Sheep are passive mobs found in grass biomes wandering aimlessly while grazing on grass blocks. They’re the main suppliers of wool and raw mutton. So, if you need a steady supply of the two by-products, you must figure out how to get more sheep.
And, one of the key ways to do that is to breed the sheep by feeding them. But, what do sheep eat in Minecraft to breed?
What do you use to breed sheep in Minecraft?
One of the best ways to breed sheep in Minecraft is to feed them wheat. You simply need to bring two sheep together, give them wheat and they will produce a lamb. Here is a step-by-step guide showing how it works.
Step 1: Get wheat
You need to get the wheat first because sheep will follow anyone anywhere provided they’re holding wheat.
Now, to get the wheat, you can either find the wheat seeds by breaking grass with a fortune III tool and planting the seeds or look for villagers’ wheat farms and harvest the wheat.
Step 2: Find 2 sheep
The next step is to move around and look for 2 sheep to breed. When you get 6 blocks near a sheep and you have the wheat in your hand, the sheep will automatically approach and follow you. Walk back to your farm and lead the sheep to a fenced area so that they don’t escape.
If you have a hard time locating sheep in Minecraft Java edition, use the following cheat code command line: /summon sheep
You can also use the sheep spawn egg to spawn sheep in Minecraft education edition, java edition, and bedrock edition too.
READ: Best villager trades for emerald in Minecraft
Step 3: Feed the wheat to the sheep
Once the two sheep are together in a secured area, put the wheat in a hot bar and select that slot. To feed the sheep, select the game control for your version of Minecraft below:
- Pocket Edition: Tap on one sheep at a time.
- Java Edition (PC/MAC): Right-click on one sheep at a time.
- Xbox 360 and Xbox One: Press the LT button on your controller.
- PS3 and PS4: Press the L2 button on the controller.
- Wii U: Press the ZL button on your gamepad.
- Nintendo Switch: Press the ZL button on your controller.
- Windows 10 Edition: Right-click on one sheep at a time.
- Education Edition: Right-click on one sheep at a time.
After feeding both sheep, you will see red hearts appearing over their heads. This shows they’re entering love mode. They will turn to each other and after a while, the red hearts will disappear and a baby sheep will emerge next to its parents.
Usually, the baby sheep takes the color of either of the parents. But, if the parents have compatible colors, the lamb takes a combination of both their colors. For example:
- Yellow parent sheep + Red parent sheep = Orange baby sheep.
- Blue parent sheep + Red parent sheep = Purple baby sheep.
- Blue parent sheep + Green parent sheep = Cyan baby sheep.
- Purple parent sheep + Pink parent sheep = Magenta baby sheep.
- Gray parent sheep + White parent sheep = Light Gray baby sheep.
- White parent sheep + Red parent sheep = Pink baby sheep.
- White parent sheep + Blue parent sheep = Light Blue baby sheep
- White parent sheep + Green parent sheep = Lime baby sheep.
- White parent sheep + Black parent sheep = Gray baby sheep.
You can manipulate the colors of the lambs as much as you want by changing the color of the parents using dye.
NOTE: To turn a sheep into a color-changing sheep, name it “jeb_”.
How to create a sheep farm
If you want more sheep, keep feeding the parent sheep wheat and they will produce babies without fail. But, you must wait 5 minutes after a lamb is born to breed the parents again.
The baby sheep feeds on the grass to grow its size and wool. It takes 20 minutes to mature fully. However, you can feed it wheat to accelerate the growth rate by 10% after every feed.
What to do with sheep in Minecraft
A player can get wool, mutton, and experience points from sheep. Let’s see how they benefit a player.
Wool
First, to get wool from a sheep you can sheer or kill it. The former will give you 1-3 blocks of wool with the benefit of shearing the sheep again after the wool grows back. The latter will only give you 1 wool once. Wool is used in crafting beds and carpets, in trade, or as fuel.
A sheared sheep must feed on grass blocks to grow its wool back.
READ: List of all Minecraft items in alphabetical order
Raw mutton
When you kill an adult sheep, it drops 1-2 mutton. If it’s killed on fire, it will drop cooked mutton. Players feed on the mutton and it fills 3 bars of hunger.
Experience points
Experience points also come after killing a sheep. These are usually put into enchanting tools, weapons, and armor.
From this breakdown, You now know what to feed sheep and what sheep like to eat in Minecraft. So, it shouldn’t be hard to build your own sheep farm next time you’re playing.