Ghastling: the baby happy ghast in Minecraft

What is a ghastling

The ghastling is the intermediate stage in the growth cycle of the happy ghast in Minecraft. The mob was added together with the whole happy ghast line in the 1.21.6 "Chase the Skies" update. A ghastling does not occur naturally: it does not spawn in the Nether or in the Overworld. In survival, the only way to get one is to hydrate a Dried Ghast block, which is found in the Soul Sand Valley biome, and wait until it goes through the whole growth cycle.

The name is self-explanatory: ghastling means a small or young ghast. It is simply a baby ghast, but a "domesticated" one. Unlike the classic ghast, which shoots fireballs and haunts the Nether, a ghastling is white, fluffy and completely non-aggressive: even if a player damages it, it does not retaliate.

Many players who see a ghastling for the first time ask: how is a ghastling different from a happy ghast? The short answer: the ghastling is the baby, the happy ghast is the adult. A ghastling can't carry players yet and you can't put a harness on it. To unlock everything the new flying mob can do, you have to wait until the ghastling grows up. We describe this in detail in the Happy Ghast guide.

Ghastling stats

Nobody raises a ghastling in order to fight it: it is simply a transitional stage on the way to getting a happy ghast, which is what gives real benefits (flying with four players, the harness, long-distance transport).

Growth cycle: Dried Ghast → Ghastling → Happy Ghast

In Minecraft 1.21.6 Mojang added an unusual three-stage raising cycle that starts with a block, not a mob. It goes like this:

1. Find a Dried Ghast - a new block that generates in the Soul Sand Valley biome and looks like a shriveled, dried-out ghast.
2. Carry the block - you can mine it and place it anywhere you like.
3. Hydrate the block - pour a bucket of water onto the Dried Ghast or place it directly in water.
4. Wait: a ghastling grows out of the block - after a while the block "cracks" and a small white ghastling appears.
5. Feed it snowballs - give the ghastling snowballs to speed up its growth.
6. The ghastling grows into a happy ghast - after the full cycle (about 20 minutes of real time without feeding) the ghastling turns into an adult happy ghast, which you can put a harness on and use to carry players.

In this chain the ghastling plays the role of a "teenage pet": it is already a mob (not a block), but it does not offer transport functions yet. It looks like a miniature happy ghast and bobs as it flies.

How to get a ghastling step by step

1. Find a Dried Ghast block

Open a Nether portal and head to the Soul Sand Valley biome, a blue valley with large skeletons and blue fire. Dried Ghast blocks generate on the ground of this biome. Look around carefully: a dried ghast is small and easy to mistake for a small pile of blocks.

If you don't find one right away, remember the general rules of exploring the Nether, which we describe in the Nether guide. Take armor with Fire Protection and a potion of Fire Resistance with you, because the Soul Sand Valley is dangerous mainly because of the wild ghasts.

2. Mine the block

A Dried Ghast is mined with a pickaxe, and technically a pickaxe of any material will do.

3. Carry it to your base

Go back through the portal to the Overworld and place the block where you plan to raise the happy ghast, preferably close to a body of water or next to a simple setup with a bucket. Remember that an adult happy ghast is big, so leave at least 5×5×5 blocks of free space around it.

4. Hydrate the Dried Ghast block

You have two options:

• Pour water from a bucket onto the Dried Ghast block itself.
• Place the block in a body of water.

After hydrating, the block starts to "breathe": an internal counter starts and after a set time turns it into a ghastling.

5. Wait for the transformation

After a while the block cracks and a small ghastling emerges from it. From then on it is no longer a block but a full mob that floats in the air near the player and responds to feeding.

Feeding with snowballs

A ghastling has only one diet: snowballs. That is unusual, because most mobs are fed organic food (carrots, wheat, fish), while here the pet gets a ball of snow. Each snowball fed to the ghastling speeds up its growth by a small amount.

How to get snowballs

• Collecting from snow: use a shovel in a snowy biome (Snowy Plains, mountains, Snowy Taiga). Every snow block you dig gives several snowballs.
• Snow golem: build a snow golem, which leaves a trail of snow behind as it walks: an endless source of snowballs.

How to feed a ghastling

1. Take snowballs in your hand (they work in either hand, main or off-hand).
2. Aim at the ghastling and press Right-click / the trigger.
3. Green particles appear above the ghastling, confirming that the feeding worked.
4. Repeat to speed up growth. Each snowball shortens the time needed to grow into a happy ghast.

Remember that snowballs do not damage a ghastling, unlike throwing them at a blaze, where a snowball deals 3 damage. The ghastling is happy with the snowball and treats it as a snack, not an attack.

