Table of Contents
Finding and Taming Horses
Horses spawn naturally in plains and savanna biomes in Minecraft. When you find horses, you will need to tame them before you can breed them. Follow these steps:
- Approach the horse slowly and remain calm so you don’t startle it.
- Equip a saddle or iron armor in your hotbar. Right-click on the horse while holding the saddle/armor to equip it. This will tame the horse.
- Feed the tamed horse to heal it or breed it. You can feed it wheat, hay bales, apples, golden carrots or apples.
Tip: Using a lead, you can also attach the horse and bring it back home for keeping.
Breeding Horses
To breed horses, you will need at least two tamed adult horses of the opposite sex:
- Bring the two tamed horses together into a fenced area or pen.
- Feed each horse wheat, hay bales, apples, golden carrots or apples until heart particles appear around them showing they are ready to breed.
- The two horses will walk up to each other and a baby horse will spawn.
Things to Note:
- Foals take 20 minutes to mature into adult horses.
- Don’t separate the baby horse from its parents until it has fully matured or it could suffocate.
Caring for Horses
To keep your horses healthy, make sure to provide them with the following:
Shelter
- Build a barn or roofed structure for your horses for shade. Leaving them uncovered in the sun too long will kill them.
Food
- Feed adult horses regularly to keep them healthy and happy. Hay bales, apples, and golden carrots are good nutritious choices.
Fenced Area
- Keep your horses fenced in so they don’t wander off and despawn. Use fence gates to pen them.
Grooming & Exercise
- Use a brush on adult horses to clean and groom them.
- Take horses out for regular rides to keep them fit and fast. Exercise is good for their health.
Improving Horses
You can further improve horses by:
- Selective Breeding: Breed fast horses together to pass on speed genes.
- Armoring: Protect rider-horses with iron/gold/diamond horse armor crafted from ingots. Enchanted armor offers more protection.
- Enchanting: Use an enchanting table to add useful enchants to horse armor like Fire Protection, Blast Protection, etc.
- Healing: Feed injured/damaged horses golden apples or golden carrots to regenerate their health faster.
Transporting Horses
To transport horses around or across dimensions safely:
- Use a lead to tie horses to fences when traveling short distances. Don’t leave them wandering unsupervised or they could despawn.
- Use boats to carry 1-2 horses across bodies of water. Load the horses in carefully.
- Use minecarts with chests attached to transport 1 horse on rails/tracks.
- Set up Nether portals to safely move horses between the Overworld and the Nether dimensions.
Take care in transporting horses and don’t overload them to avoid suffocation damage. With some effort, you can safely transport even large herds of horses.
