How to Tame a Llama in Minecraft, Plus Chests and Caravans

How to tame a llama in Minecraft: walk up with an empty hand, climb on and keep trying until hearts appear. The llama throws you off a few times first, but every failed try makes the next one more likely to work. Feeding it wheat or hay bales speeds things up. A tame llama can carry a chest and lead a caravan of up to ten llamas, but you can never steer one.

Below you’ll find where llamas live, the taming steps, what llamas eat, how chests, carpets and caravans work and what to do with a trader llama. Everything is checked against Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.52 (Bedrock 26.60 is planned for 27 October 2026).

Where do you find llamas?

Llamas spawn on grass blocks above light level 7. In windswept hills, windswept forests and windswept gravelly hills they come in herds of 4 to 6. On savanna plateaus they come in herds of 4. Bedrock also spawns them in ordinary savannas and windswept savannas; Java doesn’t.

Llamas come in four coat colours: white, creamy, grey and brown. One in ten spawns as a baby. Their health varies from 15 to 30 points, and babies inherit it from their parents, just like horses. Every wandering trader also brings two trader llamas along, more about those below.

How to tame a llama in Minecraft

1. Empty your hand. With wheat or a hay bale in your hand you feed the llama instead of climbing on.
2. Use the llama to climb on. If it doesn’t accept you yet, it bucks you off after a moment.
3. Try again. Each time it throws you off, the llama’s temper rises by 5 out of 30, and a higher temper means a better chance next time.
4. Look for hearts. Heart particles mean the llama is yours.

The first try never works, because every llama starts at temper 0. After six failed tries the temper is full and the seventh try always works. Feeding helps: wheat adds 3 to the temper and a hay bale adds 6.

A tame llama still won’t let you steer. Llamas can’t wear a saddle, so riding one only gives you a seat. For a mount you can ride where you want, see how to tame a horse in Minecraft or a camel.

Llamas are neutral. Hit one and it spits back for 1 damage, or 1.5 on Hard. They spit at wolves without being provoked, but leave tamed wolves alone unless those start it. A tamed llama doesn’t defend you, but it does spit at anything that attacks the llama itself.

What do llamas eat?

Llamas eat wheat and hay bales. You can only feed a llama when it has an effect: when it’s hurt, still a baby or not tame yet, or when a tame adult is ready to breed.

You craft a hay bale from 9 wheat. Llamas follow you while you hold a hay bale; wheat doesn’t lure them. A baby llama takes about 20 minutes to grow up.

Only tame adults breed, with a hay bale each. The baby gets the coat colour of one of its parents. Its strength is a random number from 1 up to the strength of the stronger parent, with a 3 percent chance of one extra point, to a maximum of 5. So breed your strongest llamas if you want bigger chests. Llamas that are part of a caravan don’t breed.

Give a llama a chest

Use a chest on a tame adult llama. The llama now carries 3 to 15 slots, depending on its strength. Open them by sneaking and using the llama, or by riding it and opening your inventory.

Think before you add one: you can’t take the chest off again. It only comes back when the llama dies, together with everything inside it.

A tame llama also has a carpet slot. Every carpet colour shows a different pattern on its back, which makes it easy to tell your pack llamas apart, a bit like dyed shulker boxes. Two wool of the same colour craft three carpets, and shears take a carpet off again.

Lead a caravan

Put one llama on a lead and up to nine nearby llamas that aren’t in a caravan yet fall in line behind it. That makes a caravan of up to ten. Every llama you leash can head its own caravan, so with more leads you move more llamas at once.

You craft leads from 5 string, which gives you 2 leads; since Java 1.21.6 and Bedrock 1.21.90 the recipe no longer needs a slimeball. A lead stretches up to 12 blocks. Pull further, or let the llama get stuck behind something, and it snaps. With chests on strength 5 llamas, a full caravan of ten carries 150 slots.

Trader llamas

Every wandering trader arrives with two trader llamas on leads, recognisable by their blue rug. While a trader llama is tied to its trader, you can’t tame or ride it. Use shears on the trader llama to cut the lead, and you get to keep that lead too. Once it’s free, the trader llama never despawns. In Java you then tame it like any other llama; in Bedrock it’s tamed straight away.

Trader llamas defend themselves and their trader. They’re also hostile to zombies, husks, drowned, zombie villagers, pillagers, vindicators and evokers, so they spit at those when they come close. Breed a trader llama with a normal llama and Java always gives you a normal llama, while Bedrock can give either kind.

Two more small differences: in Bedrock llama spit can be sent back at the llama, like other projectiles, and a llama’s carpet turns invisible with the llama under Invisibility, while in Java the carpet stays visible. For the food of every other animal, see what animals eat in Minecraft.