Breeding

"Bred" redirects here. For the food, see bread.

Breeding is a game mechanic that allows certain mobs, including villagers and many animals, to produce offspring.

Some mobs have similar mechanics that are not classified as breeding.

Mechanics

Most animals that can be bred have food items that can be used to lead and breed them (there are a few special cases, described below). Villagers have their own breeding mechanics (see Villager § Breeding).

Once an animal notices a player holding its food, it follows the player until either the player is out of range, the player stops holding the item, it begins the breeding process, or it is attacked. Baby animals behave the same way. Most animals are uninterested in food lying on the ground, and those that are do not breed from eating this food.

Any two adult animals of the same species can breed with each other, even if one animal is the parent of the other.

Love mode

Animals only breed when a player feeds them. One food item needs to be fed to each parent to breed a single baby.

When an animal is fed its food, it enters "love mode", preparing to breed with another animal of the same species that is also in love mode. Animals that are in love mode emit heart particles constantly‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} (see MC-93826). When both animals are fed, they pathfind toward each other, up to eight blocks away. The two animals walk into each other for about two and a half seconds, which simulates kissing, and then drop 1–7XP and end love mode to produce their offspring, the method of which depends on the animal. Most animals immediately spawn a baby animal at the feet of the parents, usually of the same species as their parents. Some animals lay eggs, but the method and location they perform this varies from animal to animal. Chickens are the only animals that can both directly produce babies and lay eggs, as well as the only animals that lay eggs without being fed. After breeding, the parents cannot be fed to breed again for five minutes, but they (and their babies) always follow players holding breeding items. An animal exits love mode if it does not breed 30 seconds after being fed, but it immediately becomes able to be fed and enter love mode again.

Growing a population

Animals can be bred repeatedly to grow a large population of them. The number of animals that are produced starting from a single pair of animals, assuming the offspring are fully grown before breeding again, is represented by this sequence (OEIS A061418):

where is the floor function.

The th term of the sequence can also be computed with this formula: where and is the ceiling function. The constant is defined to be (see OEIS A083286).

