How to Tame and Breed Horses in Minecraft: A Complete Guide

Learning how to breed horses in Minecraft can be a handy skill since the said passive Minecraft mobs can be hard to come by. But horses being rare in the game isn’t the only reason why you’ll want to tame and breed them. A horse is an essential companion if you’d like to navigate your world much faster. When you place a saddle on it, you’ll be able to bring an extra item with you when you’re on the go. Plus, breeding horses yourself allows you to have some control over the stats and the appearance of the offspring.

If taming and breeding horses in Minecraft is something you’re interested in, this guide is perfect for you. We will also discuss how to breed donkeys and elaborate on the differences between horses, donkeys, and mules in Minecraft.

What You Need to Breed Horses in Minecraft

To breed horses in Minecraft, you’ll first need two horses and two of any of the following breeding foods:

• Golden carrots
• Golden apples
• Enchanted golden apples

We show you how to obtain each of these items in the next sections.

How to Craft or Obtain Golden Carrots in Minecraft

To craft a golden carrot, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your 3×3 crafting interface.
2. Place a carrot in the very middle of the crafting grid.
3. Place eight gold nuggets in the boxes surrounding the carrot, like in the photo below:

   

4. Once a golden carrot has appeared in the box next to the crafting grid, drag it to your inventory.

You can also obtain golden carrots by engaging in Minecraft villager trades or looting chests. There’s a 50% chance that a master-level farmer will trade you three golden carrots when you give them three emeralds.

If you prefer looting chests, however, you can try your luck in bastion remnants (found in the Nether) or ruined portals (found in both the Nether and the Overworld). Around these structures, you’ll usually find chests that might contain anywhere between four to 17 golden carrots. However, the chance that these chests contain golden carrots is only around 7% to 13%.

How to Craft or Obtain Golden Apples in Minecraft

The process for crafting a golden apple follows the same steps as crafting a golden carrot. However, instead of placing a carrot in the middle of the grid, place an apple. In addition, you’ll need eight gold ingots instead of eight gold nuggets.

Golden apples can also naturally generate in some parts of the Overworld and the Nether. They’re usually contained in chests, just like golden carrots. You’ll definitely find a golden apple when you go to an igloo, but the chances of finding one are much lower when you go to other places like strongholds, mineshafts, and desert temples.

Where to Find Enchanted Golden Apples in Minecraft

Unlike golden carrots and golden apples, enchanted golden apples can’t be crafted. They’re extremely rare and are hidden in chests found in dungeons, mineshafts, woodland mansions, desert temples, ruined portals, and bastion remnants. However, the chances of finding an enchanted golden apple in one of these places are only about 1% to 6%.

Obtaining enchanted golden apples does have its advantages when it comes to breeding horses in Minecraft. For instance, feeding a wild horse an enchanted golden apple increases the chances of taming it by 10%. Plus, you can speed up the growth of a foal by four minutes if you feed it an enchanted apple.

How to Breed Horses in Minecraft

Once you have all the required breeding foods, you can then begin the process of breeding horses in Minecraft. Below, we give you a step-by-step guide on how to do so.

1. Find Two Nearby Horses

The first thing you’ll need to do to breed horses in Minecraft is to find two nearby horses. You’ll most likely find them in plains and savanna biomes in herds of two to six. They can sometimes also spawn in villages, where you’ll find them contained in stables.

You’ll need these parent horses to be close to one another when they’re breeding, so you might want to build a fence around them to keep them in one place. You can easily do so by pulling them along with a lead. Note that there’s no need to tame a horse first before attaching a lead on them.

You can also replace one or both of the horses with donkeys if you prefer. Just like horses, donkeys also spawn in groups of two to six in Minecraft’s Bedrock Edition. However, you’ll only find them in plains.

How to Summon a Horse in Minecraft

Horses are fairly rare in Minecraft, so if you’re having a hard time finding two to breed, you can use a cheat to summon them. If you currently don’t have cheats enabled in your world, you’ll need to create a new world first, toggle the cheats option on, and tap on “Continue.” Once you’ve done that, you can then use the summon horses cheat in the world that you just created. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can do so in Minecraft’s Bedrock Edition:

1. Launch Minecraft’s chat window by tapping on the chat button in the top right corner of your screen.
2. In the chat window, type in the command “/summon horse” to make it spawn in your current location.
   *If you want, you can also specify the coordinates of where you want the horse to spawn (e.g. /summon horse 11 60 -7).
3. Hit enter to apply the command.
4. A horse will then appear in your exact location (or in the exact coordinates you specified).

2. Tame the Horses

The horses you found will most likely be wild horses. However, to breed horses in Minecraft, you’ll need to tame them first. Doing so doesn’t require any specific item, but it may take some time and a bit of patience. Here’s how:

1. Go to the horse you wish to tame.
2. If you have an item in your hand, tap on an empty slot in the hotbar to empty your hand.
3. Position your pointer on the horse, and then mount it by tapping on the Mount button.
4. You’ll most likely get bucked off by the horse so repeat Step 3.
   *You’ll be able to sit on the horse longer with every attempt.
5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until you see red hearts start to pop up around the horse.

