How to Breed Horses in Minecraft

Written by Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: July 17, 2022 Approved

This wikiHow teaches you how to breed two horses with each other in Minecraft. After taming two horses, you can have them create a foal by giving each of the horses a golden apple. Horse-breeding is possible on all versions of Minecraft including PC, Pocket Edition, and console editions.

Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Taming the Horses

1
Gather at least 40 apples. You'll want around 20 apples for each horse you need to tame. Apples make taming the horses significantly easier (and quicker) than attempting to tame them without food.
2
Find a horse. Horses are typically found in flat, grassy areas such as Plains and Savannas.^{[1]
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3
Equip the apples. In your equip bar at the bottom of the screen, make sure you have the apples selected before approaching the horse.
4
Select the horse until it stops eating. Right-click or left-trigger the horse until you stop hearing crunching sounds and the horse starts bucking and neighing.
- On Minecraft PE, you'll face the horse and tap Feed exactly 20 times.
5
Switch to an empty hand. This will allow you to mount the horse.
6
Select the horse. Right-click or left-trigger the horse to do so. You should mount the horse at this point.
- On Minecraft PE, you'll face the horse and tap Mount at the bottom of the screen.
7
Wait for red hearts to appear. Once red hearts appear around the horse, you have successfully tamed it. At this point, you can dismount by pressing left Shift or the "Crouch" button.
- If the horse bucks you off, mount it again and wait for the red hearts to appear. You may need to do this several times.
8
Tame another horse. You'll need two tamed horses in order to breed them.
- If your first tamed horse isn't following you around, you can enclose it in a two-block-tall area to keep it from wandering off.
9
Build a two-block-tall wall around the horses. You can use any resource (e.g., dirt or sand) to do this, but the wall must be two blocks tall in order to prevent the horses from running away.
- If you have enough fencing material in your inventory, you can use that to enclose the horses instead of using blocks.
- You might want to leave some extra room in the enclosure since you'll be adding a third horse to the mix shortly.

Part 2

Part 2 of 2:

Breeding the Horses

1
Gather the resources for golden apples. You'll need two golden apples—one for each horse—which means you need the following resources:
- 2 apples — Used as the base for the golden apples.
- 16 gold bars — You can create gold bars by smelting gold ore in a furnace.
- 1 Crafting Table — Used to make the golden apples. If you don't yet have a Crafting Table, make one before proceeding.
2
Craft two golden apples. This process will vary slightly depending on your platform:
- PC — Open your Crafting Table, click the stack of gold bars, right-click twice each box in the Crafting Table except for the center one, place both apples in the center box, and move the two gold apples into your inventory.
- Mobile — Open your Crafting Table, tap the magnifying glass icon on the left side of the screen, and tap twice the gold apple icon.
- Consoles — Open your Crafting Table, select the magnifying glass tab, and select twice the gold apple icon.
3
Enter your horses' enclosure. You'll want to make sure that neither of the horses escape when entering the enclosure.
4
Make sure that both horses are at full health. Feeding a golden apple to a horse that you've accidentally attacked will result in the horse being fed rather than being primed for mating.
- If your horses aren't both at full health, feed each of them red apples until they stop eating.
5
Equip the golden apples. In your equip bar at the bottom of the screen, make sure you have the golden apples selected.
6
Select each horse. Right-click or left-trigger each of the horses with the golden apples equipped. Doing so will prompt red hearts to appear over each horse's head, signifying that they're ready to breed.
- On Minecraft PE, you'll face each horse and tap Feed at the bottom of the screen.
7
Wait for a foal to appear. After a few seconds, you should see a small horse appear in the enclosure. This is the foal that the two tamed horses created.

Community Q&A

Question

What should I do if I have followed your steps and nothing has happened?

Community Answer

Try taming the horse first before you breed it. Otherwise, if it still doesn't work, then you may have a bug.
Question

If a horse has a lot of hearts, is fast, but can't jump high, is it best to breed it with a horse that can jump high, but has low hearts and speed?

Community Answer

Yes, you'll want a horse that can jump high, so that trait will most likely show up in the baby.
Question

Do horses in Minecraft come only in 1 color?

Community Answer

No, horses in Minecraft come in seven base colors, (white, buckskin, dark bay, bay, black, dapple gray, or flaxen) and they either have no markings, stockings and blaze markings, snowflake appaloosa markings, paint markings, or sooty markings. In total, there are 35 possible horse coat combinations.