10 interesting facts about breeding mobs in Minecraft

Breeding mobs in Minecraft is one of the most important parts of farming. This feature gives players access to rare survival items, like turtle scutes, as well as amazing survival farms like cow crushers. It's one of the most fleshed-out and detailed mechanics, leading to it having a plethora of interesting niche features, functions, and pieces of trivia.

10 of the most interesting facts about mob breeding in Mojang's blocky masterpiece can be found in detail below.

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10 interesting facts about mob breeding in Minecraft

1) The Parrots and the Bats

A parrot and bat flying near each other (Image via Mojang)

Despite the Minecraft advancement for breeding animals, referring to both parrots and bats, neither of these mobs is capable of breeding. Bats aren't even able to be tamed or interacted with in any way. Parrots can thankfully be tamed with seeds and will mimic the sounds of any hostile mobs that get too close.

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2) Camels aren't immune to cacti

A camel in front of a cactus (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft camels, found exclusively within desert villages, need to eat cactus plants to breed. Despite being able to safely and easily eat cactus to ender love mode and breed, camels are not immune to the contact damage they cause when placed in block form.

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3) Axolotls and tropical fish

Axolotls need buckets of tropical fish instead of regular tropical fish (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft axolotls are a surprisingly picky mob. While they require tropical fish to breed and sometimes produce the rare blue axolotl variant, they won't eat normal tropical fish items. Instead, these amphibians must be fed buckets of tropical fish for some reason.

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4) Untrusting rabbits

Rabbits will never trust players unless they hold carrots, golden carrots, or dandelions (Image via Mojang)

Many mobs that aren't tameable will at least trust players who give them food or help raise them. For example, baby foxes that are produced by giving sweet berries to two adult foxes will trust players. Rabbits are quite unique in that they will never trust those not holding a breeding item, even if they have been fed or raised by a player.

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5) Bees are immune to the wither

A bee flying dangerously close to a wither rose (Image via Mojang)

While bee mobs aren't literally immune to the wither status effect, they can use wither roses to breed without taking damage. This is quite strange, as normally touching one of these flowers will cause constant damage through the wither status effect. It's also strange that consuming these flowers doesn't hurt the mob, but touching one while flying does.

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6) Dyed baby sheep on Java Edition

Breeding dyed sheep is quite interesting on Java Edition (Image via Mojang)

An interesting feature of sheep breeding in Java Edition is that dyed sheep can combine their colors when producing offspring. For example, if a red sheep and a yellow sheep breed, they will produce an orange offspring. This is a fun feature that needs to be added to Bedrock for the sake of Minecraft parity.

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7) Turtles return home

A group of turtles on a beach (Image via Mojang)

When a player gives seagrass to two turtles, they'll breed. One of them will then attempt to lay eggs. However, it will attempt to do so at its home beach, which is where it was spawned or hatched. This means turtles will swim for hundreds, or even thousands, of blocks to reach home before laying their eggs.

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8) Picky Pandas

Pandas in a bamboo jungle (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft pandas are capable of breaking and eating bamboo on their own. However, despite this, they will only ever breed when a player gives them bamboo. This isn't the only way that pandas are picky, though. They also require at least eight bamboos to be planted around them to breed.

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9) Baby mobs that aren't born

A baby glow squid near an adult (Image via Mojang)

There are a handful of baby mobs that cannot be produced through mob breeding. This includes mobs like polar bears, Minecraft squids, glow squids, and dolphins. This means these baby mobs have to spawn randomly and cannot be farmed like other baby mobs.

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10) Frogs produce a different mob

A tadpole next to an adult frog (Image via Mojang)

Frogs are unique Minecraft mobs when it comes to breeding. Unlike other mobs that produce smaller versions of themselves when bred, frogs instead lay eggs that hatch into tadpoles. This makes them the only animal in-game that has totally separate baby mobs.