Stray
hostileOurs, not the game's own: 1 drop that the rolls on death do not cover, how a stray behaves. Bedrock v1.26.40.05 differs: spawn weight 80 on Java against 120 on Bedrock; groups of 4 on Java against 1 to 2 on Bedrock. Checked 2026-08-22, and here is how we check.
Added InOverview
In Minecraft, the Stray is classified as a hostile mob: it will attack players on sight whenever it is able to reach them.
Strays make their home in the Overworld, turning up in Snowy Plains, Ice Spikes, Frozen Ocean, Frozen River, and 1 other biome type.
What sets it apart is its behaviour: skeleton variant that shoots Arrows of Slowness.
Stat-wise it sits at 20 health (10 hearts), dropping 5 experience on death.
The Stray has been part of the game since version 1.10.
One thing worth knowing: Strays are immune to freezing damage from powder snow.
Knowing how the Stray behaves is mostly about survival: recognising it early and reacting correctly is what keeps a night-time excursion from ending in a respawn.
Damage by Difficulty
Spawning
In the wild, the Stray is generated in Snowy Plains, Ice Spikes, Frozen Ocean, Frozen River, and Snowy Taiga.
The spawn table has no favourite: the Stray takes up the same 15.5% of the list in Ice Spikes and Snowy Plains, so head for whichever you can reach first.
Spawns at light level 0 in snowy/frozen biomes. Replaces 80% of skeleton spawns in frozen biomes.
Pay attention to lighting: a light level of 0 is required, which is exactly what makes torch placement such an effective way to suppress or encourage these spawns.
Naturally spawned strays will despawn over time when no player is nearby; naming one with a name tag or leading it away on a lead keeps it permanent.
For a reliable Stray farm, set your spawning floor within the biomes above and light everything else nearby so spawns funnel to one spot.
Where the Stray spawns
Ice Spikes and Snowy Plains are where it stands strongest: weight 80 on the monster list and 15.5% of it, arriving 4 at a time. There it shares the list with Creeper at 100, Slime at 100, Spider at 100, Zombie at 95 and Skeleton at 20 and 3 more, 515 weight together, of which 80 is stray. That is the whole list.
| Biome | Weight | Share | Group |
|---|---|---|---|
 Ice Spikes | 80 | 15.5% | 4 |
 Snowy Plains | 80 | 15.5% | 4 |
Drops
Here is what you can expect to collect from a Stray:
Nothing here is guaranteed: a kill can give you 0 to 2 Arrows, 0 to 2 Bones, 1 Tipped Arrow, and 1 Arrow of Slowness (usually, 50% chance).
You also collect 5 experience for every Stray you defeat.
These are well worth keeping. Arrows of Slowness inflict Slowness I for 30 seconds.
The Looting enchantment on your sword raises the quantity and, for many of these items, the drop chance of the rarer rolls, so it is well worth using when you grind this mob.
With nothing guaranteed, output is swingy: over many kills the averages hold, but any single Stray may give you little, so farm in volume rather than expecting a jackpot each time.
| Item | Count | Chance | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arrow | 0 to 2 | not every kill | Looting III up to 5 |
| Bone | 0 to 2 | not every kill | Looting III up to 5 |
| Tipped Arrow | 0 to 1 | not every kill | player kill, Looting III up to 1 |
| Arrow of Slowness | 0 to 1 | 50% | equipment |
Arrow
BoneIt is not the only source of Tipped Arrow: the bogged drops 0 to 1 and the parched the same.
Stray attributes
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
 Size | 0.6 x 1.99 blocks |
 Eye height | 1.74 blocks |
 Tracking range | 8 chunks |
 Experience | 5 |
| Follow range | 16 blocks |
 Health | 20 points |
 Movement speed | 0.25 |
Where the Stray lands, it has company: the wither skeleton, level with it on health, speed and follow range alike.
Stray: 0.47% of its category, rank 43 of 52
On 2 of the 66 biome lists (2 spawn entries in total), and 0.47% of every spawn the game puts in its monster group is a stray.
