Breeding

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 a food item used to lead and breed it (there are a few special cases, described below). 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; animals breed only when fed by a player. One item per parent is needed to breed a single baby.

Love mode[]

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. 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, and then drop 1–7 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, with the exception of mules, which cannot breed with each other and must be bred via the union of a horse and donkey. 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.

The number of animals that are produced starting from a single pair of animals, assuming the offspring is fully grown before breeding again, is represented by this sequence:

${\displaystyle \begin{align} a_1 &= 2 \\ a_2 &= 3 \\ a_3 &= 4 \\ a_4 &= 6 \\ a_5 &= 9 \\ a_6 &= 13 \\ a_7 &= 19 \\ &\;\;\vdots \\ a_{n+1} &= \left\lfloor \frac{3}{2}a_{n} \right\rfloor \\ &\;\; \vdots \end{align}}$

where ${\displaystyle \left\lfloor x \right\rfloor}$ is the floor function.

The ${\displaystyle n}$th term of the sequence can also be computed with this formula: ${\displaystyle a_{n} = \left\lceil K \times (3/2)^{n} \right\rceil}$ where ${\displaystyle K = 1.08151366859...}$ and ${\displaystyle \left\lceil x \right\rceil}$ is the ceiling function. The constant ${\displaystyle K}$ is defined to be ${\displaystyle (2/3) \times K(3)}$ (see OEIS A083286)

Breeding foods[]

Villagers[]

Villagers do not breed automatically 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, 12 carrots, 12 potatoes, or 12 beetroots in their inventory. They may also become willing as a result of trading with a player. When they breed, they produce a smaller villager. Unlike many baby animals, baby villagers do not have big heads in Java Edition. Zombie villagers and wandering traders cannot breed, and baby zombie villagers do not grow up.

Baby mobs[]

Baby mobs are smaller variations of their adult counterparts, having small bodies, relatively big heads (with some exceptions), and faster walking speeds. Their sounds are the same as their adult variants but 50% faster and are pitched up by 6 semitones. The only exception to this is tadpoles, which are a wholly unique mob from from frogs. Many baby mobs have different interactions or behavior compared to their elders that depends on the mob. For example, lambs cannot be sheared for their wool, calves, mooshroom calves and kids (baby goats) cannot be milked, and baby piglins take gold but do not barter. Most baby mobs do not drop loot or experience when killed, with the exception of items they pick up. Baby mobs that do drop loot or experience consist of the following:

• Baby zombies, zombie villagers, husks, drowned, zombified piglins and zoglins (both loot and experience)
• Baby hoglins (only experience)
• Baby piglins (only experience, but less than adults)

Most baby animals choose and follow an adult within 8 blocks of the same species, regardless of whether it is their parent. Babies can choose new targets to follow whenever they do not have a valid target, such as when the previous target dies or moves further than 16 blocks away. Tamed pups and kittens follow their owner if the parent is absent or sitting. Baby animals that do not follow adults consist of:

• Tadpoles (which do not follow frogs)
• Snifflets^[1]
• Baby rabbits‌^{[Java Edition only][2]}
• Baby turtles ‌^{[Java Edition only][3]}
• Ocelot kittens‌^{[Java Edition only][3]}
• Stray kittens‌^{[Java Edition only][3]}
• Wild wolf pups‌^{[Java Edition only][3]}

Baby mobs that are not animals never follow adult mobs.

When a baby of a species with different fur/pattern variants is born, they usually inherit the pattern of one of their parents, chosen at random, with some exceptions:

• In the case of sheep, if the parents have "compatible" colors (meaning that their corresponding dye items could be combined into a third dye), the lamb inherits a mix of the parents' colors‌^{[Java Edition only]}.
• In the case of mooshrooms, breeding two of the same variant has a ¹⁄₁₀₂₄ chance to spawn a mooshroom of the opposite variant. Breeding two mooshrooms of differing variants has an equal chance of a baby mooshroom of either type.
• In the case of horses, there is a ¹³⁄₄₅ chance of having a random color/markings instead of matching either of its parents.
• In the case of axolotls, a baby axolotl bred by a player (not found in the world) has a ¹⁄₁₂₀₀ chance to be the rare blue variant, with this being the only way to obtain this variant. Otherwise, it inherits the color of one of its parents at random.
• Frogs do not inherit their variants from their parents. A frog's variant is determined by the biome it matures from a tadpole in.

