Egg

This article is about the chicken egg. For other uses, see Egg (disambiguation).

Egg

Rarity tier	Common
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (16)
Size	Height: 0.25 blocks Width: 0.25 blocks

An egg is an item that is dropped by chickens every few minutes while they are still alive. It can be used to craft food items, such as cake, and can be thrown for a chance to spawn baby chickens on impact. They have three variants based on the variant of the corresponding chicken: the standard egg for temperate chickens, brown egg for warm chickens, and blue egg for cold chickens.

Obtaining

Mob loot

Every adult chicken lays an egg item every 5–10 minutes, except for those that are or were part of chicken jockeys. The theoretical average would be expected at 1 egg every 7.5 minutes (9000 game ticks). The type of egg being laid depends on the chicken variant; temperate chickens lay normal eggs, cold chickens lay blue eggs, and warm chickens lay brown eggs.

A fox has a 3% chance of spawning with a normal egg in its mouth, which it drops upon death. Alternatively, a player dropping a food item causes the fox to drop the egg.

Generated loot

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition and Bedrock Edition
Egg	Trial Chambers	Chamber dispenser	4–8	6.9% { "item": "Egg", "stacksize": "4–8", "chance": 0.06896551724137934, "structure": "Trial Chambers", "container": "Chamber dispenser" }
	Village	Fletcher's chest	1–3	23.3% { "item": "Egg", "stacksize": "1–3", "chance": 0.23252875118681526, "structure": "Village", "container": "Fletcher's chest" }

Usage

Crafting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Notes
Cake	Milk Bucket + Sugar + Any Egg + Wheat		After crafting the cake, the empty buckets remain in the crafting grid in Java Edition, or are moved to the first available inventory slot in Bedrock Edition.
Pumpkin Pie	Pumpkin + Sugar + Any Egg

Combat

Players are able to throw eggs and deal knockback to mobs (but not other players‌^{[JE only][1]}), but no damage is dealt, similar to a snowball. Likewise, throwing eggs at neutral mobs provokes them. Eggs can also be fired from dispensers and are affected by gravity. Eggs thrown through fire or lava in Bedrock Edition catch fire, and set fire to entities they hit.

Spawning chickens

When thrown by a dispenser or by pressing the use button, an egg has a ¹⁄₈ (12.5%) chance of spawning a chick. If this occurs, there is a ¹⁄₃₂ (3.125%) chance of spawning three additional chicks (on average, 1 out of every 256 eggs spawns 4 chicks). In other words, whenever an egg is thrown, there is a ³¹⁄₂₅₆ chance of spawning 1 chick and a ¹⁄₂₅₆ chance of spawning four chicks.

The chick variant depends on which egg variant was thrown; regular eggs hatch temperate chicks, blue eggs hatch cold chicks, while brown eggs hatch warm chicks.

The expected value of the number of chicks an egg produces is ³⁵⁄₂₅₆ or 13.7%. This means that on average, a chick is spawned every 7.3 eggs, a stack of 16 eggs spawns 2.188 chicks, and a full inventory including the hotbar and off-hand (37 × 16 = 592 eggs) is expected to spawn approximately 81 chicks.

Behavior

Thrown Egg

Hitbox size	Height: 0.25 blocks Width: 0.25 blocks
Ticking order	Acceleration, Drag, Position
Gravity	0.03 (double)
Drag	0.99 (float)
Terminal velocity	2.97 b/t (59.4 m/s)
Maximum travel	99 blocks per b/t of initial velocity

Motion

Thrown by player

When thrown straight up, eggs travel 27.68993 blocks‌^{[Java Edition only]} or about 45 blocks‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} on average. They travel up to ~51.5 blocks horizontally on even ground when thrown at the optimal launch angle of ~40°.

Since the thrower's velocity influences the throw, timing a throw with a jump towards the target can increase the throwing range. It increases to about 42 blocks when thrown straight up and 64 blocks forward at a 35° angle. When sprint-jumping and throwing at a 35° angle, the range increases to about 90 blocks. For the same reason, throwing while falling significantly decreases the range.

A thrown egg experiences initial speed of about 1.5 blocks per tick. Its movement follows acceleration, drag, and position (in subtick order); these variables can be simulated to predict the overall trajectory. Below is a calculator to predict the initial conditions in order to hit a desired coordinate:

Shot by dispenser

Eggs shot by dispensers behave in the exact manner as when they were thrown by a player, with the only difference in their initial conditions. The initial position of eggs when shot by a dispenser offsets exactly 0.7 blocks forward and 0.1 blocks higher from the center of the block. Their initial speed is slightly randomized, which averages to about 1.1 block/tick.

Collisions

Thrown eggs collide with blocks according to their collision box. They also collide with entities, but with the entities' collision box inflated to about 0.3 blocks in every direction. They collide with all living entities, including minecarts, boats, end crystals, falling blocks, and TNT.

