Horses are the best means of transportation in Minecraft. These mobs have hidden and random stats, and while you have no control over these numbers, you have some control over the characteristics of a baby horse.
That’s why you’d want to breed horses, as it’s how you can ultimately get the horse with the better stats. On top of that, breeding two wild horses will give you a tame horse, but you don’t need to necessarily tame the horses to breed them.
Things Required to Breed a Horse in Minecraft
The process is easy enough that you can do it in the early game. To understand how easy it is, here’re the two things you need, plus some optional items.
- Find a savanna or a plains biome. Horses only spawn in these areas. The chances are even higher in plain villages, as horses could be in pins within these villages
- Bring two Golden Carrots, Golden Apples, or Enchanted Golden Apples
- A wooden fence (optional)
- A lead (optional)
Finding a plains biome should be easier, as it’s the second most common biome type, next to forest biomes. Savanna is a less common environment, but you don’t need to worry about that.
Finding these food blocks is the hardest part of breeding horses because they spawn in treasure chests on strongholds, pillage outposts, Nether Fortresses, Desert Temples, Jungle Temples, Ruined Nether Portal chests, Remnant Bastion chests, and similar.
There’s a simpler way that doesn’t rely on random chances, though. Specifically, you can craft a Golden Carrot with a regular carrot. Just mix it with eight Gold Nuggets on the crafting grid or the Crafting Table—put the carrot in the middle.
You can loot Golden Nuggets from Zombie Pigmen. Then, regular carrots grow and other food blocks grow on village farms, and you can collect these by breaking them with any tool or your arms.
Alternatively, you can put a Golden Ingot on the Crafting Table to receive nine Golden Nuggets (or vice-versa).
The recipe for the Golden Apple is more expensive, so we don’t recommend it. It requires an apple and eight Gold Ingots on the Crafting Table.
How to Breed a Horse in Minecraft?
The easiest way to breed horses is by using a leash and a wooden fence (like an oak fence).
Once you find a horse, you can put the lead on your action bar, equip it, and use it on the horse. This will put the leash on the mob, and because it’s a passive mob, it won’t do anything.
Then, you place the oak fence near the horse and put the lead on the fence to leave the horse in place.
Alternatively, you can build a pin, a fence, or a small structure around the horse. The idea is to prevent it from going anywhere.
Once you secure the first horse, you can scour the area to find another one. Horses roam around in packs with up to 6 mobs, so there’s surely another one close by.
After you find it, you can use the lead to take it back to the first horse. You can also mount it and ride it with the standard directional control. To mount a horse, approach it, point it, and press:
- Right-click the mob on PC
- Tap the center twice while pointing at the horse on mobile devices
- Press the LT button on Xbox consoles
- Press L2 on PlayStation consoles
- Press ZL on Nintendo consoles
If the horse kicks you off, you can simply mount it again. In fact, mounting a wild horse several times will tame it.
That’s why the lead and the fence are optional. You can mount the horses anywhere, or find two close-by horses in the wild. The lead will just make it easier.
Anyhow, put the two horses as close as possible, or find two horses that are close to one another. You can even build a fence around the horses to ensure the process goes smoothly.
Afterward, put the Golden Carrot (or Golden Apple or Golden Enchanted Apple) on your action bar, equip it, and use it on the horses. Once you see “love” icons on the horses, it means they are breeding.
Giving two Golden Carrots to the horses will make them enter “Love Mode” and spawn a baby horse, however, it should be one carrot for each parent.
Particularly, they like Golden Carrots, Golden Apples, and Enchanted Golden Apples, sugar, apples, wheat, and hey bale. To feed the horse, just put the item on your action bar, and right-click on the horse as you’re holding the food chunk.
How to Find a Plains Village?
There’re two ways to find a village in the plains. You can explore and find the clues, or you can use a “Seed finder” to check key locations on the Minecraft Realm you’re playing.
If you care for exploration, then finding a plains biome is up to you. You’d recognize it because the ground is flat, full of grass, and there’re almost no trees.
Once you reach these places, look for village paths. These are dirt and grass paths on the ground, and you can follow these paths back to a village. You’ll also find lamps and farm animals near villages, indicating that you’re on the right path.
The second way is using a Seed finder. The “Seed” is the code number that identifies your Minecraft realm. You can find the Seed, put it on the finder, and check the coordinates for a plains village.
On Java Edition, press the “T” button and type “/seed.”
If it doesn’t work:
- Hit ESC and select Settings
- Go to “Open to LAN”
- Turn “Allow cheats” ON
- Click “Start LAN World” below. Try searching for the seed again.
On Bedrock edition:
- Go Settings
- Go to “Worlds”
- Click the pen icon to the right of the world at the top. This should be the world you’re playing -or the last one you played if you came from the main menu.
- The Seed number is on the Seed box
Now, open your web browser and go to Chunkbase’s Seed Map. Type the “Seed” select your Minecraft edition, and select the “Dimension” (Overworld, Nether, or The End).
Finally, use the map’s interactive tool to find a plains village. Clicking on its icon (a villager’s head) will reveal its coordinates. You can then travel to the site and loot the food you need for the horses.
Baby Horse Stats
Most importantly, baby horses inherit the stats of their parents. Horses come with varying running speeds, maximum jump height, and HP (the amount of hearts).
The foal will inherit the colors of one of the parents, but it has a small chance of getting a random color. For the stats, game averages characteristics of both horses, adds a random value, and gives the resulting stats to the foil.
Still, breeding faster and tougher horses will give you the highest chances of producing the best horse the game has to offer:
- The running speed of horses ranges from 4.73 blocks per second to 14.23 blocks per second.
- The jump strength of a horse goes from 0.4 to 1 point. The maximum strength allows horses to jump 5 1/4 blocks, whereas the minimum strength is less than 2 blocks.
- Horses’ HP ranges from 15 to 30 hearts, and they may even have a “hidden” half-heart. The latter means it can absorb a single hit without reflecting it on its visible hearts.
Lastly, a baby horse is already tamed. You can ride it freely. Alternatively, you can breed horses with mules to produce donkeys, and the process is the same.
