How to gain the turtle shell in Minecraft

Under the waves of Minecraft's oceans sits many different threats, the worst of which is the players inability to breathe in water.

Luckily, there's quite a few ways to cancel out that problem - potions, placing doors underwater, or by the use of a turtle shell. One of Minecraft's more challenging and time-sensitive helmets, turtle shells require players to breed fully grown sea turtles and defend their eggs until the babies are fully grown.

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How to craft the turtle shell in Minecraft

Image via Minecraft

First things first, players must grab some shears and begin cutting down sea grass found growing on the sea floor. Sea grass are turtles' favorite snacks, and as such, will begin breeding when two are fed this oceanic item. Once turtles mate, the female's belly will grow larger as she begins searching for a suitable spot on the beach to lay her eggs. Turtles will always search for the chunk that they spawned into to lay their eggs.

Once in their spawn chunk, the pregnant turtle will lay up to four eggs, and it's now up to the player to protect those eggs. Come night time, zombies, husks, and drowned alike will all attempt to trample and destroy the eggs. To stop this from happening, construct a house around these eggs, or, use a silk touch pickaxe to move the eggs to a safer location. Turtle eggs take multiple day cycles in order to fully grow and hatch, and will grow faster during the night.

Once the baby turtles hatch, players can use 10 sea grass to increase their growth, and once fully grown, turtles will drop a scute. Repeat this process with four more turtles until the player has a total of five scutes.

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Place the scutes in a three by three crafting grid as if to make a helmet, and receive the turtle shell item.

This helmet gives players an extra ten seconds of water breathing every time they enter water, up to a total of 25 seconds. If enchanted with respiration, that time goes all the way up to 70 seconds - more than enough to traverse down to whatever the sea floor may contain.

A good use for this item is to conquer Minecraft's ocean monuments, read more on that here.