How To Breed Horses in Minecraft

Riding a horse in Minecraft allows you to travel much faster than sprinting. Before you can do that, you need to find a horse and tame it. But did you know you could also breed horses? Minecraft lets you do this to produce better offspring or colors.

In Minecraft, horse breeding isn’t very complicated from a practical point of view, but when you’re diving deep into the genetics aspect, it can become more complicated. But regardless, breeding two horses or a horse and a donkey in the game can be quite fun, as the foals can have random characteristics. However, before you breed some horses, you need a few ingredients.

Required Materials to Breed Horses in Minecraft

To make horses breed, you need two Golden Apples or Golden Carrots. Either of them will work, but you need to either craft or buy them from Villagers.

To craft them, you’ll need to grow carrots and/or apples and mine gold. But all may also be bought from Villagers. Apples can be obtained from oak trees as well.

To craft a Golden Apple, follow these steps:

1. Break some oak or dark oak leaves until you have at least two apples.
   
2. Mine some gold.
   
3. Smelt the Gold Nuggets into Gold Ingots.
   
4. Go to your Crafting Table.
5. Place the apple in the middle slot.
   
6. Surround the apple with Gold Ingots.
   
7. Obtain a Golden Apple.
8. Repeat for more Golden Apples as you’ll need at least two.

For Golden Carrots, you’ll follow different steps:

1. Harvest some carrots from a Village or your home.
   
2. Mine some gold.
   
3. Smelt the Gold Nuggets into Gold Ingots.
   
4. Go to your Crafting Table again.
5. Place the carrot in the middle slot.
   
6. Surround the carrot with Gold Ingots.
   
7. Obtain a Golden Carrot.
8. Repeat for more Golden Carrots as you’ll need at least two.

Gold can be mined or found in chests, whether it’s Gold Nuggets or Gold Ingots. Smelting Gold Ore and Nether Gold Ore also yield Gold Ingots. Mining Nether Gold Ore also yields Gold Nuggets, and nine of them can be made into a Gold Ingot.

Now that you have enough breeding food, it’s time to get your horses.

How to Tame Horses in Minecraft?

You don’t need any ingredients to tame a horse, but you do need some patience and some good luck. Horses can be found in plains and savannas, and they usually don’t run from you. You can even attach leads to wild horses and they won’t protest.

Here’s how you’ll go about taming wild horses:

1. Approach the horse you want to tame.
2. Press the use button (right-click or left trigger) on the horse.
   
3. The horse is most likely going to buck you off, but don’t be scared.
   
4. Repeat until hearts start popping up.
   
5. Now you can saddle the horse or breed it.

Feeding the horse apples, wheat, Golden Apples, Golden Carrots, or hay bales can also help tame your horse sooner. However, these foods are completely optional and you don’t need to have them to tame a horse.

Horses have a “temper” stat, which can range from zero to 99. The first time you mount a wild horse, a random temper number is assigned to it. If you have a number above 95, then you’ve instantly tamed it.

If you don’t tame it instantly, you’ll be bucked off, but the temper value will rise by five. Keep persevering until it reaches 100, which is when the hearts start appearing.

Since you’re going to try and breed horses, you need two of them. Alternatively, you can replace one horse with a donkey. Donkeys are technically horse variants, and they’re found in herds of two to six donkeys just like horses.

Donkeys spawn in plains and savannas just like horses. Both horses and donkeys also have a 20% chance of spawning as a foal.

How to Breed Horses in Minecraft

Now that you have your horses and breeding food, it’s time to start breeding. The breeding process takes less than three seconds, and you’ll get a foal right after. You’ll need to feed the horses again if you want more foals.

Here’s how to breed horses in Minecraft:

1. Equip your breeding food.
   
2. Feed it to both of your horses.
   
3. Let them meet each other.
   
4. Once they meet, they’ll start mating.
5. Two and a half seconds later, a foal will be found nearby.
   
6. Repeat if necessary.

If you want to breed your horses again, you’ll need to wait five minutes. During this time, your horses still follow you if you hold the breeding food, but they won’t eat it. After the five minutes have passed, you can breed them once again.

Horses, like all animals and creatures you can breed in Minecraft, exit “love mode” after 30 seconds of eating a breeding food and not finding another horse to breed with. You’ll need to feed it again for it to enter love mode, but there’s no need for the five-minute wait.

Breeding a horse and donkey will result in a mule foal. Mules themselves cannot breed and produce offspring. In Bedrock Edition, you’ll receive the Artificial Selection achievement.

When a foal is born and grows up, you can repeat the taming process. You’re more than welcome to feed your foals and make them grow up faster, but if you prefer to handle other tasks like mining and fishing, you can always put the foal in an enclosure and let it grow up slowly. Without feeding, all foals grow up in 20 minutes.

All breeding gives you one to seven experience points. The number isn’t predetermined.

Things to Do With Horses in Minecraft

You can saddle a horse and ride them all around the overworld. Depending on the horse’s stats, their speed can be only marginally faster than a sprint or at least three times faster. These stats are random, but repeated breeding can allow you to breed faster and higher-jumping horses.

Saddles grant you an extra slot as well, handy for keeping an item on the horse.

Riding a horse is done by using the movement and mouse keys to travel. Horses can also jump over obstacles. The best horses can jump above five blocks, while the weakest ones are only barely able to clear two blocks.

You can make armor for your horse as well for additional protection. The armor protects the horse from getting killed quickly, but it doesn’t prevent the horse from getting injured by fall damage.

Only horses can wear horse armor, while skeleton horses, zombie horses, donkeys, and mules can’t. However, the latter two can be equipped with chests to grant you 15 extra slots. This reflects the nature of donkeys and mules as pack animals.

With a horse, you can explore the overworld much quicker than just sprinting. You also don’t have to carry as much food around, since horses don’t have hunger levels. You do have the feed them if they’re hurt badly, though they have health regeneration abilities.

Additional FAQs

What is the difference between a horse, mule, and donkey in Minecraft

Horses can wear armor and are typically faster. Donkeys can’t wear armor but can be bred with horses to produce mules. Mules can’t be bred but can wear chests like donkeys.

All three animals are capable of reaching the same potential maximum stats, so mules can be as fast as horses with proper breeding.

Selective Breeding Is Effective

Now that you know how to breed horses in Minecraft, you can repeat the process as much as you need to yield the best horses. It might take a while, but the results are well worth your time. You’ll have a sturdy, speedy, and strong horse to accompany you for adventures.

Do you have a particular favorite color or marking for your horses? Which of the three animals do you prefer riding? Tell us in the comments section below.