Tutorials/Turtle farming

A turtle farm, turtle shell farm, or scute farm is a means of harvesting scutes, which are used to craft a turtle helmet. In addition to having the same defense value as an iron helmet, it has greater durability than an iron helmet, and grants the water breathing status effect for 10 seconds. Also, a turtle helmet can be enchanted with respiration for an addition 15 seconds underwater.

Location
Find a beach in a warm ocean biome, or beach next to a warm land biome such as desert or savanna. If you explore around and see actual turtles on land, that's a good place to start your farm. It's also a good idea to have a supply of sea grass nearby. You need sea grass to attract turtles. Sea grass is also useful to convince turtles to mate, as well as to speed up the growth of baby turtles.

You might be lucky enough to find two turtles copulating on a beach, giving you enough time to build a fence around them. Then you don't need to go out into the ocean to find turtles. Instead, you can build your farm around your fenced-in turtles, and remove the fence when you're done.

Clearing the beach
When clearing the beach area, be sure to leave at least one block of clearance from the fence, so that hostile mobs cannot climb into the farm. Also, remember that turtles need to spawn on sand, so be sure to replace any non-sand blocks exposed by clearing with sand blocks.

It's a good idea to include one or more fence gates, so you can get in and out of the farm easily. Without a fence, you shouldn't be able to climb inside (if you can, then mobs can climb in, also).

Clearing the beach area will typically yield enough blocks of sand to build the necessary structure in the ocean, from which the farm can be hollowed out. If you have a bucket, then don't be concerned about preserving the water in the farm, because you can always re-fill the necessary water blocks with buckets of water scooped from the ocean.

During construction, it may be a good idea to have a bed and shelter nearby to get some occasional sleep, to prevent phantoms from spawning while you work.

Design considerations
There are many variations of turtle farms. At the most basic level, one needs
 * An area of sand for the turtles to spawn
 * A volume of water in which the baby turtles can grow
 * A means of protection against undead mobs from finding and destroying the turtle eggs. It is important for the farm to be well-lit to prevent mobs from spawning inside it, and made inaccessible to hostile mobs that may approach from land or from the water.

Building the farm
The basic turtle farm shown as a side-view cross-section in the diagram on the right can be built easily in survival mode. This slice can be repeated any number of times to create a farm of any width, preferably at least 5 blocks wide, with a chest at the end of the line of hoppers along the bottom. The farm in this diagram is designed to be built in survival mode, and allow turtles to go in and out freely. It has these features, from left to right:
 * A barrier (the block floating in the air) to prevent mobs from entering the farm from the sea while allowing turtles to pass underneath
 * A solid seawall to keep the ocean out
 * Two slabs:
 * the top slab allows large turtles to bridge the gap between the barrier and the water block, allowing them to reach the beach when entering, or reach the seawall when leaving
 * the bottom slab lets scutes fall through to the hoppers below while preventing baby turtles from getting stuck in the hopper area
 * Hoppers to collect the scutes dropped by baby turtles as they grow
 * Water blocks arranged to create a waterfall toward the lower slab
 * A sand beach to allow the turtles to spawn

In addition to these features, other features not shown in the diagram should also be included:
 * A chest to collect the scutes at the end of the line of hoppers; extra hoppers may be used to position the chest outside the farm
 * Fencing or barriers all around the farm
 * Lighting to prevent mobs from spawning in the farm

Farming
To start the farm working and producing, you need two turtles. To get turtles, you need sea grass.

If you don't find a couple of turtles already on a nearby beach, or if you didn't already build your farm around some turtles you found earlier, you'll have to go out into the ocean to find them. Swim out to sea, or row a boat, holding sea grass in your hand. Nearby turtles will be attracted to you as long as you keep holding sea grass.

Once you have two turtles attracted to you, make your way back to the farm, being sure the turtles remain close. If you get too far away from them, they will lose sight of the sea grass and wander off. Once you reach your farm, stand inside the farm on your beach until the turtles make their way in and reach you. Then feed sea grass to both of them.

Managing the farm
After the turtles mate for the first time, you're basically done. The turtles will lay their eggs and leave. They will eventually return on their own to this home beach where they were born (your farm) to lay more eggs. It will take a while to hatch enough baby turtles to create a population of turtles laying eggs in your farm, but you can accelerate this by actively seeking out more than two turtles when you first start the farm.

A turtle farm works while you're away from the keyboard (AFK), but you can speed things up by actively managing your farm, feeding sea grass to pairs of new turtles, and feeding the baby turtles to accelerate their growth.