Minecraft Camel Guide: How to Ride, Dash and Breed Camels

The camel is Minecraft's most relaxed mount and, in the right terrain, one of its safest. It ambles out of the desert with two party tricks no horse can match: it seats two players at once, and it sits you so high that a zombie's arms simply do not reach. Add a charging dash that clears ravines and rivers, and you have less a vehicle, more a moving watchtower.

Where to Find Camels

There is exactly one address: desert villages. Camels do not wander the open desert and do not appear in other village types, so follow the sandstone. You will usually find the village camel sitting down on the job, which is its default state. Camels spend a lot of their time seated and rise when you climb aboard, so do not pass one by just because it looks parked. There is normally one camel per desert village, which makes them worth leading home or breeding on the spot.

No Taming, Just a Saddle

Unlike horses, camels cannot be tamed because they do not need to be. Any camel will accept a rider immediately and will never throw you off. What it will not do without a saddle is steer. Saddles cannot be crafted, so source one first:

• Chest loot in structures such as dungeons, desert temples, jungle temples, strongholds, bastions, End cities and villages
• A master leatherworker villager sells one for 6 emeralds, the most reliable route
• Striders saddled by zombified piglins and ravagers always drop theirs when killed
• Fishing, at under a 1% chance, if you enjoy that sort of odds

Mount the camel, open the inventory and drop the saddle into its slot. Something delightful happens: the saddle renders with two seats. One saddle, two riders, which makes the camel the most economical group transport in the game.

Riding: Seats, Steering and the Dash

The first player on sits in front and drives; the second player climbs on behind and is free to shoot a bow, eat, or sightsee. That division of labour is the camel's party trick in combat: one driver, one gunner. Your high seat keeps you out of reach of zombies, skeletons' melee cousins and most ground mobs, though creepers can still detonate beside the camel, so give them a wide berth.

The camel walks slower than a horse, but it has a move horses lack. Press and hold the jump button and the camel charges a dash: a long, flat leap that carries you across ravines, rivers and lava gaps that would stop a horse entirely. The cooldown shows in place of your experience bar while it recharges. Camels also heal slowly on their own over time, and they are poor swimmers, so dash the rivers or lead the camel around deep water.

Camel vs Horse

Breeding Camels

Feed two adult camels cactus, the desert's own crop, and they produce a baby camel. Cactus is also the way to tempt a camel into following you and to heal it. Parents can breed again after about five minutes, and the baby grows up in roughly twenty. Given that each desert village starts you with a single camel, breeding a second from a neighbouring village's camel is how most caravan empires begin.