How do you breed animals in Minecraft?

Had enough of being chased away by creepers? Bring some love to your Minecraft world instead

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Breeding animals in Minecraft is essential for farming certain items, or just building that menagerie of cats and dogs you’ve always wanted. So how do you breed Parrots, Mules or even Hoglins in Minecraft, and which mobs are even breedable? We’ll take a look at everything you need to know in this complete guide.

How to breed animals in Minecraft

Most breedable mobs will simply enter love mode by being fed their favorite food. Well, they do say the way to someone’s heart is through their stomach. The following table tells you exactly what food items you’ll need to feed your mobs in order to spawn a cute, teeny version. In most cases – we’ll discuss the exceptions further down – just feed the item to two of the same mob, and you will see hearts appear above them. This shows that they have entered love mode.

Animal	Breeding Food
Chicken	Seeds
Cow	Wheat
Mooshroom (Red and Brown)	Wheat
Sheep	Wheat
Goat	Wheat
Pig	Carrot, Potato, Beetroot
Cat*	Raw Cod, Raw Salmon
Ocelot*	Raw Cod, Raw Salmon
(Tamed) Horse	Golden Apple, Golden Carrot
Donkey	Golden Apple, Golden Carrot
Mule*	Golden Apple, Golden Carrot
Llama	Hay Bale
Fox	Sweet Berry, Glow Berry
Rabbit	Carrot, Golden Carrot, Dandelion
Turtle	Seagrass
Wolf	Any meat – raw or cooked, Rotten Flesh
Axolotl	Bucket of Tropical Fish
Bee	Any Flower
Panda*	Bamboo
Hoglin*	Crimson Fungi
Strider	Warped Fungi

There are some mob types, though, with extra requirements, which we’ll discuss now.

Horse

A popular animal to breed in Minecraft are Horses. Horses need to be tamed before they can be bred, we have a full, separate guide on breeding horses specifically.

Panda

In addition to feeding bamboo to two pandas to encourage them to enter love mode, you will also need to ensure that there are at least eight blocks of bamboo within five blocks of the pandas themselves. If you do not meet this requirement before feeding the pandas, they will become aggressive and attack.

Mule

A mule is not a naturally spawning mob in Minecraft, and instead must be bred by the player, by encouraging a horse and a donkey to breed. There are no other requirements to breed a mule, so simply feed a nearby donkey and horse either a golden carrot or golden apple and they will spawn a mule between them.

Hoglin

Not a requirement, but rather a warning. While the Hoglin is breedable, as the only breedable hostile mob they can be quite difficult to breed. Hoglins will enter love mode when players feed two nearby Hoglins a Crimson Fungi, but getting too close to a Hoglin will cause it to attack, so you will need to be careful, perhaps ensuring that the Hoglins are behind a fence.

Ocelot/Cat

Wild ocelots and cats cannot be bred without being entrusted/tamed first.

Players can earn an ocelot’s trust by holding a raw cod or salmon and waiting for the ocelot to approach before feeding it. Any slight movement will cause the ocelot to flee for a few seconds. You will need to continue to feed the ocelot until hearts appear above it, at which point you know it is now trusting, and can be bred with another trusting ocelot.

Cats must be tamed before they can be bred. This is done the same way, by holding raw salmon or cod and waiting for the cat to approach before feeding. Once the player owns the cat, i.e. it has been tamed, you can then breed said cat with another tamed cat of your own, or someone else’s in multiplayer.

Minecraft animal breeding Advancements – Java edition

There are two advancements in Java edition mobs. Firstly, The Parrots and the Bats is an early-game advancement for breeding any two breedable mobs.

You can also get the Two by Two advancement but breeding a pair of every breedable mob in Minecraft, so this one might take a little longer. This includes Nether mobs, and Trader Llamas don’t count towards the Llama requirement.

Minecraft breeding Achievements – Bedrock edition

If you are a Bedrock edition player, then you will have Achievements as opposed to Advancements. There are three breeding-related Achievements to earn in Bedrock edition.
Repopulation — Breed two cows with wheat
Artificial Selection — Breed a mule from a horse and a donkey
Zoologist — Breed two pandas with bamboo

How do you breed parrots and bats in Minecraft?

Despite the fact that the achievement for breeding your first two animals is titled ‘The Parrots and The Bats’, you can’t actually breed Parrots or Bats in Minecraft. There are a few other mobs that aren’t breedable, as well, but Parrots are by far the most surprising as they are the only tamable mob that cannot be bred.

The reason that Parrots are currently unbreedable in Minecraft is because there is no baby Parrot, but there’s nothing to say this won’t change at some point in the future. After all, there are baby versions of the likes of bees, which are a similarly small mob. You’ll also find that you can’t breed dolphins, as they instead lead you to treasure when you feed them. Squid also cannot be bred and must be farmed using spawn mechanics instead.

More Minecraft mob guides

• How to breed animals in Minecraft
• Everything you need to know about Minecraft skeletons
• What is a Phantom in Minecraft? All you need to know
• How to tame a cat in Minecraft
• What are Minecraft Glow Squid?
• How to tame a Minecraft Fox
• How to tame and breed horses in Minecraft

And head over to our Minecraft hub for even more news, guides and how-tos!