find a seed in any block. However, this is assigned randomly. One restriction is that they cannot find seeds in the same exact spot twice. Therefore, you will need to move your sniffers around if you want to use them to farm ancient seeds.