Minecraft Llama Guide: Food, Taming, Breeding, and Caravans

Llamas were a part of the Minecraft for around 10 years already, since they were added in the update 1.11 “Exploration Update” back in 2016. However, due to their unique behavior, mechanics and general lack of popularity among most of the players, most of the ins-and-out of the llama mechanics such as food they eat, taming, caravans and such, remain unknow to the average player out there. Today, we are gonna make a dive into the topic of llamas in Minecraft!

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Cutting to the chase, llamas are neutral mobs that can be naturally found in Savanna and Mountain biomes, in herds of 4 to 6. They eat wheat and hay bales. The wheat is used to heal llama, speed up growth for baby llamas and increase their temper characteristic, so it’s easier to tame them. Hay bales on the other hand are used exclusively for breeding llamas.

Regarding the topic where many players may find difficulties — riding llamas. Llamas cannot be controlled with a saddle like horses are, you can only move them using leads.

While this technically covers the surface level of the topic, there are many more ins-and-outs yet to be discussed, so let’s dive deeper!

Where to find llamas in Minecraft

Like we mentioned before llamas in Minecraft can be found in 2 biomes in small herds of 4 - 6:

• Savanna: Savanna, Savanna Plateau, Windswept Savanna
• Mountains: Windswept Hills, Windswept Forest, Windswept Gravelly Hills

However, except for the normal llamas, there is a mob called “trader llama”, which is just a llama that will only spawn alongside the wandering trader. The wandering trader itself can spawn in any biome near the player.

What do llamas eat in Minecraft?

Llamas eat wheat and hay bales, just like we mentioned shortly in the beginning, however let’s go over this information in more detail to fully grasp the topic.

First off — wheat. You can use wheat to feed the llama to heal it, speed up the growth of a baby llama or increase its temper, which makes it easier for you to tame it later.

Next up — hay bale. The hay bale has a crucial mechanic — it is the only item that triggers the breeding for tamed llamas. Asides from that, it can be used to perform all the other actions mentioned in the wheat section: heal, speed up growth and increase temper.

Since both of the items can be used in the same way(asides from the crucial mechanic of the hay bale), let’s compare the effects these items have in more detail:

How to tame llamas

Taming llama can be a frustrating process, as unlike many other mobs in the game (cats, wolfs etc.) they aren’t tamed by feeding them a specific food, but by a repeated riding. Depending on your luck and llamas temper level, it may take you a few attempts before taming it.

To tame a llama, follow this steps:

1. Find and approach the llama
2. Mount llama by right clicking on it
3. Wait, if the you get lucky, you will tame the llama. You could tell it by the heart particles appearing over the llama. In other case, the llama will buck you off itself. If you weren’t able to tame llama first try, do not give up, follow these steps again as much as needed until the llama is tamed.

Just like we mentioned before, feeding llama wheat or hay bales will make it easier to tame it. Keep in mind that this won’t tame the llama automatically, you will still need to follow the taming steps mentioned above. Feeding llama will only decrease the necessary amount of mounting attempts, before you actually tame the llama.

How to breed llamas

The breeding mechanics are much easier and straight forward compared to taming, so let’s get into it. To breed llamas, you will first need to ensure both of them are tamed — this is crucial as you cannot breed wild llamas. Then, you will need to feed each llama one hay bale, wait a moment and done — you got yourself a cute baby llama!

NOTE

After breeding, there is a 5 minute cooldown before the same parent llamas can breed again.

Llama’s chests and storage

Once you got yourself a tamed llama, you can actually equip it wit ha chest by holding a chest in you main hand and right clicking the llama. This allows you to use llamas as the moving storage, helping players to travel for longer distances while holding onto lots of goods.

The storage of llamas equipped with chests is not fixed. It is completely dependent on the hidden characteristic of each llama — strength. This characteristic is random and cannot be seen by the player beforehand, ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 being the strongest. With that in mind, the llamas storage is determined in game by the following formula: llamas storage is strength * 3 slots. So 3 slots for the weakest and 15 for the strongest one.

NOTE

In Vanilla Minecraft, once the chest was equipped on a llama, there is no way to remover it unless llama dies.

Llama caravans

One of the coolest mechanics regarding llamas in Minecraft — caravans. Caravan is a linked train of many llamas. Just imagine how many goods can be carried around with each llama being equipped with a chest. But how do you form a caravan? Do you need leads for every llama?

No worries, caravans are formed very easily and most importantly, very efficiently. Assuming you have all the llamas close by to you, they are all tamed and equipped, to form a caravan you will need a single lead. That’s right, only one lead for up to 11 llamas(1 leashed llama + 10 following) in caravan. Just leash one of the llamas, and the others will follow it in a linked train, creating a llama caravan.

If you have more than 10 llamas, no worries, the core idea behind forming caravans are the same : 1 lead — up to 11 llamas. This means, that to form a caravan with up to 22 llamas, you will only need 2 leads ( 2 llamas leashed + 20 following), to form a up to 30 llama caravan — only 3 leads etc.

Llama decorations

Just like any other pets, llamas can be customized a bit for aesthetical pleasure of the player. Though unlike wolfs and horses, llamas do not wear armor — they wear carpets. Assuming the you already have a tamed llama, to equip the carpet, right click the llama to ride it, open inventory and place a carpet in the designated slot. Alternatively, you can just right click the llama while holding the carpet in your main hand. Every carpet provides unique, detailed visual pattern, however unlike horse or wolf armor it is purely cosmetic item.

Trader llamas

Like we briefly mentioned before, while at it’s core both llamas, Minecraft makes a clear separation between normal and trader llamas due to the multiple quite major differences:

NOTE

Additionally, trader llamas cannot be bred, even if you intentionally tame them.

Llama vs horse vs donkey

While all 3 are mountable mobs, they are used for varying purposes and so their abilities and what can they do are different as well. Let’s look into the differences in more detail:

So, just like you saw in the table, the are quite a few differences between these mountable mobs, to summaries it with a few words:

• Llama: Cannot be controlled via saddle like horse or donkey, but unlike the two, can be used to form caravans. Considering its ability to be equipped with additional storage, it is a perfect way to transport a big amount of goods without going back and forth.
• Horse: Can wear armor, used only for fast riding and cannot be equipped with additional storage.
• Donkey: Can be used for riding, but is significantly slower than horse. Unlike horse, can be equipped with additional storage (always the same amount of slots).

Troubleshooting: why your llama is not working

While llamas are that tricky to manage, you can get easily confused when dealing with them for the first time. So if there is any trouble you ran into while managing your llamas, check out this table with troubleshooting solutions:

Conclusion

That was the extend of our comprehensive Minecraft llama guide, thank you so much for reading and we sincerely hope this article helped! Get you leads and llamas ready, it’s time for an adventure, good luck on the journey!