Shears

Shears
Rarity tier	; Common
Item description‌[BE only]	Cut & trim
Mining efficiency	2; 5 (on wool); 15 (on cobwebs and leaves)
Mining level	1
Durability	JE: 238; BE: 239
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	No

Shears are a tool crafted from iron ingots. They are required to obtain some organic blocks or otherwise mine them faster as well as to shear certain entities and blocks.

Obtaining

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Ingot

Generated loot

Item

Structure

Container

Quantity

Chance

Java Edition and Bedrock Edition

Shears

Abandoned Camp

Common chest

1

19%

Village

Shepherd's chest

1

12.3%

Trading

Villager		Probability		Villager wants	Player receives	Trades in stock	Villager experience	Price multiplier
Villager		JE	BE	Villager wants	Player receives	Trades in stock	Villager experience	Price multiplier
Shepherd	Novice	40%	100%	2 × Emerald	Shears	12	1	0.05

Usage

Shearing

Shears lose 1 durability when used to shear something.

A dispenser can use shears in many of the ways listed below, interacting with any valid block or entity in front of its face and decreasing the shears' durability. Dispensers cannot use shears to carve pumpkins or trim vines or kelp, or to remove equipment from mobs. Failed attempts, such as when a sheep has no wool, do not damage the shears, which can be useful for automated wool farms. A dispenser shearing a beehive or bee nest does not anger bees or cause them to leave, even if there is not a campfire or soul campfire below it.

Shearing blocks

Shearing either a beehive or bee nest that is full of honey makes it drop 3 honeycombs and resets it to honey level 0. The same beehive or bee nest can be sheared again if it is able to reach full honey again. If sheared by hand without a campfire or soul campfire below the hive or nest, all bees within exit and all nearby bees attack the offending player.

Shearing a pumpkin turns it into a carved pumpkin, dropping 4 pumpkin seeds in Java Edition and 1 in Bedrock Edition. If the pumpkin was attached to a pumpkin stem, the stem detaches. Shearing a correctly positioned pumpkin can summon a golem as if placing a carved pumpkin.

Shearing the tip of cave vines, kelp, weeping vines, or twisting vines stops further growth by setting its age value to 25.

Shearing mobs

Shearing has a multitude of different effects on mobs:

Mob	Result of shearing	Can be done by dispensers?
Leash Knot or any leashed entity	Removes all the connected leads.	Yes
Bogged	Drops 2 mushrooms, which can be 2 red mushrooms, 2 brown mushrooms or one of each. Can only be done once.	Yes
Copper Golem	If it has a poppy planted on it, it drops the flower.	Yes
Mooshroom	Drops 5 mushrooms of the corresponding color and irreversibly turns it into a normal cow.	Yes
Sheep	Removes its coat and drop 1–3 wool of the corresponding color. The same sheep can be sheared again after it eats from a grass block or short grass to regenerate its coat.	Yes
Snow Golem	Irreversibly removes its carved pumpkin, dropping the item and revealing its face.	Yes
Sulfur Cube	If it has absorbed a block it drops the absorbed block.	Yes
Wolf	Can remove the wolf armor if it has it on. Only the owner of the wolf can remove armor.^[1]	No
Camel Camel Husk Donkey Horse Mule Nautilus Pig Skeleton Horse Strider Zombie Horse Zombie Nautilus	Can remove the saddle if it has it on. Cannot be done if the mob is currently being ridden.	No
Happy Ghast	Can remove the harness if it has it on. Cannot be done if the mob is currently being ridden.	No
Horse Zombie Horse	Can remove the horse armor if it has it on. Cannot be done if the mob is currently being ridden.	No
Llama	Can remove the carpet if it has it on. Cannot be done if the mob is currently being ridden.	No
Nautilus Zombie Nautilus	Can remove the nautilus armor if it has it on. Cannot be done if the mob is currently being ridden.	No

Breaking blocks

Shears use 1 durability when they are used to break any block (except fire and soul fire).