Behavior and interaction with players

A ghastling is exceptionally calm. It flies slowly, does not run away from the player, attacks no one and ignores most of the mobs around it. When you hold snowballs in your hand, the ghastling gently floats toward you, just as cats react to raw fish.

An interesting trait is that a ghastling doesn't tell players apart. In multiplayer this means a friend can help you feed your pet and speed up its growth without upsetting any "ownership" relationship: a happy ghast isn't tamed in the classic sense, it's simply a shared pet of the base.

How a ghastling flies

A ghastling floats in the air and sways gently, sometimes bumping into ordinary obstacles.

Can a ghastling be harnessed

The most common question from players: can you saddle a ghastling or put a harness on it? No. A ghastling is a baby, and baby mobs in Minecraft never accept saddles. No transport interactions are available until the ghastling grows up.

The same applies to breeding. Ghastlings cannot be bred. To get more of them, you have to:

1. Collect more Dried Ghast blocks in the Soul Sand Valley.
2. Hydrate each Dried Ghast block separately.

Even so, the whole cycle is repeatable: if you bring several Dried Ghast blocks back from the Nether, you can raise several ghastlings in parallel and end up with a fleet of adult happy ghasts ready to fly together.

Combat, death and drops

Although a ghastling is passive, you can technically kill it: a sword hit, a bow shot or setting it on fire is enough. The point is that almost nobody does it: a ghastling is a valuable resource on the way to a happy ghast.

What a ghastling drops on death

A ghastling does not drop anything special. It does not drop ghast tears, gunpowder or any other valuable materials. It does not give experience points either, so raising ghastlings as a resource farm makes no sense.

What if it dies while growing

If a ghastling dies before it grows up (for example from a creeper, falling lava or suffocating in a cramped room), you lose all progress. There is no respawn mechanic: you have to get a new Dried Ghast block and start the whole cycle from scratch. For this reason many players keep a ghastling in a closed, lit room with no contact with hostile mobs until it grows into a happy ghast.

Ghastling vs regular ghast

The ghastling and the ghast (the regular, wild one) are two completely different mobs: all they share is the same family. The table below shows the key differences:

Unlike the regular ghast, the ghastling does not shoot and drops nothing. A regular ghast stays a regular ghast to the end of its days; a ghastling, on the other hand, is a transitional stage.

Trivia and FAQ

How long does it take a ghastling to grow up?

Without feeding, a ghastling takes about 20 minutes of real time to grow up, which equals one full Minecraft day. Feeding it snowballs shortens this time: each snowball gives a percentage reduction. Many players feed it a dozen or so snowballs in one go and cut the growth down to a few minutes.

Does a ghastling spawn naturally?

No. A ghastling never appears on its own, in the Overworld, the Nether or the End. It is a purely "controlled" mob: it appears as the result of hydrating a Dried Ghast block and nowhere else. This means that in survival you don't risk running into wild ghastlings in the wilderness.

Can you catch a ghastling in a bucket?

No. It is a flying mob, not an aquatic one, so a bucket won't work. If you want to move a ghastling, the best methods are a lead (limited, because the ghastling flies) or building a fenced area around it that it can't escape from.

Does a ghastling attack me if I hit it?

No. Unlike the regular ghast, a ghastling can't attack at all. If you take its last hearts, it simply dies without retaliating.

Is the ghastling available in Bedrock Edition?

Yes. The whole Dried Ghast → Ghastling → Happy Ghast cycle works in both Java and Bedrock Edition; in Java it arrived in version 1.21.6.

Can I use the /summon command to spawn a ghastling?

Yes, in Creative mode or on a server where you have permissions. The command is /summon minecraft:happy_ghast with the {"Age":-24000} tag, which means the baby form. In survival, though, players usually take the honest route through a Dried Ghast block: it is part of the new raising mechanic in the "Chase the Skies" update.

Can a ghastling fly over water or lava on its own?

Yes. A ghastling floats in the air regardless of the block beneath it, so it passes safely over water, lava or even pointed dripstone.

Will a ghastling grow up if I leave the game?

Only if the chunk it is in stays loaded. In singleplayer, pausing the game stops the world clock, so the ghastling does not grow. On a multiplayer server the cycle keeps running even when the player is offline, as long as the area is within another player's range or in the spawn zone.

Minor trivia

• A ghastling sounds different from a regular ghast: the classic sad "crying" is missing. Instead there are gentle, puppy-like sounds.
• In a fight a ghastling has no fighting spirit: it won't come to your defense, even if a creeper attacks you.