Baby animals can be manually spawned by using spawn eggs on a grown animal. This also works on zombies or variants. Baby animals may also be spawned using the /summon command with a negative Age tag; for example, using /summon sheep ~ ~ ~ {Age:-100} spawns a baby sheep at the player's position, that matures in 100 ticks (5 seconds). For baby mobs that don't grow up like zombies and piglins, the IsBaby:1 tag is used instead.

Most baby mobs take 20 minutes to grow up. This can be accelerated by feeding them their breeding item. Green sparkles appear similar to those caused by bone meal. Usually, each feeding reduces the remaining time before the animal grows up by 10%. The less time remains, the less time is saved by each feeding, making it inefficient to feed an animal continuously until it becomes an adult. After the eighth feeding, the time saved by one feeding is less than a minute, as shown in the graph.

Horses, donkeys, and llamas have different mechanics: different breeding items grow babies by different amounts, and each item ages babies by a constant time rather than a percentage of the remaining time.

Baby zombies, zombie villagers, husks, drowned, zombified piglins, piglins and zoglins do not grow up, and none of these mobs can breed.

Polar bears have a baby form that can grow up into an adult, but cannot be bred. This also applies to squid, glow squid and dolphins in Bedrock Edition.

Animals[]

• 

  Cow calf

• 

  Chick

• 

  Piglet

• 

  Kid

• 

  Lamb

• 

  Mooshroom calf

• 

  Rabbit kit

• 

  Wolf pup

• 

  Ocelot kitten

• 

  Domestic kitten

• 

  Horse foal

• 

  Donkey foal

• 

  Mule foal

• 

  Cria

• 

  Trader Cria

• 

  Fox kit

• 

  Axolotl juvenile

• 

  Baby bee

• 

  Panda cub

• 

  Turtle hatchling

• 

  Baby hoglin

• 

  Baby strider

• 

  Polar bear cub

• 

  Tadpole

• 

  Dolphin calf‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

• 

  Baby glow squid‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

• 

  Baby squid‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

• 

  Camel calf

• 

  Snifflet

Monsters[]

These are baby versions of mobs that count toward the "Monster Hunter" and "Monsters Hunted" advancements or are otherwise undead.

• 

  Baby zombie

• 

  Baby drowned

• 

  Baby husk

• 

  Baby zombified piglin

• 

  Baby piglin

• 

  Baby zombie villager

• 

  Baby hoglin

• 

  Baby zoglin

• 

  Skeleton horse foal (unused)

• 

  Zombie horse foal (unused)

Villagers[]

• 

  Baby villager in Java Edition

• 

  Baby villager in Bedrock Edition

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.

Achievements[]

Advancements[]

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed two animals together	Husbandry	Breed a pair of any of these 25 mobs: Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule 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.	husbandry/breed_an_animal
	Two by Two	Breed all the animals!	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed a pair of each of these 24 mobs: Axolotl Bee Camel Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Frog Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule 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.	husbandry/bred_all_animals

History[]

