How To Breed Horses In Minecraft

Horses make for one of the best mounts in all of Minecraft, especially when they have a saddle. However, not all horses are created equal, so if you’re looking for one that has superior speed, jump, or health stats, you could be searching all over the map for different horses. Or, you could simply breed horses to make a foal (baby horse) and speed up the process of finding the perfect horse in Minecraft. Below, you can see exactly how to breed horses.

How to breed horses in Minecraft

Before you can even think about breeding a horse, you need to have two tamed horses of your own. For the most part, horses are primarily located in the Savana or Plains biomes of Minecraft, but you can find them elsewhere, such as in villages, as well. To tame a horse, all you have to do is attempt to ride one over and over. You can do this by right-clicking on a mouse or pressing left trigger on a controller.

Two tamed horses can breed a foal.

Your first several attempts to mount the horse will likely result in you being thrown off. However, keep persisting and eventually the horse will take to you, resulting in them being tamed. You’ll know when the horse is tamed when hearts appear on the screen. Repeat the taming process on two separate horses and ensure the two horses are near each other so they can breed. Ideally, you’ll build a fenced-in pen at your base for the horses with enough room for a small horse to roam, as well.

Once the two tamed horses are near each other, you need to feed them either Golden Apples or Golden Carrots. Both of these food items can be looted in chests across Minecraft, but you can also craft them. Crafting a Golden Apple is accomplished by surrounding a regular apple with gold ingots at a crafting table while a Golden Carrot is crafted by surrounding a regular carrot with gold nuggets.

With two Golden Apples or Golden Carrots in your inventory, feed one to each tamed horse. Ensure the horses are near each other and both eat the food item you give them. If you’ve done everything correctly, then a baby foal will spawn near the two horses within mere seconds. The foal follows its parents for roughly 20 in-game minutes, at which point it matures into a fully grown horse.

The foal appears after the proper food has been fed to the horses

Breeding horses in Minecraft is the best way to spawn horses of different colors and stats. However, you can also breed other mobs with horses. For example, you can breed a horse and donkey together to make a mule. This requires the same process as breeding two horses. Whatever baby mob you breed, its stats will depend on the stats of its parents. So if you want to breed a near-perfect baby foal or mule, you need to ensure their parents’ stats are high. Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to breed a foal or mule with perfect stats, so getting close to perfect should be considered good enough.