Unlocking Skeleton-Free Bones: A Guide to Obtaining Bones in Minecraft

Bones are a crucial resource in Minecraft, used for various purposes such as crafting bone meal and taming wolves. But how can you acquire bones without having to battle skeletons?

We will explore different methods to obtain bones in Minecraft without the need to kill any skeletons. From trading with villagers to exploring shipwrecks and even venturing into the Nether, there are numerous alternative ways to collect bones in the game.

Let’s dive in and discover these creative methods together!

Why Do You Need Bones in Minecraft?

You need bones in Minecraft for the following two reasons:

1. Growing large trees. If you play on Peaceful mode and need large amounts of wood, bone meal might be the only way to get large trees to spawn.
2. Bone meal can be used as a natural fertilizer on crops, seeds, grass blocks, and mushrooms, making them grow faster.

What Are the Uses of Bones in Minecraft?

The uses of bones in Minecraft are as follows. Used on tamed wolves or wild foxes to help them grow faster or to heal 5^* hit points, or to cause a wolf to sit if it is already standing. Can be planted in a 2×2 square or 3×3 square of any type to form a gristblock medium, which can conserve or restore water sources. Bones do not restore food. In the Java and Kinetics variations, bone meal is a basic nutrient that is used to increase the growth speed of most plants or trees instantaneously. In Bedrock, bone meal is made with bone blocks. It can spawn bushes and trees with respect to’ Souping a sapling… bone mealing grass… making or spawning some plants… making certain mushrooms… advancing lily pads… fertilizing bacteria… making the root system of waterlogged plants grow… making sugar canes expands… propelling mature crops to double… making fermented spiders… making pumpkins / melons grow seeds (similar to pushing a mob)… propelling a turtle to lay eggs.

How to Get Bones in Minecraft?

Plus killing skeletons, you can get Bone meal in Minecraft by looking for it inside Sunken Ships, Mineshafts, Strongholds, Fossil s, Dungeons, Nether Fortresses and Villages. Bones can be gotten by killing a Stray or Wither Skeleton. Bone meal can be crafted by placing any bone into a crafting grid by itself, giving you three piles of bone meal. Bones can also be found in block breaking of high value ores in the form of loot drops, which include glowstone, iron, lapis lazuli, gold, redstone, diamond, emerald, nether quartz, and any of the three types of ancient debris.

Finding Skeletons in the Overworld

A great source of Bones is searching for and defending against the skeleton mobs that appear in Minecraft’s Overworld at night time or in dark caves. Skeletons are one of the most common hostile mobs in the game and are easy to find, although random in their spawns.

In open areas at night, they will generally spawn on difficulty settings beyond Peaceful. Within a structure such as a mine or tunnel, they may spawn at any time of day if the area is dark enough. Deserts, Taigas, or Tundras sometimes have wide vistas where you can aggro on a skeleton from a distance, allowing you to keep some enjoyment during the process of obtaining your bones.

Fishing for Bones

In Minecraft, fishing is a game mechanic requiring a fishing rod. Players can use it to catch consumable items such as fish and books and elaborate items like enchanted weapons. The pool of available items is called loot and is different from one biome to another.

Bones from fishing, either directly or from the waste item of a fish called the bone meal which can be used as bonemeal for crops, are the rarest of items but they are definitely available. Players must be persistent, as is usual with fishing activities due to the random nature of the loot pool resulting in a low probability of obtaining bones on any one loot attempt.

The average wait of about 30 seconds per fish to appear makes bone collection by fishing slower and more tedious than killing skeletons. Craft a fishing rod by placing three string in the diagonal of the crafting grid, then a stick on one of the strings, the loop on the other side. Once the fishing rod is built, go to water where fish complicitly swim around (not too deep). Equip the rod and use it next to fish. Once you see the fishing bobber dipped under the surface of the water, rapidly press the right trigger (R2 for PlayStation) to reel in the fishing rod and catch the fish, which may or may not be accompanied by other items from the loot table.

Trading with Villagers

Trading with villagers is rarely worth it but is another method to get bones in Minecraft. Building infrastructure to supply villagers with wheat, potatoes, carrots, or beetroot, will encourage them to create bone blocks as part of their random trades. Tanners have a 25% chance of offering three bone blocks for five leather. The biggest disadvantage with bonemeal trades will be the excessive farming required to generate enough bone blocks for the trade, and the advantage will be additional crops.

