How to breed horses in Minecraft

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While plenty of horses are likely roaming around in your Minecraft biomes, you may want to get into breeding horses wherever you’ve set up your house. It’s always smart to have a backup horse at home in case danger befalls your go-to steed after you've made a saddle and tamed them. Or you might be role-playing and looking to start a genuine horse ranch.

Breeding your own custom horse in Minecraft is fairly simple, but you do need a few specific items, and we have a few tips as well. Check out this guide to learn everything you need to know about breeding horses in Minecraft.

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How to breed horses

The most difficult part of breeding horses is finding them in the first place. Horses spawn in plains and savannas in herds of two to six. These are mostly flat, grassy areas with a few scattered trees. There are a variety of colors — white, chestnut, black, gray, brown, and flaxen chestnut — with a handful of different markings that a horse can spawn with, and herds are likely to be similar. While it’s not difficult to find a herd of horses in the world, you may have to do some hunting to find a specific color if you have a preference.How to tame a horse in Minecraft

Step 1: To get started, you need to find and tame two horses that you want to be the parents of your new horse. We’ve got a separate guide on how to tame a horse if you need a refresher.

Step 2: Keep two horses within eight blocks of one another that you want to breed.

Step 3: Feed them either golden apples or golden carrots until hearts appear over their heads.

Step 4: When both horses have hearts they will turn and move toward each other. In a short time, the hearts will disappear and a foal will appear!

Step 5: In case you’re attempting to breed a bunch of baby horses at once, know that two horses that have created a foal have a cool-down period of five minutes before they can breed again.

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Now that you have a cute new baby horse, it’s time to celebrate. Take some screenshots for the record if you need to, because the foal will mature and turn into an adult horse in a mere 20 minutes. You’ll need to go through the taming process with the new horse, just like you did with its parents. Once that’s through, you can ride your horse and take it on adventures.

The foal has a 44.44% of looking like either parent, and an 11.11% of being a random color. The foal’s stats — health, movement speed, and jump strength — are determined by averaging both parent’s stats with a randomly determined third set.