What to do with dragon eggs in Minecraft

Often considered Minecraft's rarest item, dragon eggs can only appear once in Java Edition and twice in Bedrock Edition without the use of cheats or Creative Mode. It can be obtained in traditional gameplay after defeating the Ender Dragon, where the egg will then generate on top of the exit portal.

But what exactly does a dragon egg do in Minecraft? Fans have asked for years, as when the block was first introduced, players were hopeful that it could be hatched. Sadly, this isn't the case in the vanilla version of the game at the moment. However, dragon eggs still have a few different functions that players may want to be aware of.

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What you can do with a dragon egg in Minecraft as of April 2023

Traditionally, dragon eggs in Minecraft are considered decorative blocks. While it's true that they can certainly look great on display, dragon eggs also have other applications that may not be readily apparent to players. Where most decorative blocks can be interacted with in a fairly standard way, dragon eggs have intriguing functions that most decorative blocks don't have. If players would like, they can experiment with how these dragon egg quirks work.

For example, dragon eggs are one of the few decorative blocks in Minecraft that are affected by gravity. If there is no block below an egg, it will continue falling until it lands atop a block. These eggs can also be placed on non-solid blocks like plants or redstone components without falling due to gravity. However, dragon eggs aren't capable of crushing entities by falling on them in a way that anvils or stalactites can.

Dragon eggs can also technically be used as a light source in Minecraft. The eggs generate a light level of one when placed, so players can use them to improve the light level nearby or even prevent the spawning of hostile mobs. Since hostile mob spawns have been reworked in recent years to require a light level of zero, placing a dragon egg can prevent hostile mob spawns in a small area around the egg. Obviously, dragon eggs certainly aren't the best light source in the game, but they can be helpful in a pinch.

Interestingly enough, dragon eggs are also capable of teleportation when attacked in Minecraft's Survival and Adventure Modes. They're capable of teleporting to rest on other solid blocks or even into the sky where they can fall back to the Earth. While it can be somewhat tricky to determine how this may be useful to players, some have been able to craft fun minigames where fans must chase down a teleporting dragon egg as it jumps from location to location. Players can even hide dragon eggs using their teleportation abilities and challenge others to find the eggs.

Hopefully, Mojang will implement new ways to use the dragon egg in future updates and potentially even allow players to hatch it. The promise was made to add dragons to the vanilla version of the game many years ago by Notch, but the feature still hasn't come to fruition in 2023.