Tutorials/Egg farming

Egg farming is the process of collect a large number of eggs from chickens.

=Catching a chicken= Because capturing chickens is very difficult, it may be more effective to collect some eggs, build an area for your chickens, and throw the eggs into it. There is only a 1 in 8 chance of spawning a chicken when you throw an egg, so you might need quite a few.

Another way to capture chickens is to build a trench that is two blocks deep in an area with at least one chicken. The chicken will wander into the trench and be caught. You can also dig a larger hole two blocks deep, with a staircase that isn't against the wall of the hole, but one block away. This way, if you are in the hole, you can climb the staircase, and jump out of the hole.

In the 1.9 prerelease, you can simply get a chicken to follow you by luring it with wheat.

=Setting up the farm=
 * NOTE** This technique may not work any more, due to an update.

You can farm eggs the traditional way, where you have to run around and collect eggs all the time.

Or you can, for example, build an automatic egg-collecting farm by using water to flush the eggs out of the coop.

I tried several designs and one that works great is the one from the second screenshot: Just dig a square hole 11 by 11 blocks and one block deep, then dig one more layer in a circle shape. You'll need an additional one-block-hole in the center where the water (and the eggs) will flush out.

Now you need to build the "isle" to prevent the chicken from also being flushed out and to give them some ground to lay eggs that can hatch on to slowly expand the total population of chicken on your farm.

Connect the center drain hole to your system from below (F3 is your friend here), place water in the corners and you're good to go.

I found just what I was neeedd, and it was entertaining!

=Egg farm in action= This is a video of an egg farm made in 1.8. It uses glass blocks, glass panes, and water. The eggs go to a collection point for easy grabbing.

Minecraft - Egg Farm

Concept:

The chickens swim in the water in the 3rd level. When they drop eggs (or you need meat and decide to annihilate the chickens), they will fall through the glass panes into the bottom layer with the help of the flowing water. The water in the bottom layer will now push the items to the collection point.

Layout: