Tutorials/Door-based iron golem farming

An Iron Golem farm is an easy way to acquire many iron ingots (and less useful poppies) with minimal effort after the initial setup. It is an artificial village (or several of them, spaced far enough apart to remain separate) in which golems are spawned and then either killed immediately, or moved to a holding cell (outside the village boundary, so that new ones can spawn in their place) for later killing. If you opt for the first method, you will either need to go AFK while camping out at the collection point, have a hopper collecting your items, or else check back periodically to collect your items before they despawn. This necessity can be avoided by using the holding cell method, which allows the golems to collect while you are working nearby, and then you can harvest them all at once when you are ready so that you don't miss any drops.

Design by trunkz
This design created by trunkz has an average spawn rate of one iron golem every 6 minutes. It was the first efficient iron golem farm for the release version of minecraft; most of the other farms (like JL2579's one) are based on this one. It is more resource friendly, however the spawn rate is slightly less than JL2579's farm due to the central canal/water placement.

Design by JL2579
This design created by JL2579 is very efficient, with an iron golem appearing approximately every 1 1/2 minutes. This design makes use of four iron golem spawning locations, two stacked on top of each other, and leading to a central collection point. The video tutorial is by docm77.

Design by Nims
This design by NimsTV (Formerly NimsGaming) is possibly not the most efficient design, but it is still very reliable. it spawns 1 Iron Golem every 2 minutes (as of 13w16a)

Alternate design

you could also place Hoppers under them so they route to the Chests.

Design by Tango Tek
This design is by far the most productive and space efficient iron golem farm. This design compacts 32 villages inside the main building, and pushes the limits of village creation. Iron golems will spawn on an average of one every 10.6 seconds. The villages within the building do 'collapse' at various times, but this is detected and there is redstone in place to recreate all villages in about 20 minutes.

UPDATE - Here is Tango Tek's new design made for 1.7.2. This one increases the iron production to about 1700/hour, compacting 44 villages. It uses a clock, throwing an item through an End Portal every 45 seconds to keep the chunk always loaded even after logging off. The amount of resources used are far less compared to the last design and the redstone is minimal: just a clock, an storage system and an overflow control.

Tower design
This design is good especially for survival. It will get you about a stack every 2 hours. It's pretty efficient, but for faster farms, use one of the above.

Step zero - resources
To build an iron golem farm, you should have a fair amount of resources, such as cobblestone and wood, as well as a way to get villagers into it.

You will need:
 * at least 1100 cobblestone (about 18 stacks)
 * 64 doors (6 wood per door=384 wood planks or about 6 stacks.)
 * 18 water buckets (or 20 separate trips to a water source)
 * 1 lava bucket
 * 4 signs

Step one - Building location
To build the Iron Golem farm you should:


 * Choose a good location. Don't build it far from your home or main base, because you want the golems to spawn even when you are not at the farm. An ideal spot is on top of your existing home or close to it.


 * Gather the resources listed above.


 * Follow the instructions below to begin building the base.

Step two - Building instructions

 * 1.

Start by building a 4x4 cobble base.


 * 2.

Continue this until you have a tower that is 10 blocks tall. Next, bust a 2x3 hole in the bottom so the golems will be able to go through.
 * 3.

Build out 7 blocks from the top of this tower to form an 18x18 platform with a 2x2 hole in the middle.
 * 4.

Build in 4 blocks from each corner, then 3 blocks diagonal in both directions to build a triangle.


 * 5.

Next build a 1 block wide platform around this so the platform is now 20x20.


 * 6.

Now build a wall with windows in it as show below. This is how wide each of the holes in the wall should be:


 * 7.

Seal off the backs of the windows, and build some small cups to hold the villagers. The cups should be 4x4 on the outside, so there is 2x2x3 of air on the inside.


 * 8.

Place doors against the back of the indents. This is to make the villagers think these are homes. it should look like this:


 * 9.

Then place down 1 water in each of the 4 villager cups, and 2 water down in between each of the raised triangles to form this pattern:


 * 10.

Place 1 water on each of the triangles in the very back corner of the wall.

Now the top part is finished, the golems will spawn once there are 3 villagers in each of the holding cups. The next step is to build the golem grinder.


 * 11.

Build 4 blocks out from the bottom of the tower and 3 blocks up on each side, then place 2 blocks at the end of it to keep the golems from escaping.


 * 12.

Next, place 4 signs in a cup shape to hold the lava that kills the golems.


 * 13.

Now place the lava in the signs.


 * 14.

Place the last 2 water in the very back of the base, so the golems will get pushed into the lava.


 * 15.

Put down 2 hoppers going into a large chest for automatic resource collection (this is not required, but it is a good idea so you don't let any of the items despawn.)