The ranges Minecraft Java 26.2 rolls for a stray give 1 Arrow per kill, so 64 Arrow costs 64 kills before Looting. Bone runs at 1 a kill, 64 stray kills for a stack of its own. 1 further row sit under those, down to 0.5 Tipped Arrow per stray and 128 kills a stack. 1 of those 3 rows (Tipped Arrow) only roll when a player lands the killing blow, so a stray killed by a fall or another mob averages 2 items instead of 2.5.
1 situational row left out. How this average is worked out
| Weapon | Attack damage | Full swings | Swings per 64 Arrow |
|---|---|---|---|
 golden sword, wooden sword | 4 | 5 | 320 |
 stone sword | 5 | 4 | 256 |
 iron sword | 6 | 4 | 256 |
 diamond sword, golden axe, wooden axe | 7 | 3 | 192 |
 netherite sword | 8 | 3 | 192 |
 diamond axe, iron axe, stone axe | 9 | 3 | 192 |
 netherite axe | 10 | 2 | 128 |
Coming the other way, a stray hit is 15% of a player's 20 health, 7 of them a full bar, all out of the stray's 3 damage on Normal. On Easy the same stray hit is 10%, on Hard 20%, so 10 hits against 5.
Behavior & Combat
Behaviourally, skeleton variant that shoots Arrows of Slowness. Does not burn in sunlight (unlike regular skeletons).
Its 20 health is 23rd of 80, just over the 16 of the spider.
On the offensive it deals 2 on Easy, 3 on Normal and 4 on Hard, and you will need to chew through 20 health (10 hearts) to bring one down.
The fastest way to win is to lean on what it fears: Smite enchantment and Shields.
A sword enchanted with Smite shortens the fight considerably against this mob.
Since it can attack from range, closing the distance quickly or breaking line of sight with cover is often safer than trading hits at a distance.
It ignores daylight, but not the fact that it is undead: a splash of Healing wounds it, Harming heals it, and against 20 health with no armour to speak of a Smite V sword adds 12.5 damage a hit.
The practical takeaway is to respect its strengths, exploit the weaknesses listed above, and you will rarely lose a fight you choose to take.
Stray commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| /summon minecraft:stray | Puts a stray on the block you are standing on. |
| /give @p minecraft:stray_spawn_egg | Hands you the stray spawn egg, so you can place strays where you want them. |
| /kill @e[type=minecraft:stray] | Removes every stray that is loaded around you. |
Entity id minecraft:stray, spawn egg minecraft:stray_spawn_egg.
Stray farm
Everything about a stray farm follows the stray spawn rule. Spawns at light level 0 in snowy/frozen biomes. Replaces 80% of skeleton spawns in frozen biomes.
Of the 2 biome spawn lists the stray stands on, Ice Spikes gives the stray its largest share at 15.5%, so a stray platform there fills faster than the same build anywhere else.
The game puts 4 strays down per roll, so a wide stray floor beats a tall one.
Each kill is worth 5 experience and up to 2 arrows, or 5 with Looting III, which is the number to scale the stray farm against.
Stray version history
8 June 2016 is the day the stray arrived, in Minecraft 1.10, and the stray has been part of the game for 10 years since.
2 other mobs here came with it: the polar bear and the husk. That puts the stray behind 39 of the 88 mobs here and ahead of 46.
Every stray figure on this page is read from Minecraft Java 26.2 as it stands today, not from the version above.
What Stray sounds like
Turn subtitles on and every stray sound names itself in the corner of the screen. These are the 3 lines a stray can put there, and you can play any of them yourself with /playsound minecraft:entity.stray.ambient master @p.
| Sound | What you hear |
|---|---|
| entity.stray.ambient |  Stray rattles |
| entity.stray.hurt | Stray hurts |
| entity.stray.death | Stray dies |
Advancements that need Stray
2 advancements ask for stray by name, and each of them counts other mobs too.
- Monster HunterKill any hostile monster
- Monsters HuntedKill one of every hostile monster
