Minecraft animal breeding chart
Which food breeds each animal on a Java Minecraft server, plus love mode, breeding cooldown and baby growth times, and which animals need taming first.
Most animals that breed in Minecraft want their own food, and a few need something done first, such as taming. This chart lists the food for the common breedable animals on a Java server, then the timings that apply to all of them.
Checked against Minecraft Java Edition 26.3, October 2026.
How breeding works
- Get two adult animals of the same kind close together.
- Feed each one its breeding food. Hearts appear and each animal goes into love mode.
- The two walk to each other. A baby appears, and the pair drop experience worth 1 to 7 points.
Love mode lasts 30 seconds, so feed both animals within that window. Holding an animal's food also makes it follow you, which is the easy way to lead a herd into a pen. Most animals produce the baby on the spot. Chickens do both, laying eggs as well as producing chicks. Turtles, frogs and sniffers lay eggs instead, which is covered below.
Timings that apply to everything
Breeding foods
Villagers are different. They never breed from being fed. They need enough free beds and enough food in their inventory, and trading can also make them willing. Get a sniffer in Minecraft covers the sniffer egg step by step.
Keep a baby small
A golden dandelion pauses a baby's growth, and feeding it a second one lets it grow again. Craft one from a dandelion surrounded by eight gold nuggets.
On your server
Everything here is the normal game and needs no plugin. The chart is for Java Edition, which is what your server runs. If a large farm leaves the server feeling slow, Why is my server lagging? Find the cause shows how to find what is responsible.
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