Sounds

Java Edition:
Thrown eggs use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	Translation key
Egg	egg	Item	item.minecraft.egg
Blue Egg	blue_egg	Item	item.minecraft.blue_egg
Brown Egg	brown_egg	Item	item.minecraft.brown_egg

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	Translation key
Thrown Egg	egg	impact_projectiles	entity.minecraft.egg

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Egg	egg	390	Item	item.egg.name
Blue Egg	blue_egg	749	Item	item.blue_egg.name
Brown Egg	brown_egg	750	Item	item.brown_egg.name

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Egg	egg	82	entity.egg.name

Entity data

Thrown eggs have entity data that define various properties of the entity.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		The Lie	Bake a cake using: wheat, sugar, milk, and eggs.	Pick up a cake from a crafting table output.	30	Bronze

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Bullseye	Hit the bullseye of a Target block from at least 30 meters away	Be at least 30 blocks away horizontally when the center of a target is shot with a projectile by the player.

Videos

History

Java Edition

Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.14							Added eggs.
							Eggs currently have no purpose and cannot be thrown.
Java Edition Beta
1.0							Eggs now stack to 16 instead of 64.
							Eggs are now throwable at the request of a fan as the result of a Twitter conversation about a man eating his USB flash drive (a Kingston DataTraveler 100), if Notch added egg throwing.[2]
1.2							Eggs are now used to craft cakes.
							Eggs can now be launched by dispensers.
Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2				Breeding has been added, making eggs easier to obtain.
			RC1				Thrown eggs now hatch chicks instead of adult chickens.
							The egg's throw sound has been changed.
1.4.2			12w37a				Eggs are now used to craft pumpkin pies.
?							Eggs now produce egg particles when impacting a block, rather than snowball particles.
1.9			15w32a				Eggs no longer damage the ender dragon.
			15w36b				Eggs now produce particles when thrown at an entity.
			15w49a				Eggs, like all throwable projectiles, now take the thrower's motion into account when fired.
1.14			18w43a				The texture of eggs has been changed.
			18w50a				Eggs can now be found in chests in village fletcher houses.
							Therefore, chickens are no longer the only source of eggs.
							Thrown egg now have an optional Item tag that can specify a different item stack to render.
			19w07a				Added foxes, which sometimes spawn with eggs in their mouths.
1.16			20w09a				Thrown eggs can now break chorus flowers.
1.16.2			pre1				Eggs are now affected by bubble columns.
1.20.3 Experiment Update 1.21			23w45a				Eggs can now generate in trial chambers dispensers.
1.21.2			24w34a				Thrown eggs no longer go through the world border if hit.
1.21.5			25w06a				Added blue and brown eggs alongside the chicken variants they come from.

Bedrock Edition

Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.4.0							Added eggs. They are only obtainable through inventory editors.
							Eggs are throwable, but are unable to spawn chickens.
v0.7.0							Chickens now occasionally lay eggs.
							Eggs can be used to craft a cake.
							Thrown eggs now have a chance of spawning adult chickens.
v0.8.0			build 1				Eggs are now used to craft pumpkin pies.
			build 3				Thrown eggs now have a chance of spawning chicks instead of adult chickens.
Pocket Edition
1.1.0			alpha 1.1.0.0				The entity ID has now been changed from thrownegg to egg.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.0							Eggs now deal knockback to players.
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				The texture of eggs has been changed.
1.11.0			beta 1.11.0.1				Eggs can now be found in village fletcher chests.
			beta 1.11.0.4				Eggs can now be sold to farmer villagers.
1.13.0			beta 1.13.0.1				Added foxes, which can drop eggs.
1.16.0			beta 1.16.0.57				Trading has now been changed, eggs can no longer be sold to farmer villagers.
1.20.60 Experiment Update 1.21			Preview 1.20.60.20				Eggs can now generate in trial chambers dispensers.
1.21.70 Experiment Drop 1 2025			Preview 1.21.70.22				Added blue and brown eggs.
							Added item tag minecraft:egg for use in recipes.
1.21.70			Preview 1.21.70.23				All features behind the "Drop 1 2025" experimental toggle have now been fully implemented.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU1	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added eggs.
TU7							Thrown eggs now hatch chicks instead of adult chickens.
TU14		1.04					Eggs are now used to craft pumpkin pies.
TU46	CU36	1.38	1.38	1.38	Patch 15		Eggs, like all throwable projectiles, now take the thrower's motion into account when fired.
			1.90				The texture of eggs has been changed.
			1.91				Eggs can now be sold to farmer villagers.

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Added eggs.

Java Edition Combat Tests

Data history

Issues

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

Gallery

In other media

• 
  An egg as seen in Minecraft Earth
• 
  An egg as it appears in A Minecraft Movie

Trivia

• Eggs break mid-fall if hit by another projectile; the chance of spawning a chick is not affected.
• A thrown egg faces toward the player in first-person view, while it appears rotated horizontally in third-person view. This is the case for all throwable items such as ender pearls, snowballs, and all throwable potions.

References