Mob spawners in Minecraft: Everything you need to know

Because they cannot be obtained without cheats, many players do not know about the mob spawners in Minecraft. Not even players with a Silk Touch enchanted pickaxe will be able to collect these blocks, and for a good reason.

Mob spawners will continuously spawn a specific mob when a player is near it, allowing for the farming of that mob's resources. These spawners can be found in various naturally generated structures, such as nether fortresses and underground dungeons (seen above).

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A handy guide into mob spawners in Minecraft

Obtaining/Generation

A disabled blaze spawner found in a nether fortress (Image via minecraft.fandom)

While mob spawners can be found in many naturally generating structures (seen above), they cannot be obtained and placed without cheats.

Mob spawners cannot even be obtained from the creative menu. Therefore players will have to use commands if they want to place one. Players can use the /give, /setblock, /clone, or /fill commands to spawn mob spawners. Once the spawner is spawned in, players can use one of the spawn eggs to change the spawn mob.

Players may think of breaking a mob spawner with a silk touch pickaxe to collect it. However, this is not the case, and they will only end up ruining the naturally created mob spawner.

For those who are curious, mob spawners will naturally spawn in the following areas:

• Underground dungeon (Skeleton, Zombie, Spider)
• Mineshafts (Cave Spider)
• Woodland Mansion (Spider)
• Nether Fortress (Blaze)
• Bastion Remnants (Magma Cube)

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Usage/Mechanics

A player using a naturally found mob spawner to create a mob farm (Image via craftymynes)

Once a player moves within 16 blocks of a mob spawner, it will continuously spawn the associated mob. The spawner will attempt to spawn four mobs around it, then waits for 10 to 40 seconds before spawning more.

Mob spawners can be disabled by providing sufficient light around them, such as torches or glowstones. Blaze and Silverfish spawners require more light to be disabled than other spawners.

Players who have stumbled upon a naturally generated spawner (or cheated it in) can create mob farms due to the consistent stream of mobs spawning. This can be seen in the image above, where the spawned mobs will be funneled into a hole, where they will be killed to drop XP and loot.

The video above showcases a mob farm that was created with a naturally spawning mob spawner.

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