Minecraft Villager Breeding: Everything players need to know

Like many peaceful, passive, and neutral mobs in Minecraft, villagers can be bred. There are several different foods players can use to breed villagers. Breeding villagers is a great way to repopulate villages, and can also give the player a good amount of XP.

Villagers can’t necessarily be bred like other mobs such as sheep or cows, but instead can be encouraged to breed through a game mechanic called willingness. There are plenty of benefits to breeding villagers, and it’s highly encouraged that players do attempt to breed their villagers. Players may want to know exactly how to breed villagers in Minecraft.

How to breed villagers in Minecraft

Villager looking at the player (Image via minecraftcreepypasta)

The breeding process for villagers is much more complex than it is for other mobs in Minecraft. Villager breeding depends on a few main things, including willingness and the availability of beds within a village.

Willingness

Willing villagers in Minecraft (Image via Minecraft.gamepedia)

The villager's willingness to breed depends on how much food the villager has. When the villagers have a large food stock and other village requirements are met, the villagers will become willing to mate with one another.

WIllingness is part of villager breeding that players have control over. Players can give out food items to villagers by dropping the items nearby. Farmer villagers with an excess amount of food will also drop their extra food items for other villagers to have.

Four different food types can make a villager willing. The villager must have a minimum number of any of these items in one stack in their inventory. These items are 3 bread, 12 carrots, 12 potatoes, or 12 beetroots. When the villager has any one of these four-item stacks in their inventory, they will become willing.

Enough Beds

Villager sleeping in a bed (Image via Reddit)

In order for villagers to breed, there must be an excess of unclaimed beds within the village. Most villages come with extra beds in the first place, but if not, the player can always place more beds around the village to make up for the shortage.

This also makes repopulating a village very easy, as most unpopulated villages have a large excess of beds.

Breeding naturally

Villager statue (Image via planetminecraft)

Villagers can also breed on their own, without any player interference. When there are enough beds and the villagers are willing they will breed on their own. The only time villagers won't naturally breed is after an automatic consensus claims the villager population is too large to continue natural villager breeding.

Bottom Line

To breed villagers and repopulate villages, the player simply has to throw an excess of food items at villagers. Another alternative is to beef up the village farms for the farmer villagers to collect food and throw the excess at other villagers.

This is the only known way to breed villagers in Minecraft, as unfortunately, players cannot feed them. But breeding villagers is a simple process involving making beds and giving out excess amounts of bread, carrots, potatoes, and beetroots.