Shears can be used to harvest cobwebs, leaves, short grass, short dry grass, tall dry grass, seagrass, ferns, bushes, dead bushes, nether sprouts, small dripleaves, vines, glow lichen or hanging roots and obtain them in item form. If used to break tall grass, tall seagrass or large ferns, 2 units of the respective small plant are dropped instead.

When shears are used to break weeping vines or twisting vines they are guaranteed to drop in item form instead of the usual 33% chance. This applies to vines directly broken by shears and not vines that are broken due to the destruction of their supporting vines.

Shears can also be used to break tripwire connected to a tripwire hook without activating it. Additionally, shears can be used to break wool faster than other tools.

The following table shows information about blocks that can be broken with shears. Colors indicate what gets dropped when the block is broken:

White on light mode, gray on dark mode: The original block.
Blue: The block's normal drop (i.e. string, sticks, seeds, saplings, apples).
Yellow: two units of the corresponding small plant (short grass, seagrass, or ferns)
Red: Nothing.

	No shears breaking time	Shears breaking time
Bush	0.05 s	0.05 s
Cobweb	20 s^{[note 1]}	0.4 s
Dead Bush	0.05 s	0.05 s
Fern	0.05 s	0.05 s
Glow Lichen	0.3 s	0.15 s
Hanging Roots	0.05 s	0.05 s
Large Fern	0.05 s	0.05 s
Leaves	0.35 s	0.05 s
Nether Sprouts	0.05 s	0.05 s
Pale Hanging Moss	0.05 s	0.05 s
Seagrass	0.05 s	0.05 s
Short Dry Grass	0.05 s	0.05 s
Short Grass	0.05 s	0.05 s
Small Dripleaf	0.05 s	0.05 s
Tall Dry Grass	0.05 s	0.05 s
Tall Grass	0.05 s	0.05 s
Tall Seagrass	0.05 s	0.05 s
Tripwire	0.05 s	0.05 s
Twisting Vines	0.05 s	0.05 s^{[note 2]}
Vines	0.3 s	0.15 s
Weeping Vines	0.05 s	0.05 s^{[note 2]}
Wool	1.25 s	0.25 s

↑ Breaking cobwebs with a sword is as fast as breaking with shears, and yields string. This costs double durability.
↑ ^a ^b Using shears increases the chance of dropping from 1/3 to 100%.

Repairing

Combining

Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Notes
Damaged Shears		The durability of the two pairs of shears is added together, plus an extra 5% durability.

Ingredients	Grinding recipe	Notes
Damaged Shears		The durability of the two pairs of shears is added together, plus an extra 5% durability.

Anvil repair

Ingredients	Anvil recipe
Damaged Shears	Shears

Shears can be combined with another pair of shears in an anvil, preserving the enchantments of both.

Enchantments

Shears can receive the following enchantments:

Name	Description	Max Level	Method	Weight
Efficiency	Increases the mining speed.	V	Anvil	10
Silk Touch‌^{[BE only]}	Causes blocks to drop themselves when mined.	I	Anvil	1
Unbreaking	Grants a chance to negate durability consumption.	III	Anvil	5
Mending	Repairs the shears when obtaining experience.	I	Anvil	2
Curse of Vanishing	The shears vanish on death, not dropping as an item.	I	Anvil	1

Despite using iron in its crafting recipe, shears cannot be smelted into iron nuggets.^[2]

[2] Breaking cobwebs with a sword is as fast as breaking with shears, and yields string. This costs double durability.

[nether_vines-3] Using shears increases the chance of dropping from 1/3 to 100%.