Once you see red hearts around the horse, you’ll know you’ve successfully tamed it. You can then repeat the process with the other parent horse.

Keep in mind that not all horses take the same amount of time to be tamed. Some may require less time, while the more stubborn ones can take up to 20 times to mount before they become completely tame. That’s because horses in Minecraft spawn with different temper stats, which are random numbers (from zero to 99) assigned to each horse. A horse’s temper increases by five every time you mount it. However, you can feed it sugar, apples, wheat, or hay bales if you want to speed up the process. Every time you feed a horse any of these food items, its temper increases by three.

3. Feed the Horses

Remember the golden carrots, golden apples, and enchanted golden apples we talked about at the beginning of this guide? Those, essentially, are the last pieces of the puzzle when it comes to breeding horses in Minecraft. Feeding each of the parent horses any one of those food items will cause them to enter love mode, the state they need to be in to be able to breed.

To feed your horses, you’ll need to first select either the golden carrots, the golden apples, or the enchanted golden apples in your hotbar. Then, feed one of the horses by simply tapping the animal. Do the same to the other horse. Keep in mind that each horse only needs to eat one golden carrot, golden apple, or enchanted golden apple to be able to breed. You’ll see red hearts start to appear around each horse as you feed them. This indicates that they’re entering love mode.

Note that a horse will exit love mode if it doesn’t find another horse to breed with within 30 seconds of eating any of the breeding foods we mentioned. That’s why it’s important to keep two horses in one place before you feed them.

Once both horses have been fed, they’ll then turn to one another with the red hearts still around them. These hearts will disappear after a while. You’ll see a baby horse appear in between the parent horses afterward.

4. Repeat the Process for More Foals

You can stop at Step 3 if you only want one baby horse. But if you want more foals, you can repeat the process as many times as you want — as long as you have enough breeding food in your inventory.

That said, there are a couple of things you need to take note of if you’re going to breed a pair of parent horses more than once. For one, you can’t repeat the process immediately after the foal has been born. You’ll need to wait five minutes before you can breed them again. Within that period, the horses won’t eat any breeding food even if you hold it up to them, but they will follow you around. Once the five-minute waiting period has passed, they’ll happily eat any breeding food you present to them and produce another baby horse.

Offspring Types

Besides horses, you can also get other types of equine offspring in Minecraft. The kind of foal that results from the breeding process depends on what parent animals you use for breeding. For instance, breeding a horse with a donkey produces a baby mule, and breeding two donkeys produce, of course, a baby donkey. Mules in Minecraft are sterile and therefore can’t breed, just like in the real world. However, producing a mule in Minecraft Bedrock Edition does unlock the Artificial Selection achievement.

The species of the foal isn’t the only thing you can control when breeding horses in Minecraft; you can also manipulate the appearance of the foal as well as its stats. That said, it’s still possible that the foal’s characteristics will be random. There’s an 80% chance that the baby horse will inherit the coat markings and color of either of the parents. On the flip side, there’s a 20% chance that the foal will have random markings.

Predicting the stats of the foal won’t be as straightforward as predicting its color and coat markings. That’s because the foal’s stats (HP, jump height, and speed) is the average of the stats of both parents and another randomly selected horse. So, if you want the baby horse’s stats to be perfect, the stats of the parent horses and those of the randomly selected horse should also be perfect.

Horses, Mules, and Donkeys in Minecraft: How Do They Differ?

In Minecraft, horses, donkeys, and mules are similar in many ways. For instance, you can saddle all three equine species and use them for transportation. All of them can also reach the maximum potential stats. That means that, with selective breeding, donkey and mule foals can grow up to jump as high and run as fast as a horse. When they die or are killed, all three animals drop the same resources: up to two units of leather and one to three experience points.

That said, there are a few key differences between them. For one, only horses can carry armor, so they can withstand a certain amount of damage when hostile mobs attack them. They can’t carry chests, unlike donkeys and mules. Chests are handy since they add 15 slots to your inventory, making it easier to bring stuff when you’re on the move.

Only horses and donkeys can spawn in the wild. When horses spawn, they get random stats. Donkeys, on the other hand, always end up with low-end stats. However, they still have the potential to reach maximum stats. Horses and donkeys are also the only equine species in Minecraft that can produce offspring.

When it comes to appearance, all donkeys and all mules look the same in the world of Minecraft. Every donkey has a brownish-gray coat, while every mule has a dark, reddish-brown coat. On the other hand, horses can have a variety of colors (e.g. white, cream, and chestnut) as well as coat markings (e.g. spots, dots, and blazes).

Final Thoughts

Horses don’t spawn as much in the world of Minecraft as other mobs. However, that shouldn’t stop you from having as many of them as you like. By learning how to breed horses in the game, you’ll be able to explore your world easily and have more control over what the offspring’s stats and appearance will be. It can be quite a long process, but the benefits you’ll reap are all worth it.