Minecraft Horse Breeding Guide: How to Breed Horses in Minecraft

Horses were added to Minecraft in update 1.6. Since then, they have undergone several major changes in regards to their functionality in the game. Animal breeding has gone through several changes over the years, and horses are no exception.

How to breed horses in Minecraft

The most important thing about breeding Horses in Minecraft is that they must be tamed for it to work. You cannot breed wild horses. Taming one is as easy as riding it several times until it stops pushing you away, but you can find a more detailed guide on how to tame horses here.

Activating “Love Mode” in Minecraft

The first step can also be considered the last step, as it is the only thing you need to do. To activate love mode, you must feed golden apples or golden carrots to two tamed horses that are next to each other. By successfully doing this, the two Horses will mate and produce a foal.

Alternatively, if you cross one horse with one donkey, the child will be a mule. Mules cannot be bred further. Instead, mules are primarily used as beasts of burden to help players transport large amounts of items more efficiently.

Horse characteristics and appearance

When horses breed to produce a foal, the foal will most likely have traits that mirror those of at least one of the parent horses. The table below shows the probability of a foal’s color and markings according to the mechanics of the game.

The characteristics of a foal are determined by averaging the characteristics of both parent horses with a third set of random characteristics that mimic the characteristic ranges of a naturally bred horse.

The slowest horses can barely run faster than the player can walk, while the fastest horse in the game is nearly twice as fast as a cart on a mechanized track! Horses also vary in their jumping abilities, from at least one block (same as the player) to the ability to jump over five blocks! For these reasons, it’s a good idea to selectively breed your strongest horses if you want a true powerhouse (power horse?) of an animal.

Raising horses in Minecraft

If you are aiming to end up breeding the strongest horse, you can speed up the process by having the foals grow to full size horses. To do this, you just need to feed them the things they like. The list below shows what kind of food you can feed them and how much it speeds up the time before they become Horses.

• Apple: One minute
• Golden carrot: one minute
• Golden apple: four minutes
• Hay Bale: three minutes
• Sugar: 30 seconds
• Wheat: 20 seconds

That’s all you need to know about how to breed horses!