Java Edition
1.0.0		September 9, 2011			Jeb tweets that animal breeding is pushed to 1.9.
		September 25, 2011			Notch also tweets an image of dozens of sheep crowded together, saying "They won't stop breeding!!!"
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2			Introduced breeding. Animals could breed instantly, without any "cooldown".
					No baby animals yet; all animals were born fully-grown.
					All sheep were born with white wool, irrespective of their parentage.
		October 3, 2011			Notch tweets the first image of a cow calf and piglet.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2			Snow golems can enter love mode using wheat.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3			Added calves, mooshroom calves, lambs, piglets, and chicks.
					Animals now enter "love mode" when fed with wheat.
					Interestingly, snow golems could also enter love mode before this update.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5			Baby animals now work in multiplayer.[more information needed]
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6			Lambs can be either of their parents' colors, even if they were dyed.
1.2.1		12w03a			Wolves can be bred with any type of meat to produce pups.
		12w04a			Cats (tamed ocelots) can be bred with raw fish for kittens.
		12w08a			Baby villagers and kittens are now the only baby mobs that have a head the right size for the body.
1.3.1		12w22a			Breeding now give experience.
1.4.2		12w32a			Zombies that infect villager children now create zombie villager children, which are faster than normal zombies, do not age, and survive in sunlight.
		12w36a			Pigs are now responsive to carrots, chickens to seeds, with cows and sheep still breeding with wheat.
1.6.1		13w16a			Added horses, donkeys, and mules, all of which except mules can breed to produce foals.
1.6.2		pre			Zombie and zombie pigmen children now spawn naturally among regular ones.
1.8		14w02a			Baby mobs can be grown faster by being fed. Each feeding reduces the remaining time to maturity by 10%, having no effect if less than 9 seconds remain. 28 feedings reduce the remaining time to around a minute, from the initial time of 20 minutes. In addition, lambs reach maturity one minute sooner for every time they consume grass.
		January 27, 2014			Dinnerbone tweets an image of many cows, presumably testing the breeding system.
		14w26c			Wheat's acceleration of foals growth has been reduced.
		14w27a			Added rabbits, which can be bred to produce rabbit kits.
		pre1			Chickens can no longer be bred using melon seeds, pumpkin seeds or nether wart.
1.9		15w31a			Chickens now use melon seeds, pumpkin seeds and beetroot seeds to breed, in addition to wheat seeds.
		15w35a			Zombie villager children now retain their profession.
		15w46a			Rabbit kits are now smaller.
1.10		16w20a			Added polar bears and cubs. Unlike other mobs, polar bears attack any player, if a cub is nearby.
					Added husks and children.
1.11		16w39a			Added llamas and crias.
1.13		18w07a			Added turtles and turtle hatchlings.
		18w10d			Zombie children now burn in daylight.
1.14		18w43a			Added pandas and panda cubs.
		18w44a			Cats and ocelots have been split into their own mobs, thus cats are no longer tamed ocelots.
					Added seven more cat textures and their kitten variants.
		19w07a			Added foxes and fox kits.
1.15		19w34a			Added bees and bee larvae.
1.16		20w06a			Added hoglins.
		20w07a			Added hoglin piglets.
					Added piglins and piglin children.
		20w13a			Added striders and stridlings.
		20w14a			Added zoglins and zoglin piglets.
1.17		20w51a			Added axolotls and axolotl juveniles.
		21w13a			Added goats and kids.
1.19		22w11a			Added frogs and tadpoles.
1.20 (Experimental)		22w42a			Added camels and baby camels.
		22w44a			Turtles now have a breeding delay like other mobs.[4]
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.2.0					Baby animals exist in the game, though there is currently no way to get them to spawn.
v0.6.0					Baby animals now spawn naturally. Breeding has not been added yet.
v0.8.0		build 1			Introduced breeding.
v0.11.0		build 11			Mobs must be touching to breed (previously they could breed with any mob in an 8 block radius, regardless of obstruction).
					Added Zombie children.
v0.12.1		build 1			Villagers can now breed.
					Breeding is now done through a Feed button.
					Added zombie villager children.
					Added ocelot kittens and tamed kittens.
v0.13.0		build 1			Added rabbits, which can be bred to produce kits.
v0.14.0		build 1			Baby zombies now have 15% chance to mount mobs.
v0.15.0		build 1			Added husks, including their baby form.
					Added horses, donkeys, and mules, all of which can breed to produce foals (except mules).
					Added zombie horses and skeleton horses, which include foal variants.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1			Added polar bears and cubs. Unlike other mobs, polar bears attack any player if a cub is nearby.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Added llamas and baby llamas.
Bedrock Edition
1.4.0		beta 1.2.13.8			Added drowned and their child variants.
		beta 1.2.20.1			Added dolphins, which can be bred to produce dolphin calves.
					Zombie children now burn in daylight.
1.5.0		beta 1.5.0.0			Zombie children now sink underwater.
					Feeding dolphins raw fish no longer breed them; dolphin calves now spawn naturally.
		beta 1.5.0.4			Added turtles and turtle hatchling.
1.8.0		beta 1.8.0.8			Added pandas and their cubs.
					Feeding ocelots now breed them, instead of taming them.
					Feeding an ocelot kitten raw fish now increase its growth speed, instead of taming it.
1.13.0		beta 1.13.0.1			Added foxes and fox kits.
1.14.0		beta 1.14.0.1			Added bees and bee larvae.
1.16.0		beta 1.16.0.51			Added piglins and hoglin piglets.
					Added piglins and their child counterparts.
		beta 1.16.0.57			Added zoglins and zoglin piglets.
					Added striders and stridlists.
1.16.200		beta 1.16.200.52			Added goats and kids.
Legacy Console Edition
TU7	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added breeding.
TU11					Added a message when the player tries to breed an animal when the spawn limits have been reached.
TU12					Added Villager children.
TU14		1.04			Baby mobs can be spawned by using on an adult form of that mob using a spawn egg.

Issues[]

Issues relating to "Breeding" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[]

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

Gallery[]

• 

  A family of wolves in a snowy plains biome as well as a kitten.

• 

  Early image of sheep breeding.

• 

  Early image of baby animals.

See also[]

• Tutorials/Animal farming

References[]