[1]

[note 1]

[note 2]

[2]

Sounds
Sound	Closed captions	Source	Description	Identifier	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Shears click	Players (player) Blocks (dispenser)	When a mooshroom is sheared	`entity.mooshroom.shear`	`subtitles.item.shears.shear`	1.0	1.0	16
	Shears click	Players (player) Blocks (dispenser)	When a sheep is sheared	`entity.sheep.shear`	`subtitles.item.shears.shear`	1.0	1.0	16
	Shears click	Players (player) Blocks (dispenser)	When a snow golem is sheared	`entity.snow_golem.shear`	`subtitles.item.shears.shear`	1.0	1.0	16
	Shears click	Players (player) Blocks (dispenser)	When a bogged's mushrooms are sheared	`entity.bogged.shear`	`subtitles.item.shear`	1.0	1.0	16
	Plant cropped^{[until: JE 26.4]}	Blocks	When a growing plant is cropped	`block.growing_plant.crop`	`subtitles.block.growing_plant.crop`	1.0	1.0	16
	Shears scrape	Blocks	When honeycombs are harvested from a beehive	`block.beehive.shear`	`subtitles.block.beehive.shear`	0.8	1.0/0.8/0.9	16
	Shears carve	Blocks	When a pumpkin is carved	`block.pumpkin.carve`	`subtitles.block.pumpkin.carve`	1.0	1.0	16
	Item breaks	Players	When a pair of shears' durability is exhausted	`entity.item.break`	`subtitles.entity.item.break`	0.8	0.8–1.2	16
	Saddle snips away	Friendly Mobs	When a saddle is removed from a pig, strider, horse, donkey, mule, skeleton horse, zombie horse, and camel using shears	`item.saddle.unequip`	`subtitles.item.saddle.unequip`	1.0	1.0	16
	Carpet snips away	Friendly Mobs	When a carpet is removed with shears	`item.llama_carpet.unequip`	`subtitles.item.llama_carpet.unequip`	1.0	1.0	16
	Horse armor snips away	Friendly Mobs	When armor is removed with shears	`item.item.horse_armor.unequip`	`subtitles.item.horse_armor.unequip`	1.0	1.0	16
	Harness unequips	Friendly Mobs	When a harness is removed with shears	`entity.happy_ghast.unequip`	`subtitles.entity.happy_ghast.unequip`	1.0	1.0	16

Sounds
Sound	Closed captions	Source	Description	Identifier	Translation key	Volume	Pitch
	?	Players	When something is sheared	`mob.sheep.shear`	?	1.0	1.0
	?	Players	When wolf armor is removed from a wolf	`armor.unequip_wolf`	?	1.0	1.0
	?	Blocks	When honeycombs are harvested from a beehive	`block.beehive.shear`	?	0.8	0.8–1.0
	?	Blocks	When a pumpkin is carved	`pumpkin.carve`	?	1.0	1.0
	?	Players	When a pair of shears' durability is exhausted	`random.break`	?	1.0	0.9
	None^{[sound 1]}	Players	When a saddle is removed from a pig, strider, horse, donkey, mule, and camel using shears	`mob.unsaddle`	None^{[sound 1]}	1.0	1.0
	?	Friendly Mobs	When a carpet is removed with shears	`mob.llama.carpet_unequip`	?	1.0	1.0
	?	Friendly Mobs	When armor is removed with shears	`mob.horse.horse_armor_unequip`	?	1.0	1.0
	?	Friendly Mobs	When a harness is removed with shears	`mob.happy_ghast.harness_unequip`	?	1.0	1.0


Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
		Have a Shearful Day	Use Shears to obtain wool from a sheep.	—	15	Bronze

June 3, 2011							Shears were first mentioned by Jeb on Twitter. The tweet revealing Jeb's work on shears was written in Swedish (Jag jobbar på shears nu), which translates to "I'm working on shears now".
June 7, 2011							Jeb tweets about how shears were originally planned as a way to defuse TNT, but he dropped this shortly after deciding TNT would detonate only with redstone or fire.