Breeding foods

Mob	Items	Other
Horse (Tamed) Donkey (Tamed)	Golden Apple Enchanted Golden Apple Golden Carrot	These mobs must be tamed by repeatedly mounting them before they can breed. They can be tamed faster by being fed. A horse breeding with a donkey produces a mule. Mules cannot breed. The following items cannot be used for leading or breeding, but can be used to feed an untamed horse, donkey, or mule, grow a baby, or for healing: Sugar Wheat Apple Carrot Hay Bale
Cow Goat Mooshroom Sheep	Wheat	Sheep can grow faster if they eat short grass, ferns, short dry grass, tall dry grass, or grass blocks. They cannot be hand-fed these items; they eat them only if they are placed in the world.
Pig	Carrot Potato Beetroot	Pigs can also be led, but not bred, with a carrot on a stick.
Chicken	Wheat Seeds Pumpkin Seeds Melon Seeds Beetroot Seeds Torchflower Seeds Pitcher Pod	Chickens directly produce a chick when bred. They also automatically produce eggs, and do so without having to be fed.
Wolf (Tamed)	Raw Beef Raw Chicken Raw Porkchop Raw Mutton Raw Rabbit Rotten Flesh Steak Cooked Chicken Cooked Porkchop Cooked Rabbit Cooked Mutton Raw Cod ‌[JE only] Raw Salmon ‌[JE only] Pufferfish ‌[JE only] Tropical Fish ‌[JE only] Cooked Cod ‌[JE only] Cooked Salmon ‌[JE only] Rabbit Stew ‌[JE only]	Wolves must be tamed by being given enough bones before they can be fed anything else, and do not enter love mode from eating bones. Tamed wolves can be fed to restore health, and must be at full health to enter love mode. Both of the wolves have to be standing. In Bedrock Edition, the following can also be used for healing, but cannot be used for breeding or growing a baby wolf: Raw Cod Raw Salmon Pufferfish Tropical Fish Cooked Cod Cooked Salmon Rabbit Stew In Java Edition a bowl is returned upon feeding rabbit stew.
Cat (Tamed) Ocelot	Raw Cod Raw Salmon	Cats must be tamed by being given enough food before they can breed. Tamed cats can be fed to restore health, and must be at full health to enter love mode. At least one of the cats has to be standing. When fed, ocelots have a 1⁄3 chance of trusting the player that fed them, and do not run away. An ocelot does not need to be trusting to breed. In Bedrock Edition, breeding creates a baby ocelot that trusts the player.
Axolotl	Bucket of Tropical Fish	Only bucketed tropical fish can be used to breed axolotls. Tropical fish items cannot be used. A water bucket is returned upon feeding.
Llama (Tamed) Trader Llama (Tamed)	Hay Bale	Llamas must be tamed in order for them to be bred. They can be tamed by repeatedly mounting them. This process can be sped up by feeding them. Wheat can also be used to feed an untamed llama, grow a baby, or for healing, but it cannot be used to lead or breed llamas.
Rabbit	Dandelion Carrot Golden Carrot	Rabbits always run from players unless they hold a breeding item, even if they are fed or grown from a baby by a player.
Turtle	Seagrass	Turtles lay turtle eggs on sand when bred, which take a few days to hatch into baby turtles. They lay eggs only at the place they spawned or were hatched. Turtle eggs can only be obtained using Silk Touch. They only hatch when placed on sand, and they hatch significantly faster at night. Turtle eggs can be trampled and broken, and zombies and their variants do so deliberately.
Panda	Bamboo	Pandas can eat bamboo and other food items without player input, but breed only when fed by a player. In Java Edition, pandas breed only if there is at least one bamboo plant (not including shoots) within a 7×7×3 area. In Bedrock Edition, pandas breed only if there are at least eight bamboo plants placed in a radius of five blocks around them. Although pandas can eat cake, they cannot be bred with it.
Fox	Sweet Berries Glow Berries	Foxes can eat berries and other food items without player input, but breed only when fed by a player. The baby fox always trusts the player who bred the foxes, even when it grows up, and does not run away when approached.
Bee	Flowers Mangrove Propagule Flowering Azalea Flowering Azalea Leaves Cherry Leaves Pink Petals Wildflowers Spore Blossom Cactus Flower Chorus Flower	All flowers and flowering blocks work. Feeding bees wither roses or open eyeblossoms gives them the Wither or Poison effect, respectively, without angering them or triggering love mode.
Strider	Warped Fungus	Striders can also be led, but not bred, with a warped fungus on a stick.
Hoglin	Crimson Fungus	Hoglins continue to attack during the breeding process. Hoglins that are fleeing from warped fungi, nether portals, or respawn anchors cannot be bred. Zoglins cannot breed.
Frog	Slimeball	Frogs lay eggs on water that take ten minutes to hatch into tadpoles. These eggs cannot be obtained in item form or moved.
Camel	Cactus	Although they are fed cactus to breed and do not take damage from it, camels still take damage from touching it when it is placed in the world.
Sniffer	Torchflower Seeds	Sniffers lay eggs when bred, which take twenty minutes (or ten, if the egg is placed on a moss block) to hatch into a snifflet. They lay their eggs in item form, and they must be placed by a player.
Armadillo	Spider Eye	When an armadillo is rolled up, it can't eat.
Nautilus (Tamed)	Bucket of Cod Bucket of Pufferfish Bucket of Salmon Bucket of Tropical Fish Cooked Cod Cooked Salmon Pufferfish Raw Cod Raw Salmon Tropical Fish	Nautiluses must be tamed by being given enough pufferfish before they can breed. When a nautilus eats a pufferfish, it does not inflict them with the Hunger, Poison, and Nausea effects. When a bucketed fish item is fed to a nautilus, a water bucket is returned after feeding.

Villagers

Unlike most mobs that can breed, villagers do not automatically breed when given food. Villager breeding depends on both the number of valid beds in the area (see the village page for full details), as well as whether the villagers are "willing." A villager may become willing if they have 3 bread or 12 carrots/potatoes/beetroots in their inventory. They may also become willing as a result of trading with a player. When they breed, they produce a baby villager. Zombie villagers and wandering traders cannot breed, and baby zombie villagers do not grow up as long as they're not cured.

Baby mobs

Baby mobs are smaller variations of their adult counterparts, having small bodies, relatively big heads (with some exceptions), and faster walking speeds. Most baby animals choose and follow an adult within 8 blocks of the same species, regardless of whether it is their parent.

Most baby mobs take 20 minutes to grow up, while snifflets take 40 minutes. This can be accelerated by feeding them their breeding item.

