Taming turns Minecraft’s wildlife into loyal companions: a pack of wolves to fight beside you, a cat that scares creepers off your doorstep, a fox that holds your loot, a parrot riding your shoulder, and a horse that gets you across the map fast. Every animal uses a different method and a different food, and getting the items wrong just wastes your inventory. This guide breaks down exactly how to tame and breed each one, and what each tamed mob actually does for you.
Quick-reference taming and breeding table
| Animal | How to tame | Breeding food |
|---|---|---|
| Wolf | Feed bones (1/3 chance per bone) | Any meat; in Java, also rabbit stew and any fish |
| Cat | Feed raw cod or raw salmon (1/3 chance each) | Raw cod or raw salmon |
| Fox | Can’t be tamed by feeding; breed two foxes for a trusting baby | Sweet berries or glow berries |
| Parrot | Feed seeds (1/10 chance each) | Cannot be bred |
| Horse | Mount repeatedly until hearts appear (temper) | Golden apple or golden carrot |
How to tame a wolf
Wolves spawn in forests and taigas and are tamed with bones, which you get from skeletons. Each bone has a 1/3 chance of taming the wolf, so the number you need varies randomly. Keep feeding until a red collar appears and hearts pop up. In Java Edition the wolf sits down automatically the moment it is tamed.
A tamed wolf has 40 HP (wild wolves only have 8), and its tail rises higher as its health goes up, giving you a visual health bar. Heal a hurt wolf with meat: cooked porkchop restores the most at 16 HP. Tamed wolves attack any player or mob that you attack or that injures you, and they teleport to you when you stray too far or when they take damage. Right-click to toggle between sitting and following. You can dye the collar with any of the 16 dyes to tell pack members apart.
To breed, both wolves must be tamed, standing, and at full health. Feed them meat (in Java, rabbit stew or any fish also works). There’s a 5-minute breeding cooldown in Java and 1 minute in Bedrock.
How to tame a cat
Cats spawn in villages (roughly one per four beds, capped at five) and as a single black cat alongside the witch in swamp huts. Tame a stray cat with raw cod or raw salmon — each fish has a 1/3 chance of taming it. Approach slowly while holding the fish; if you’re within 10 blocks and stay still, the cat will gradually come to you. Don’t chase it or it bolts.
Tamed cats are genuinely useful for defense. Creepers actively avoid cats and keep their distance, so a cat near your door is a cheap creeper repellent. Cats also scare off phantoms, hissing at them. As a bonus, there’s a 70% chance a tamed cat leaves you a gift — items like a rabbit’s foot or feather — after you wake up from sleeping next to it. Breed two tamed cats with raw cod or salmon to produce a kitten that belongs to one parent’s owner.
How to “tame” a fox
Foxes are the odd one out: you cannot tame them by feeding. Instead, you breed two adult foxes with sweet berries or glow berries, and the baby fox trusts the player who bred it and won’t flee as it grows up. Naturally spawned babies don’t trust you, so the breeding step is essential. The classic trick is to lure two wild foxes together (they spawn in taigas), pen them, breed them, and raise the kit.
Foxes pick up any item lying near them and carry it in their mouth, and they hunt small animals like chickens, rabbits and fish. A trusting fox will defend its player. Note the edition difference: in Bedrock, a trusting fox attacks any mob that harms its player, including other players; Java’s defensive behavior is more limited.
How to tame a parrot
Parrots live in jungles and are tamed with seeds — wheat, melon, pumpkin, beetroot, torchflower seeds, or pitcher pods all work. Each seed fed has only a 1/10 chance of taming, so bring a stack and be patient. Parrots cannot be bred and baby parrots don’t exist, so taming wild ones is the only way to grow your collection.
Once tamed, walking into a parrot makes it perch on your shoulder — you can carry one on each side, and it favors your left shoulder first. Parrots imitate the idle sounds of nearby mobs within 20 blocks at a higher pitch, which is a handy early warning that a hostile mob is close. They also dance within 3 blocks of a jukebox playing a music disc. One critical warning: never feed a parrot a cookie — in Java it deals massive damage and kills the parrot instantly.
How to tame a horse
Horses don’t use a taming food at all — you tame them with patience. Mount a horse with an empty hand and it bucks you off; keep remounting until it stops and hearts appear. Under the hood this is the “temper” system: a horse starts at 0 temper out of 100, your first mount sets a random threshold (0–99), and each failed attempt adds 5 temper. When temper passes the threshold, it’s tamed.
Feeding speeds taming by raising temper directly, though it isn’t required. A golden apple adds +10 temper (and heals 10 HP), a golden carrot adds +5, and sugar, wheat, apples and carrots each add +3. Hay bales heal a big 20 HP but add no temper. Once tamed, you still need a saddle to ride and steer the horse; horse armor (leather, iron, gold or diamond) is optional protection. Breed two tamed horses with a golden apple or golden carrot to get a foal. Breeding a horse with a donkey produces a mule, which can’t breed further.
Frequently asked questions
How many bones does it take to tame a wolf?
There’s no fixed number. Each bone has a 1/3 chance of taming the wolf, so on average it takes about three bones, but you might get lucky on the first or need several more. Keep feeding until the red collar and hearts appear.
Can you tame a fox in Minecraft?
Not by feeding. You have to breed two adult foxes with sweet berries or glow berries; the resulting baby trusts the player who bred it and won’t run away. Wild adults and naturally spawned babies will always flee.
What do you feed a horse to tame it?
You don’t need to feed a horse to tame it — just keep mounting it until it stops throwing you off. Feeding golden apples or golden carrots raises its temper to speed the process, but the core method is repeated mounting. You then need a saddle to ride it.
Build your own menagerie
A pen of dyed-collar wolves, creeper-proof cats and a stable of bred horses is even better with friends helping you wrangle animals — spinning up a Minecraft server to play with friends lets everyone build the farm together, and the Minecraft server setup docs walk you through getting it running. Once your animals are sorted, line up your next projects: build a Nether portal, breed villagers and grow a village, or start a bee and honey farm.
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