Camels in Minecraft: Taming, Food and Riding with a Friend

Camels in Minecraft are already tame: you don’t have to win one over, you only need a saddle to steer it. A camel carries two players, so a friend can ride along in the back seat. And what do camels eat in Minecraft? Only cactus, which you also use to heal them, breed them and make the babies grow.

Below you’ll find where to find a camel, how to saddle it, what it eats, how the dash works and how camels deal with other mobs, including the undead camel husk. Everything is checked against Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.52 (Bedrock 26.60 is planned for 27 October 2026).

Where do you find camels in Minecraft?

Camels live in deserts. Every desert village that isn’t abandoned starts with one camel in its centre, and that camel never despawns. Since Java 1.21.5 and Bedrock 1.21.70, camels also spawn in the open desert, though not often. In Java they can spawn at any light level, in Bedrock only at light level 7 or lower.

A camel wanders around and every now and then sits down for two to seven seconds. While it sits, players and mobs can’t push it. Hurt a camel and it runs off straight away, even from a sitting position.

How do you tame and saddle a camel?

You don’t tame a camel. It’s tame from the start, so you can climb on right away. Without a saddle you just sit there, though. To steer, you need a saddle:

1. Get a saddle. Craft one from 3 leather and 1 iron ingot: leather in the top middle, middle left and middle right, the iron ingot in the centre. Saddles also turn up in some chests, and fishing gives one in 0.8 percent of catches.
2. Put it on. Use the saddle on the camel, or place it in the saddle slot of the camel’s inventory. You open that inventory by sneaking and using the camel, or by riding it and pressing your inventory key. Bedrock also has an open inventory button.
3. Climb on and ride. Steer with your normal movement keys and the mouse.

Want the saddle back? Use shears on the camel, or take it out of the saddle slot. A saddled camel never despawns. Baby camels can’t wear a saddle and can’t be ridden. For the mounts that do need taming, see how to tame a horse in Minecraft.

What do camels eat?

Camels eat cactus, and nothing else. A cactus does three things:

• Healing: each cactus heals 2 health points. Camels also heal slowly on their own.
• Breeding: feed two adult camels a cactus each. A baby camel appears and you get 1 to 7 experience. The parents can breed again after 5 minutes.
• Growing: a baby camel needs 20 minutes to grow up. Each cactus you feed it takes 10 seconds off.

Camels follow you while you hold a cactus, up to 10 blocks away in Java and 16 in Bedrock. Baby camels follow the adults as well. A funny detail: camels eat cactus without any trouble, but walking into a cactus block still hurts them, and they don’t steer around it. So keep cactus out of your camel pen.

Want to keep a baby camel small? Feed it a golden dandelion, crafted from eight gold nuggets around a dandelion. That stops it from growing up until you give it a second one. For the food of every other animal, see what animals eat in Minecraft.

Dash and riding with two

A saddled camel can dash. While you ride, your experience bar becomes a dash bar. Hold jump to charge it and let go: the camel launches up to 12 blocks forward and one block up. After a dash it needs 2.75 seconds before the next one, and for a moment it can’t sprint.

Camels pick up speed slowly while they walk in a straight line, and you can sprint by double tapping forward or holding your sprint key. They turn and strafe more slowly than other mounts, so plan your route around trees and cliffs.

A second player can climb on behind you. The passenger can’t hurt the driver or the camel. When the driver gets off, the passenger takes over the controls. Both riders take the same fall damage as the camel, but camels are tough here: damage only starts after a fall of 6 blocks, and then at half the normal amount.

Two more things to know when you keep camels at your base:

• Fences don’t work. A camel steps up 1.5 blocks without jumping, so it walks over fences and walls. Build the pen walls at least two blocks high.
• Water is fine. Since Java 1.21.11 and Bedrock 1.21.130 a camel no longer sinks while you ride it through water.

Camels and other mobs

On a standing camel you sit so high that most melee mobs on the ground can’t reach you: zombies, vindicators, hoglins, silverfish, endermites and piglins with golden swords. Spiders, wolves, slimes and magma cubes can still hit you, because they jump or climb when they attack. Mobs almost never attack the camel itself. The exceptions are zoglins, wardens, withers and vindicators named Johnny.

The camel husk is an undead camel that rarely shows up in deserts at night or during thunderstorms. It always arrives as a jockey: a husk with an iron spear in front and a parched behind it. In Java, a husk that spawns naturally has a 10 percent chance to come riding a camel husk. Kill both riders and the camel husk turns passive. You can then saddle and ride it just like a camel. Because it’s undead it can’t breed, and you tempt and heal it with a rabbit’s foot instead of cactus. Unlike most undead mobs, it doesn’t burn in sunlight.

Java vs Bedrock: what’s different?

• Camels spawn in the open desert at any light level in Java, and only at light level 7 or lower in Bedrock.
• They follow a cactus from 10 blocks away in Java and 16 in Bedrock.
• In Bedrock a sitting camel stands up as soon as a rider gets on its saddle. In Java it stands up once you move forward.
• In Java a camel husk comes with a naturally spawning husk. In Bedrock camel husk jockeys spawn on their own at night or during thunderstorms.

Camels pair well with llamas: the camel carries two riders, a llama caravan carries the luggage.