# How to Get a Sniffer in Minecraft

> Find a sniffer egg, hatch it, and use your sniffer to dig up ancient seeds.

Source: https://www.beaconhosting.org/knowledgebase/how-to-get-a-sniffer-in-minecraft
Category: Minecraft
Last updated: 2026-11-05

Sniffers are ancient mobs added in Minecraft 1.20. They don't spawn naturally: you hatch them from eggs found through archaeology.

## 1. Find a sniffer egg

Sniffer eggs come from **suspicious sand** in **warm ocean ruins**.

1. Craft a **brush** (a feather, a copper ingot and a stick).
2. Find a warm ocean ruin and look for suspicious sand (it looks slightly different from normal sand).
3. Hold the brush on it until an item comes out. Some of the time, it's a sniffer egg.

## 2. Hatch it

Place the egg on any block. It hatches in about 20 minutes, or about 10 on **moss blocks**. A baby sniffer (a snifflet) hatches and grows up over time.

## 3. Let it dig

Adult sniffers wander and sniff, then dig up seeds from grass, dirt, mud and moss blocks:

- **Torchflower seeds** grow into torchflowers.
- **Pitcher pods** grow into pitcher plants.

## Breed more

Feed two adult sniffers **torchflower seeds** to breed them. They lay a new egg.

> [!TIP]
> Fence your sniffers in on a field of moss or grass, so their digging stays where you want it.