Cave Spider XP Farm (Mineshaft Spawner)
Intermediate Different design per edition
Produces: Fast XP levels plus string and spider eyes
Quick answer: Find a cave spider spawner in a mineshaft (look for the corridors choked with cobwebs), dig out the room, use water to push the spiders into a 14-block drop chute, and one-punch them at the bottom for XP, string and spider eyes. Cave spiders fit through 1-block gaps and under slabs, so the kill zone must be sealed tight.
How it works
- Cave spiders only come from monster spawners in mineshafts (light level 0) surrounded by cobwebs, or from trial spawners (25% chance as the small melee mob).
- They have 12 HP and a 0.5 tall, 0.7 wide hitbox: they fit through a gap 1 block wide and half a block tall.
- Their bite poisons on Normal (7 seconds) and Hard (15 seconds); melee does 2 on Normal and 3 on Hard.
- They are neutral in light level 12 or above; once hostile, light no longer affects them. They are unaffected by cobwebs and Poison.
- Standard spawner rules apply: active within 16 blocks of you, about 4 spiders every 10-40 seconds, and it pauses when 6+ spiders crowd around it - keep them flowing away.
Materials
- Water buckets (2-4) for the push channels
- Plenty of torches and building blocks
- Shears or a sword for clearing cobwebs fast
- Hoppers + chests under the kill spot
- Milk buckets for poison emergencies
Build steps
- Find a mineshaft: the spawner sits in a corridor covered in cobwebs.
- Torch the spawner itself to shut it off, clear the cobwebs, and dig out a room roughly 9x9x5 centered on it.
- Lay water streams along the floor that push everything into a central 1-wide chute. Cave spiders swim poorly, so keep the flow strong and the walls smooth.
- Build the drop: fall damage is distance minus 3, so 14 blocks leave cave spiders at 1 HP.
- At the bottom, leave a half-slab gap at their eye level - you hit legs through it, they cannot fit out. Hoppers and chests go under the floor.
- Stay within 16 blocks of the spawner and finish with one punch; Looting raises string (0-2 base, up to 0-5 with Looting III).
Rates
Output depends on the design, the version and how much of it you build, so we do not quote an hourly figure. Build the layout below, time it for a few minutes in your own world and scale from there.
Tips
- Seal every gap 1 block wide and half a block tall: they squeeze through where a normal spider cannot.
- They drop 5 XP when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
- If the spawner keeps pausing, move the drop further away: it pauses with 6 or more mobs nearby.
- Source: minecraft.wiki Cave Spider.