Java Edition Beta
1.7		Added shears.
1.7		Previously, sheep would drop 1-3 wool blocks at most when hit, but shears can harvest up to 4 wool blocks per sheep.
1.8	Pre-release	Shears can now be used to harvest a fern, vines and short grass.
Java Edition
1.0.0	Beta 1.9 Prerelease	Shears now harvest red mushrooms from a mooshroom and turn it back into a normal cow.
	Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3	Shears can now be enchanted using an enchantment table, but it is only a visual effect, as no enchantments exist yet.
	Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4	Shears can no longer be enchanted using an enchantment table.
1.1	11w49a	Sheep now drop only 1-3 wool blocks when sheared, but they can also regrow their wool by eating grass, which is part of a plan to have animals stay in the game longer.^[3]
1.2.1	12w05a	Shears can now be used to harvest dead bushes.
1.2.1	12w06a	Shears are now renewable, due to zombies occassionally dropping iron ingots.
1.3.1	12w21a	Shears can now be bought from farmer villagers for 3 emeralds each.
1.3.1	12w22a	Shears can now be used to break tripwire string and not set it off.
1.4.2	12w38a	Added a sound when using shears on sheep.
1.4.6	12w50a	Shears can now be enchanted.
1.8	14w02a	Trading has been changed: Shepherd villagers now sell shears for 3–4 emeralds each.
	14w02a	Farmers no longer trade shears.
	pre1	Shears now lose durability when breaking wool blocks. In previous versions, shears would take durability damage only when destroyed or when breaking short grass or leaves, the damage remaining the same for all other blocks.^[4]
1.9	15w34a	Shears may now be used in a crafting grid to zoom in maps.
	15w45a	Shears no longer zoom in maps.
	15w47b	Shears can no longer be enchanted with Silk Touch.
	15w47b	Shears now lose durability when used to break any block (formerly lost durability only from leaves, cobweb, short grass, fern, tall grass, large fern, vines, tripwire and wool).
	15w47c	Shears now harvest cobweb without requiring Silk Touch.
	15w49a	Snow golem's pumpkin can now be removed with shears.
1.13	17w47a	When shears are used on an un-carved pumpkin, it now turns into a carved pumpkin and drops 4 pumpkin seeds.
1.13.1	18w30b	The durability of shears has been reduced from 239 to 238 due to the fix of a bug.^[5]
1.14	18w43a	Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep.
	18w43a	The texture of shears has been changed.
	18w49a	Shears can now be found in chests in village shepherd houses.
	19w11a	Shepherd villagers now sell shears for 2 emeralds each.
1.15	19w34a	Shears can now be used on bee nests and beehives to harvest honeycomb.
1.16	20w15a	Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear mooshrooms and snow golems.
1.16.2	pre1	Shears are now required in order to pick up crimson and warped roots.
1.16.2	pre2	Shears are no longer required to pick up crimson and warped roots..
1.17	21w05a	Shears can now be used to harvest hanging roots.
1.18	21w37a	Shears can now be used on the tip of cave vines, kelp, weeping vines, and twisting vines to stop further growth.
1.19	22w11a	Shears are now required in order to pick up mangrove leaves.
1.20.5	23w51a	Shears can now be used to remove wolf armor from wolves.
1.20.5 Experiment Update 1.21	24w09a	Shears can now be used to harvest mushrooms from bogged.
1.21.6	25w15a	Shears can now be used to remove harnesses from happy ghasts.
	25w16a	Leashes can now be snipped by using shears.
	25w20a	Saddles, horse armor, and carpets can now be removed from entities using shears.
	25w21a	A sound now plays when removing a saddle, horse armor, or carpet from an entity using shears.
	pre1	Removing saddles, horse armor, and carpets from entities using shears now emits a vibration frequency of 6.
1.21.9	25w33a	Shears can now be used to remove flowers on copper golems.
26.2	snap1	Added sulfur cubes, which can be sheared to remove absorbed blocks.
26.3	snap1	Shears can now generate as part of abandoned camps in chests.

Shears

Obtaining

Crafting

Generated loot

Trading

Usage

Shearing

Shearing blocks

Shearing mobs

Breaking blocks

Repairing

Combining

Anvil repair

Enchantments

Sounds

Data values

ID

Achievements

Advancements

History

Development

Java Edition

Bedrock Edition

Legacy Console Edition

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

Data history

Issues

Gallery

Renders

In other media

References

External links

More in Tools

Related mods

Rarity tier	Common
Item description‌^{[BE only]}	Cut & trim
Mining efficiency	2 5 (on wool) 15 (on cobwebs and leaves)
Mining level	1
Durability	JE: 238 BE: 239
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	No

Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.2.0		Added shears.
v0.3.2		Survival players no longer start out with infinite durability shears in the inventory.
v0.4.0		Removed shears from the creative inventory.
v0.8.0	build 3	Re-added shears to creative mode.
v0.9.0	build 1	Shears can now be used to transform mooshrooms into cows.
v0.12.1	build 3	Shearing a snow golem now removes its pumpkin.
v0.12.1	build 3	Shears can now be enchanted in an anvil.
v0.13.0	build 1	Shears can now be used to break tripwire string without triggering it.
v0.15.0	build 1	Shears now lose durability when used to break any block.
Pocket Edition
1.0.4	alpha 1.0.4.0	Shears can now be bought from shepherd villagers.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.3	release	Shears now harvest cobweb without requiring Silk Touch.
1.4.0	beta 1.2.14.2	Shears can now be used to turn un-carved pumpkins into carved pumpkin and spit out 4 pumpkin seeds.
1.10.0	beta 1.10.0.3	Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep.
1.10.0	beta 1.10.0.3	The texture of shears has been changed.
1.11.0	beta 1.11.0.1	Shears can now be found in village shepherd houses.
1.11.0	beta 1.11.0.4	Shears sold by shepherd villagers now cost only 2 emeralds.
1.14.0	beta 1.14.0.1	Shears can now be used on bee nests and beehives to harvest honeycomb.
1.20.30	Preview 1.20.30.21	Added unique sounds for using shears to carve pumpkins.
1.20.60 Experiment Armadillo and Wolf Armor	Preview 1.20.60.23	Shears can now be used to remove wolf armor from wolves.
1.20.80 Experiment Update 1.21	Preview 1.20.80.21	Shears can now be used to harvest mushrooms from bogged.
1.21.60	Preview 1.21.60.21	Shears can now be used on the tip of cave vines, kelp, weeping vines, and twisting vines to stop further growth.
1.21.80 Experiment Drop 2 2025	Preview 1.21.80.25	Shears can now be used to remove harnesses from happy ghasts.
1.21.90	Preview 1.21.90.20	Leashes can now be snipped by using shears.
	Preview 1.21.90.25	Saddles, horse armor, and carpets can now be removed from entities using shears.
	Preview 1.21.90.25	Removing saddles, horse armor, and carpets from entities using shears now emits a vibration frequency of 6.
	Preview 1.21.90.26	A sound now plays when removing a saddle, horse armor, or carpet from an entity using shears.
1.21.111	Preview 1.21.110.24	Shears can now be used to remove flowers on copper golems.
26.20 Experiment Drop 2 of 2026	Preview 26.20.23	Added sulfur cubes, which can be sheared to remove absorbed blocks.
26.30	Preview 26.30.20	Implemented all features from the "Drop 2 of 2026" experiment in vanilla gameplay.
26.40 Experiment Drop 3 of 2026	Preview 26.40.27	Shears can now generate as part of abandoned camps in chests.
26.50	Preview 26.50.22	All features from the "Drop 3 of 2026" experiment have been fully implemented.

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU3	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added shears.
TU5							Shears can now collect tall grass and vines.
TU11							Mooshrooms can no longer be sheared if the spawn limit for animals is reached.
TU14		1.04					Shears can now be bought from farmer villagers for 3 emeralds each.
TU31	CU19	1.22	1.22	1.22	Patch 3		Trading has been changed: Shepherd villagers now sell shears for 3–4 emeralds each.
TU31	CU19	1.22	1.22	1.22	Patch 3		Farmers no longer trade shears.
TU43	CU33	1.36	1.36	1.36	Patch 13		Shears can no longer be enchanted with Silk Touch.
TU44	CU34	1.37	1.37	1.37	Patch 14		Shears now harvest cobweb without requiring Silk Touch.
TU46	CU36	1.38	1.38	1.38	Patch 15		Snow golem's pumpkin can now be removed with shears.
TU69		1.76	1.76	1.76	Patch 38		Shears can now be used to turn regular pumpkins into carved pumpkins.
			1.90				The texture of shears has been changed.
			1.90				Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep.