Tutorials/Egg farming

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

=Catching a chicken= Capturing chickens to stock your farm can be the hardest part of the entire process. To capture a chicken, you will need a few fences. You may need only four, but since you will fail a few times, you may wish to bring more. First, find a chicken. Simply walk around, but don't forget where your base is. Next, wait until it is not in water, and is on flat ground. Then simply wait until it stops moving, and rapidly build a wall around it. Dirt can be used, but due to the time it takes to place two blocks of dirt on top of each other, fences are recommended. Now, either, take its eggs and start a chicken farm somewhere else, or make it around your captured chicken.

Another option is to find a chicken, and catch it in a minecart. Place down a rail near the chicken, and a minecart on top of it. Next, either push the chicken into the cart, or pull it in with a fishing rod. After it is in, lay down more tracks, and push the cart to where you want. As of Beta 1.8, this is more difficult, as the chicken will attempt to flee when you catch it with the rod. To release the chicken without risking killing it, simply enter the minecart, and then break it.

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.

=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: