5 reasons why your Minecraft villagers are not breeding

Many new Minecraft players playing the game for the first time might have some difficulty making Villagers breed. Breeding is a unique and useful feature that allows similar mobs to mate and spawn baby versions of themselves. Players need to manually feed them food items in order to begin the process.

Breeding Villagers is slightly trickier since it is not as simple as feeding them one food item. There are several factors, like time of day, beds, etc., that play a role in whether the mobs will breed or not. Hence, if novice players are unable to breed their Villagers, there might be a few reasons behind it.

Note: If none of the below reasons apply to your case, there is a chance a glitch or bug might be at play.

---

5 main reasons why Villagers might not breed in Minecraft

1) No unclaimed beds

There must be at least three beds around (Image via Mojang)

Beds are very much a necessity when breeding Villagers. As Minecraft players know, these civilized mobs have a set routine and connect themselves to a bed so that they can sleep at night. Hence, if two Villagers are planning to breed, they must be able to detect three unclaimed beds around them with two blocks of space above each.

Even though the passive mobs will not physically use beds while breeding, they are still necessary. Two blocks of space above the items ensure that adult Villagers can climb on them and Baby Villagers can jump on them.

---

2) Less food items

Players must give each Villager a set amount of food items in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

Unlike other breedable mobs that only take one food item to enter "love mode," Villagers take multiple. Essentially, their own inventory should have 12 food items for them to enter their very own "willing mode."

Players can either give them bread, carrots, potatoes, or beetroot. Bread is the best food item to offer since they count one bread as four in their own inventory, compared to carrots, potatoes, and beetroot, which count as one. Hence, gamers must either provide them with three loaves of bread, or 12 carrots, potatoes, or beetroots to each Villager.

---

3) Breeding cooldown

After a successful breed, Villagers enter a cooldown mode in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

In order to prevent players from spamming the breeding process, the game has a cooldown timer applied to each Villager after a successful breed. For the next five minutes, these involved, particular mobs won't be able to mate with others. To continue breeding Villagers, players can wait five minutes or choose other candidates that are available and haven't mated in a while.

---

4) Population Cap (Bedrock Edition only)

A village can hold only a set amount of Villagers; hence, they might stop breeding in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

In Bedrock Edition, there can only be a certain number of Villagers in a particular village. After that population cap has been reached, the mobs will no longer breed with each other. This can also be a viable reason as to why they are not breeding, especially for players who are on Bedrock Edition.

---

5) Wrong time of day

Villagers are very particular about the time of day in Minecraft (Image via Mojang)

One reason why Villagers are not breeding can related to the day's time. When players first meet these mobs, they will notice how they follow a set routine based on the day-night cycle in the game. This also applies to their breeding since they will not breed during the night. Therefore, players must be sure when to give VIllagers food and keep unclaimed beds ready for them to enter the mode successfully.