How to Breed Animals in Minecraft
As you invest more and more hours of playtime into Minecraft, you’d realize how animals are a pearl of great price in the game. It’s never a great idea to trivialize any animal you come across in this rich open world, as you may never know when you’ll need it to get out of a situation.
If you plan to play long-term, you might want to start building your animals right away. Not only can they serve as handy resources for crafting, but they can also be a means of transportation or even companionship.
Here, we highlight tips and tricks for you to start breeding animals in Minecraft.
Basics of Breeding in Minecraft
There’s one basic blueprint for breeding animals in Minecraft: have in your possession the apt type of food for each animal you come across. Suppose you feed a specific animal the correct kind of food. In that case, hearts will hover on your screen, indicating that you’ve sparked a relationship with the animal and it’s available for breeding.
I particularly like these mechanics because if you simultaneously feed two animals of the same kind of food within eight blocks of each other, both animals will bond and produce offspring.
When two animals birth an offspring due to your feeding, they’ll not be able to breed again for five minutes. And depending on the type of animal, it’ll take the baby 20 minutes to mature into an adult. Be that as it may, you gain some XP for breeding animals, ranging between 1–7 XP.
The following tips will help you further in breeding animals in Minecraft:
- The hearts that hover on an animal when you feed them also indicate that they’re on heat and should be made to mate with another animal within eight blocks
- You might need to tame some rather adamant animals to be able to breed them
- Lure animals to well-illuminated areas in order to feed them and kill them effortlessly at night
- If you want an offspring to mature into an adult faster, keep providing it with the correct type of food
- Animals like rabbits will elope at the sight of you. Use their preferred food to lure them to your pen/barn
- Carry as plenty food as possible if you plan to breed many animals all at once
Types of Food to Lure Animals
As I deliberated earlier, different animals require different types of food to lure them any inch closer to you. While you can figure out the correct kind of food for an animal as you play the game further, you can feed chickens pumpkin and wheat seeds, while cows will follow you if you’re holding wheat.
On the other hand, pigs love carrots and potatoes, while foxes love sweet berries. You can also figure out food that each animal likes on your own.
Final Notes
Besides its resourcefulness, breeding animals is a fun activity that will eventually grow on you. Ensure to approach animals such as foxes with care; else, they’ll run away. The only solution is to surround them in a two-block high point, where they’ll not be able to escape.
