The happy ghast is the friendliest thing to come out of the Nether: a big white ghast that wears a harness, carries up to four players on its back, and floats at a calm, steady speed. It is the closest thing Minecraft has to a shared airship.
Getting one takes patience more than skill. You need a dried ghast, water, roughly 40 minutes of waiting, a handful of snowballs if you want to speed it up, and a harness. Here is every step.
RateUp to 4 riders
XP level20 health
Build timeAbout 40 minutes from block to mount
DifficultyBeginner
Step 1: get a dried ghast
Everything starts with the dried ghast block. There are three ways to get one:
- Craft it. Eight ghast tears around one soul sand in a crafting table. Ghast tears drop from ghasts, which makes this the most reliable route if you already fight ghasts.
- Find one. Dried ghasts generate next to Nether fossils in soul sand valleys, with roughly a one in three chance per fossil. Look for the big bone structures and check the blocks around them.
- Barter for one. Piglins can give a dried ghast when you trade them gold ingots, about 2% of the time. Not a plan, but a nice surprise if you already run a bartering setup.
Step 2: hydrate it
A dried ghast only wakes up when it is waterlogged. Place it, then pour water into the same block (or place it directly into water). Green particles show it has started.
It hydrates through four stages, and the full process takes about 20 minutes. Each stage is driven by random ticks, so the timing wobbles a little, averaging a bit over 5 minutes per stage. Keep the chunk loaded: stay nearby and do something else in the meantime.
When it finishes, the block turns into a ghastling, a small baby happy ghast.
Do it in the Overworld. Water evaporates in the Nether, so the block cannot be waterlogged there. Bring the dried ghast home first.
Step 3: grow the ghastling (and speed it up)
A ghastling grows into a full happy ghast after 20 minutes. You can cut that down:
- Feed it snowballs. Each snowball removes 10% of its remaining growth time. A stack of snowballs from a snow golem or a snowy biome turns the wait into a few minutes of feeding.
- Keep it close. Ghastlings like to stay near players and near their home spot, so it will not wander off while it grows.
Step 4: craft a harness
A happy ghast needs a harness before anyone can ride it. The recipe:
- Top row: 3 leather
- Middle row: glass, wool, glass
The wool color sets the harness color, so there are 16 versions to match your base, and you can re-dye a finished harness with any dye in the crafting grid. Right-click the grown happy ghast with the harness to put it on; use shears on it to take the harness back off.
Happy ghasts are also tempted by snowballs and by a harness in your hand, which is the easiest way to guide one to where you want it before you saddle up.
Step 5: fly
Right-click the harnessed happy ghast to climb on. Up to four players can ride at once; the first one aboard steers.
| Control |
What it does |
| Look + forward |
Flies in the direction you are looking |
| Jump |
Rises straight up |
| Look down + forward |
The only way down: there is no dedicated descend key |
| Dismount |
Sneak key |
A ridden happy ghast moves at about 3.6 blocks per second in the direction the pilot is looking. That is slow next to an elytra, and that is the point: it is a platform, not a race mount.
The tricks most players miss
- It becomes a floating platform. When a player stands on top of a happy ghast, it stops moving and lines itself up with one of the four compass directions. That makes it a stable scaffold for building high walls, bridges and the top of tall builds.
- Longer leads. A lead on a happy ghast stretches up to 16 blocks instead of the usual 12, so you can tow one behind you or park it while you work.
- It stays near home. An unharnessed happy ghast roams within 64 blocks of its home point, a harnessed one within 32. Put it down where you want it to hang around.
- It is not a fighter. With 20 health and no attack, a happy ghast is easy to lose to skeletons or a creeper blast. Fly high over hostile areas and land somewhere lit.
Frequently asked questions
How do you get a happy ghast in Minecraft?
Get a dried ghast (craft it from 8 ghast tears and 1 soul sand, find it near soul sand valley fossils, or barter for it), waterlog it until it becomes a ghastling, then let the ghastling grow up. Put a harness on it to ride.
How long does it take to grow a happy ghast?
About 20 minutes to hydrate the dried ghast and 20 more for the ghastling to grow. Feeding the ghastling snowballs cuts the second part by 10% of the remaining time per snowball.
How many players can ride a happy ghast?
Four. The first rider controls it.
How do you make a happy ghast go down?
Look down and fly forward. There is no separate key for descending; jump makes it rise.
Can a happy ghast be hydrated in the Nether?
No. Water evaporates in the Nether, so the dried ghast cannot be waterlogged there. Hydrate it in the Overworld.
If you want to know where the dried ghast's cousins came from, the Nether lore guide covers what is left of the Nether's history. For more mobs and their stats, browse the Mobdle Bestiary, or test yourself in today's Mobdle: the happy ghast is in the pool, and the happy ghast head is one of the avatars you can unlock on a SyntaxMine player profile.
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