What do donkeys eat in Minecraft to breed?

Donkeys are helpful and passive mobs in Minecraft that are usually found in plains, savannas, and meadows. They are essentially used for traveling and carrying lots of items. They can even breed and have different variants of the horse family.

Their specialty is that they can be equipped with a chest. This hugely helps players when they are traveling far and wide in the overworld and need more inventory space to keep valuable items.

They are slower and weaker than horses but can be helpful to players thanks to the chest. Though they can be fed wheat, they will need something more to breed with each other.

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Getting donkeys to breed in Minecraft and what they need to eat

When players find multiple donkeys, they can breed them to produce offspring. Many new players won't understand how to breed donkeys as they would eat wheat and not enter 'love mode.' Donkeys eat two kinds of food, one for increasing health and one for breeding.

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Food item to breed donkeys

Golden Apple crafting recipe (Image via Minecraft)

Players will need golden apples and golden carrots to breed these mobs. Once the two of them are fed these golden food items, they enter the 'love mode' and produce a foal.

Golden apples can be crafted by placing eight gold ingots around a normal apple on the crafting table. Golden carrots are crafted by placing eight gold nuggets around a normal carrot on the crafting table. Both these food items can also be used to breed horses.

The mob entering love mode (Image via Minecraft)

Players can also find golden apples and carrots as chest loot in several structures. It should be noted that enchanted golden apples cannot be used on these mobs for breeding. Many players usually do not breed these mobs as the golden food items are valuable and can be used for the survival of the player.

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Mules

Mules are cross-breed (Image via Minecraft)

Other than breeding two donkeys, players can also cross-breed a donkey and a horse to produce a Mule. Mules are faster than donkeys but slower than the fastest horse in the game. Like donkeys, mules can also carry a chest on them in which players can store stacks of any item.

This also unlocks an advancement called 'Artificial Selection.' These mobs cannot be further bred by any mob, and they can't enter the love mode.