When you first start playing Minecraft, one of your first priorities is to get food for yourself.
As you progress through the game, you’ll encounter more creatures, including horses. Horses can be a great asset in Minecraft.
Not only are they fun to ride on and aesthetically pleasing, but they can also help you move around your world faster than any other method of transportation.
If you’re a beginner, this article will walk you through the process of breeding horses in Minecraft.
Items Required To Breed Horses in Minecraft
To breed a horse in Minecraft, you will need to have the following items with you:
- Two horses – Once you have the two horses, it is time to begin the breeding process. You can obtain them from any of your villages or by taming wild horses. The good thing about taming wild horses is that they are free. However, if you are not skilled enough it won’t be easy for you to tame a wild horse.
- Carrots, golden apples, or golden carrots – You will also need Carrots as Gold apples and Golden carrots are quite rare in Minecraft. Carrots are available in plenty and thus you can easily get them anywhere in your village or by killing zombies.
Once you’ve acquired the aforementioned items successfully, you may proceed further with the guide.
Steps To Breed Horses in Minecraft
First, you need to locate at least two horses. You’ll find them in the plains, but they can be located anywhere else where there are grassy biomes. They’re mostly simple to find, as they’re usually found in groups of two to six horses.
Once you’ve located your horses, you need to tame them before breeding them. To tame horses, you must first approach them and feed them carrots, golden carrots, or golden apples until their hearts appear above their head.
Don’t worry—you won’t lose much of your carrots or golden apples when feeding these animals! Once the love hearts have appeared above their heads, right-click on the horse with an empty hand and it’ll start following you around.
Now that we have our tamed horses ready for breeding, we can proceed with our final step: breeding the horses together!
To breed a couple of tamed animals together (horses included!), hold a golden apple or a golden carrot while approaching either one of the tame animals.
Then, right-click on it with your food item in hand. If both of your tamed animals are ready for breeding (the love hearts will appear above their heads when attempting this), a baby animal will spawn along with some experience orbs.
If that sounds quite intimidating to you, consider going through the entire process broken down into comprehensible chunks below:
1. Locate and Capture Two Horses
First thing’s first: horses are passive mobs that spawn naturally in the Overworld on most game modes (except for Peaceful mode). They can also be found in other biomes, but are most commonly found in Plains biomes.
That is typically where players will go looking for them. Horses can be tamed by feeding them wheat or hay bales. Once they’ve been tamed, they can be ridden by using a saddle while mounting them.
You don’t need any special tools or equipment to capture a horse; just right-click on it when you’re close enough (but not too close—horses tend to run away if you get too close). When a horse is tamed, it will huff and smoke will appear from its nostrils.
2. Tame The Horses
The next step is to tame the horses you want to breed. There are a couple of different ways to do this. The easiest way to tame horses is with golden apples.
Feeding these rare treats to a wild horse will decrease its temper and make it more likely to allow itself to be ridden by you in the future.
A more difficult way but one that’s more practical for long-term use, is to throw a saddle on your horse and ride them until their hearts appear on the screen (that’s how you know they’re tamed).
This can be tricky because sometimes when the animal is trying to buck you off, it’ll fall down and injure itself.
They also have health meters that can be harmed—so if they get injured while riding them, they’ll need food in order to heal before they’re good enough for anything else.
3. Feed Them Food Items
After you have enough horses, it’s time to feed them their food items. If a horse eats its food item, then it will be ready to breed. You’ll need one golden apple or golden carrot per horse, so make sure you have some on hand.
Feed each horse separately by right-clicking on it while holding the food item. on it while holding the food item. You will know if the horse wants your food item because hearts will surround the horse when you hover over it with a full stack of golden apples or carrots in your Hotbar.
One food item is enough to get each horse ready for breeding, and both types of food items work equally well for this purpose (so pick whichever is easiest for you to find).
It’s also worth noting that only one person needs to feed the horses; if more than one player feeds a single horse, that won’t make it any more willing to breed.
If there are multiple players who are working together on this challenge, then you can all feed your horses at the same time for maximum efficiency!
This way, all of your horses can be ready for breeding at once and you don’t have to wait around as long after feeding them their food items before starting the breeding process itself.
Colors and Markings on Minecraft Horses
By combining the traits that determine a horse’s color and markings with your breeding strategy, you can get horses that are significantly more beautiful than their vanilla counterparts.
To make sure you get the color and marking you want, consider reading on.
As long as there is one parent with a marking type or color variation, you have a chance of getting that trait in your foal. In order for both parents to pass down these traits to their offspring, they must both have them!
When trying to get a horse with markings, make sure at least one of the parents has white coats with black markings (AKA “stockings”).
The more pronounced these stockings are—meaning they cover the entire leg—the more likely it is that the foal will inherit them.
If both parents have stockings but only one of them is significantly darker than its coat, there’s also an increased chance of getting some variety in dark areas on your foal.
However, if neither parent has stockings or only one parent does (and doesn’t pass down any other types of markings), then it’s highly unlikely that your foal will have them at all.
When trying to get a horse with a certain color variation from its normal brown or black coat, make sure at least one of the parents has it! But if you want two different variations in your foal, two things must happen:
- Both parents must be able to pass down their respective variations
- When bred together they produce offspring which has those same variations passed onto it from both sides instead of just one side being dominant over another
It may take several generations before this happens naturally so patience here is key because while we know this process works theoretically speaking there are still many unknown variables at play here when dealing with the genetics of Minecraft horses.
Horse, Donkey, or Mule – Which Mob Should You Breed?
- Horse – The horses are in the living world of Minecraft and are the most popular mob. You can spawn them by yourself and ride them. Horses can also be used to carry chests, spawn eggs, and other animals too.
- Donkey – A donkey has two extra slots for a chest or a saddle. It’s only one heart lesser than a horse and is slightly smaller in height. The donkey is useful if you want to use it as an animal transporter, especially if you want an animal that will last longer without food than a horse would.
- Mule – A mule is the offspring of a horse and a donkey. They have the ability to carry any kind of chest or saddle, so they’re mainly used as pack animals when riding over long distances (they’re almost twice as fast as walking).
Tips & Tricks Related To Horse Breeding in Minecraft
There’s a lot that can be done with horses in Minecraft. They can be ridden, tamed, fed, and used for breeding. Breeding is particularly fun as it allows you to create unique colors and patterns within your horse population.
It’s important to know that every horse within the game comes with its own set of randomized statistics; health points, speed, and jump strength are all variables that change from animal to animal.
So while you can use breeding to get different coat patterns, varying stats could leave you with a slow beast or an extremely difficult horse to control! Horses can also be notoriously tricky animals to tame.
If this is your first time attempting such a feat then it might be best to start off slowly by finding a weaker horse (a foal) or one with low stats.
This will make sure that taming goes quickly and smoothly so that you don’t end up losing your progress due to an untameable specimen!
Once you have found yourself some tameable horses then it’s time for the fun part – breeding!
Final Words
All in all, horses are a great addition to your Minecraft experience. Not only are they a fast way to travel through the world, but they can also be used for battle if you equip them with armor and weapons.
You should now know how to breed horses in Minecraft so you can create an army of equestrian companions for your next battle or adventure!
