How to Make a Snow Golem in Minecraft

A Snow Golem is a constructible passive mob which can be used to farm snow, snowballs and can also be used for defense against monsters and other hostile mobs. A snow golem has a peculiar appearance with a carved pumpkin for a helmet and the body of a snowman. They have stick arms and a number of ‘buttons’ that go down the front. Snow Golems can also be sheared like sheep which will get rid of the carved pumpkin helmet. Here is how to make a Snow Golem in Minecraft and what you can use it for. 

How to make a Snow Golem in Minecraft

You will need access to the snow biome to collect the required materials for building a snow golem. You’ll need a carved pumpkin or a jack o’lantern and two snow blocks. Go to a snow biome and collect snowballs which you can craft into blocks of snow. 

You can make a carved pumpkin by shearing normal pumpkins.

Place the two blocks of snow in a vertical line and add the carved pumpkin or jack o’lantern on top. You can also place the snow blocks sideways or upside-down and it will spawn a Snow Golem as long as the pumpkin is the last block placed. It is rare but the pumpkin may also be placed by an enderman.

While the snow golem is constructed using a pumpkin, that is not its actual head. The carved pumpkin acts as a helmet once the golem spawns. You can remove the pumpkin by shearing the golem, which reveals its face and makes it drop a pumpkin. Once removed, you cannot place the pumpkin back on its head again.

The snow golem will spawn at the location of the snow blocks and wander around aimlessly. It usually tries to avoid water, obstacles and warmer weather. They are immune to damage from powder snow but take damage from rain and biomes with high temperatures like deserts, badlands or the nether. As the snow golem moves, it leaves a trail of snow behind it regardless of the biome, unless it is in a mushroom field.

Snow golems will move towards monsters and throw snowballs at them from up to 10 blocks away. They can throw one snowball per second. While the snowball does not do damage to anyone except blazes and wolves, it does knock back whatever mob it hits. This mechanic is useful when fighting hostile mobs in game. Note that a snow golem will not attack other golems (iron or snow). However, if accidentally hit, an iron golem will attack the snow golem. Snow Golems could previously deal damage to the Ender Dragon but that was patched out in Minecraft 1.8.