Similar mechanics

Allay duplication

If an allay is given an amethyst shard while it is dancing due to a nearby jukebox playing any music disc, it splits into two allays (itself and a new allay) and the amethyst shard is consumed. After duplication, both allays have a five minute cooldown before being able to duplicate again. Allays do not have a baby form.

Shulker duplication

There is a chance for a new shulker of the same color to spawn when a shulker is hit with a shulker bullet (including one of its own).

The following conditions must be met:

• When the shulker gets hit and then has less than half its health remaining, there is a 25% chance for it to teleport without spawning a new shulker instead of checking the conditions below.
• The hit shulker must have its lid open.
• The hit shulker needs to find somewhere to teleport. For this, it takes a random block in a 17×17×17 cuboid centered on the shulker and then checks if the block has a valid face to teleport to. If not it proceeds to try this up to 4 more times. If no valid face is found, the attempt fails.
• Each other shulker within 8 blocks of the hit shulker decreases the odds of success by 20%. When five or more other shulkers are nearby, no shulkers can spawn, but the hit shulker still teleports.

If the attempt succeeds a new shulker spawns where the old shulker was before it teleported. Shulkers do not have a baby form, and, other than the above criteria, have no duplication cooldown.

Sulfur cube splitting

When a large sulfur cube dies by any method other than its own explosion, two small sulfur cubes are spawned, which will grow into large sulfur cubes after 20 minutes. They can be fed slimeballs to increase their growing speed.

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		Repopulation	Breed two cows with wheat.	Breed two cows or two mooshrooms.	15	Bronze
		Zoologist	Breed two pandas with bamboo.	—	40	Gold

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed two animals together	Breed a pair of any of these 27 animals: Armadillo Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule Nautilus Ocelot Panda Pig Rabbit Sheep Sniffer Strider Trader Llama Turtle Wolf A mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breedable together. Other breedable mobs are ignored for this advancement.
	Two by Two	Breed all the animals!	Breed a pair of each of these 26 animals: Armadillo Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule Nautilus Ocelot Panda Pig Rabbit Sheep Sniffer Strider Turtle Wolf A trader llama does not count as a llama, and a mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breedable together. Other breedable mobs can be bred, but are ignored for this advancement.

History

Development

Java Edition

Bedrock Edition

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU7	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added breeding.
							Wolves can be bred, a feature from Java Edition 1.2.1.
							Chickens can be bred with seeds or Nether wart, a feature from Java Edition 1.4.2.
TU11							Added a message when the player tries to breed an animal when the spawn limits have been reached.
TU12							Added baby villagers.
TU13							Added a limit to the amount of villagers spawned by breeding.
TU14		1.04					Baby mobs can be spawned by using on that mob using its spawn egg.
							Pigs are now responsive to carrots instead of wheat.
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12			Added horses and donkeys, which can breed using golden apples or golden carrots to produce babies. Breeding a horse and a donkey together produces a baby mule, which is infertile.
TU31	CU19	1.22	1.22	1.22	Patch 3		Baby animals can be grown faster by being fed. Each feeding reduces the remaining time to maturity by 10%.
							Added rabbits, which can be bred using dandelions, carrots or golden carrots to produce babies.
TU43	CU33	1.36	1.36	1.36	Patch 13		Added polar bears and their baby variant. Polar bears cannot breed; babies spawn naturally and grow up on their own.
TU46	CU36	1.38	1.38	1.38	Patch 15		Added husks and baby husks, which do not grow up.
TU54	CU44	1.52	1.52	1.52	Patch 24	1.0.4	Added llamas, which can be bred using hay bales to produce babies.
TU69		1.76	1.76	1.76	Patch 38		Added turtles, which can be bred using sea grass. Unlike other animals, which immediately produce a baby, one of the two turtles lays eggs which eventually hatch into baby turtles.
							Added dolphins and their baby variant. Dolphins cannot breed; babies spawn naturally and grow up on their own.
							Added drowned and baby drowned, which do not grow up.
			1.83				Added pandas, which can be bred using bamboo to produce babies if certain conditions are met.

Issues

Issues relating to "Breeding" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  A family of wolves in a snowy plains biome as well as a baby cat.
• 
  Early image of sheep breeding.
• 
  Early image of baby animals.
• 
  Two villagers breeding.
• 
  A group of villagers breeding underground.
• 
  Two axolotls breeding.

In other media

• 
  A family of pandas breeding to create a baby as seen in A Minecraft Movie.

See also

• Tutorial:Animal farming

References