How to farm wool in Minecraft (2022)

Wool is used in various Minecraft crafting recipes, from beds and carpets to banners and paintings. For this reason, some players may opt to create a stable wool farm in order to collect the material block in large quantities.

Players can farm wool from sheep in a variety of ways. Some farm designs are manual, while others work automatically.

Naturally, automatic wool farms are more productive as they require little to no player input. Ultimately, the design players choose to use will come down to their comfort level and the resources they have on hand.

Fortunately, creating a basic automatic wool farm shouldn't be too difficult for most Minecraft players. Once it's set up, players will have plenty of wool to use.

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Players can build a basic auto wool farm in Minecraft 1.19 with redstone blocks and sheep

A basic auto wool farm using one sheep (Image via u/GamePlayXtreme/Reddit)

Minecraft players can create a reliable automatic wool farm with a few redstone blocks and at least one sheep.

The basic premise involves an observer block detecting when a grass block is being eaten, thereby ascertaining when a sheep has re-grown its wool. Shears placed in a dispenser block can then automatically shear the wool from the sheep. The wool can be funneled through a hopper into a nearby chest.

Steps to create a basic auto wool farm

1. Place a dispenser block facing a horizontal direction of your choosing.
2. Ensure that there is a grass block present in the direction the dispenser is facing. This will allow grass to grow atop it in front of the dispenser.
3. Create your sheep pen. This can be any size, but it's best to keep it small for the redstone-compatible blocks to do their work.
4. Bring at least one sheep into the containment pen.
5. Place an observer block underneath the dispenser. Make sure the observer is aimed at the same grass block the dispenser is facing.
6. On top of the block behind the observer, place a piece of redstone dust to activate the dispenser.
7. Place a pair of shears inside the dispenser.
8. Underneath the grass block the dispenser is facing, place hopper minecarts, and create a space for chests that the minecarts can carry the wool to.

If constructed correctly, the sheep in your enclosure should have their wool sheared by the dispenser until they lose all their durability. Minecraft will then create long tufts of grass on top of the grass block, which the sheep can eat to recover their wool. The observer will notice the state change of the grass block and re-activate the dispenser to shear the sheep again.

All wool will pass through the grass block to be collected by the hopper minecarts. They will then deposit the wool into chests to be collected. That's all there is to it.

You can expand on this design if you'd like to use more sheep and collect more wool. However, this isn't required, and you can also replicate this farm build multiple times to shear multiple sheep at once.

If this particular Minecraft design isn't ideal, you can always check out some of the other builds shared by the community. There's no wrong way to farm wool; it all comes down to player preference.