Sniffer Seed Farm: Torchflowers and Pitcher Plants on Autopilot

What you will get

The sniffer is an ancient mob added in version 1.20 (Java and Bedrock). It slowly walks around, sniffs the ground and digs up either a torchflower seed or a pitcher pod. These two plants cannot be found anywhere else, so a small sniffer pen is the only renewable source. This guide takes you from finding the first egg to a pen that works while you are nearby.

Materials

Brush (1 stick, 1 copper ingot, 1 feather), 1 moss block, about 60 fences and 1 fence gate, 60–80 grass, dirt, coarse dirt, rooted dirt, moss, mud or podzol blocks, optional: hoppers and a chest, torches or lanterns.

Step-by-step

Step 1: Find warm ocean ruins. Look in warm (not lukewarm) ocean biomes for sandstone ruins. Bring a turtle helmet or water breathing potions and a door or boat for air pockets.

Step 2: Brush suspicious sand. Suspicious sand looks slightly different from normal sand. Hold right-click with the brush; each block gives one item. Sniffer eggs are a possible drop, so check several ruins. Careful: if sand above falls onto a suspicious block, the loot is lost.

Step 3: Hatch the egg on moss. Carry the egg home and place it on a moss block. On moss it hatches in roughly 10 minutes; on any other block it takes about 20 minutes. Stay within loading distance, otherwise the timer does not progress.

Step 4: Raise the snifflet. The baby follows adults but does not dig. Feeding it torchflower seeds speeds up growth, which only helps once you already own seeds – otherwise just wait one in-game growth cycle (about 40 minutes on average).

Step 5: Build the pen. Make an area of at least 9×9 blocks, better 11×11, and floor it with diggable blocks: grass block, dirt, coarse dirt, rooted dirt, podzol, moss block, mud or muddy mangrove roots. Surround it with fences and one gate. Light it well so no hostile mobs spawn inside.

Step 6: Collect the seeds. A sniffer digs every few minutes and does not dig on the same block again soon, which is why a larger floor works better. You can pick up items by hand, or add a hopper line under a corner where items tend to collect. A fully automatic water-stream collector is possible but not required for a small farm.

Step 7: Plant and breed. Plant torchflower seeds on farmland; they grow into decorative torchflowers. Pitcher pods grow into two-block tall pitcher plants. Feed two adult sniffers torchflower seeds to breed them – breeding produces a new egg instead of a baby, so repeat Step 3.

Checking your farm

Stand inside the pen for 10 minutes. You should see the sniffer lower its head, sniff and dig with particles. If nothing happens, check the floor block type and make sure the sniffer is an adult.

Common mistakes

Using grass paths, farmland or sand as floor – sniffers will not dig there. Leaving the egg outside loading range. Breaking suspicious sand with a pickaxe instead of brushing. Building the pen too small, so the sniffer runs out of fresh blocks.

Variants

For a decorative build, use rooted dirt and moss for a natural look and place pitcher plants around the fence. On servers, keep the pen near your main base so it stays loaded while you work.

Sniffers are slow and harmless. Protect them from lava and falling – there is no easy way to replace your first one.

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