Finding Fossils in the Overworld

Dormant fossil blocks generate encased by 3-24 beach blocks in almost any overworld biome. They generate with 15-24 huge mushroom blocks, too, but this is rare. They otherwise generate by themselves with no encasement, too.

Every fossil block vein has a 45% chance of generating at bedrock level (y=0), and a 45% chance of generating between level 1 and 11. They otherwise generate between level 13 and the surface at common, uncommon, and rare rates of 15, 10, and 5% respectively according to the Minecraft wiki.

Fossil blocks resemble stones made of bone, and look like a mixture of stone and usual bone blocks with a light and dark grey pattern running throughout them. These blocks contain the following breaks of bone blocks within them, ignoring the main block with a circle of radius 3 inside of them.

• 11-18% chance of 1 block
• 43-61% chance of 2 blocks, uniformly distributed from the corners except directly above and below the main block.
• 15-23% chance of 3 blocks, a pyramid or below the main block.
• 3-6% chance of 4 blocks, one catty-corner from each corner.
• Tiny <10% chance of none

These break faster (at least a third faster) than typical blocks, and have a blast resistance between dirt and wood when mined with anything aside from fortune and silk touch pickaxes.

Searching for Dungeons in the Overworld

Dungeons are small, ancient structures, underground crypts, and similar buildings that appear in the Overworld. Dungeons in Minecraft are the topiaries of ancient warriors. Organized torture, mistaken security mechanisms, or survived buildings where great civilizations sought to defend themselves.

Dungeons appear in the form of small enclosed rooms made of cobblestone and/or mossy cobblestone, with a monster spawner (most commonly a spider spawner) encased in the middle, and containing a chest containing valuable items. Dungeons are rare, but if you find one, they contain sources of free bone meals. Before patch 1.8 PRE1, bones could only be found in the form of chests inside dungeons. In the updated game, dungeon chests have been able to produce a boneless bone meal (a.k.a. fossil) which can theoretically spread real bone meal to approximately 34 regular teeth, according to user simulations.

Yet they still contain Skeleton Spawners, so as long as you repeatedly kill these, you will receive an abundance of bones. If you decide to explore the Overworld to find Dungeons, remember that they only appear randomly underneath some ground blocks, mostly cobblestone. Dungeons will always be part of an abandoned mine, although you may see them alone in the middle of a desert. Keep exploring the Overworld for such rare finds.

Exploring Shipwrecks in the Ocean

Finding and exploring a Shipwreck in the ocean is one of the easier methods to obtain Bones in Minecraft. Not all shipwrecks contain string, but most do. The shipwreck first appeared in the Java Edition 1.13 Update Aquatic version of the game. Shipwrecks release air when broken with a pickaxe underwater and face east-west with multiple structures. The shipwreck chest typically contains 1-10 bones and more than a dozen other items.

Shipwreck Statistics:
— Maximum stackable: 64
— Drops: It itself doesn’t drop items beyond itself broken floating as oxygen
— Total searchable components: 16
— Experience dropped: 3
— Renewable: N/A
— RIP post-death glow status: N/A

According to the Minecraft Fandom, half of shipwreck pieces generate chest loot determined (in addition to random alterations) by a separate underwater loot table. They may also generate items determined by a separate map structure pool which determines what a structure is made of. These two tables determine what the chest contains and after that, additional tables are consulted to determine the stack size.

Obtaining Bones from Wandering Traders

Bones can be obtained from trading in the form of couple of stacks by following these steps:

1. Locate a Wandering Trader
2. Trading Wandering Trader icon in the lower right corner. This type of villager will occasionally appear in most biomes excluding snowy tundras. They will stay for only one in-game day.
3. Kill him or trade with him, and then he will walk away after a while.

They may offer Bonemeal in exchange for one emerald even if it is not regularly in their trade cycle. However, in the form of Bonemeal, Bones cannot be reliably traded from Wandering Traders. Obtain the item through trading, rushed to extract it before he leaves, as it’s a bit of blind luck whether Wandering Traders have Bone.

Alternative Ways to Get Bones in Minecraft

Alternative ways to get Bone Meal without regularly killing Skeletons include fishing, trading, looking for Skeleton Spawners, killing Strays and Wither Skeletons, and visiting various Minecraft biomes.

Fishing has a low chance of giving the player an exact number but is a way to get Bone Meal rather than killing Skeletons. Trading can sometimes offer the chance to obtain Bone Meal for a few smaller tasks. The chances of getting a Bone from a skeleton spawner are slim. Killing Strays comes with a greater likelihood to drop Bone Meal. Wither skeletons and the monsters of their same types are known to drop Bones in addition to other items.

Using Bone Meal to Grow Trees

Bone Meal is a fertilizer in Minecraft that accelerates plant growth. Applied to trees or crops that produce food and other resources, Bone Meal does not work on saplings and mushrooms. Using Bone Meal on Tracked Oak, Spruce, Jungle, or Birch Saplings encourages faster growth, and can provide sticks and several more block materials to you within minutes of planting.

Breaking various sizes of Mushrooms produces some Bone Meal as well, but it is the least efficient of all the means. A large mushroom produces a maximum of 0.125 bone meals per block. Lava is needed for mushrooms to expand, meaning it is only feasible after you get a Diamond pickaxe to obtain obsidian. The same quantity of Bone Meal and lesser resources such as sticks, blocks, and tools can be made by planting and breaking Oak saplings or by modifying leaves near water. Avoid growing mushrooms if you need quick bone meals.

Finding Bones in Buried Treasure Chests

Some examples of buried treasure chests inside of shipwrecks can be found from this guide. Buried treasure chests that are randomly placed throughout Minecraft worlds have a small chance of bone drop around 25%, with an even smaller chance of being able to obtain up to 64 bones at once. Finding sunken shipwrecks can be one of the most fruitful ways for players to obtain bones by looting the sunken shipwreck.

Obtaining Bones from Trading with Piglins in the Nether

In Minecraft version 1.16 and newer, the newly introduced NPC Piglins in the Nether can drop bones after they are bartered with gold ingots. There is a 3.39% chance of obtaining 3-9 bones each trade. There are a number of ways to get gold in Minecraft-especially in the Nether when you are confined there and safer options are limited. Piglins are one of the many NPCs in Minecraft that you can trade with in exchange for gold.

Conclusion: How to Get Bones in Minecraft Without Killing Skeletons

Bones in Minecraft are obtained through fishing, underwater structure (ruins, shipwreck, and ocean monument) loot, fishing (jungle and plains), as well as by killing skeletons, strays, wither skeleton, wolf, skeleton horse, fox, polar bear, and guardian. Assuming the player first mines iron ore, this is the minimum requirement before they can even start to fish in the game.

Five other posts have varying recommendations for the best way to obtain bones for bone meal in Minecraft if players don’t want to kill skeletons. But these will require higher-quality tools, seeds, theirs, and stocking up on wood to try and locate mob spawners that can offer valuable drops. The cheapest way to consistently acquire bones without resorting to slaying is to build hoppers to generate XP and extra drops from mobs when engaging them to gather bones.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I obtain bones in Minecraft without having to kill skeletons?
To get bones without killing skeletons, you can try to find them in various locations such as dungeons, desert temples, or abandoned mineshafts. You can also trade with villagers to obtain bones.

2. What are some alternative ways to get bones in Minecraft?
In addition to finding bones in various structures and trading with villagers, you can also try fishing or using a skeleton spawner to collect bones without having to kill any skeletons.

3. Can I get bones in Minecraft by farming?
Yes, you can farm bones by using a bone meal on a grass block and waiting for tall grass to grow. Breaking the tall grass will give you a chance to obtain bones. You can also farm bones by breeding and then killing animals, as they have a small chance of dropping bones.

4. Are there any specific tips for finding bones in Minecraft?
One tip for finding bones is to explore dark areas, as they are more likely to have skeletons and other mobs that may drop bones. You can also try using a looting enchantment on your weapon to increase your chances of obtaining bones.

5. How can I use bones in Minecraft?
Bones can be used to tame and breed wolves, make bone meal for farming, and craft bone blocks for building. They can also be used as fuel in a furnace to cook food and smelt items.

6. Are there any other benefits to obtaining bones in Minecraft?
Yes, bones can also be used to craft bone meal, which can speed up the growth of crops and trees. Bone meal can also be used to create white dye, which can be used on various items in the game.