How to Breed Sheep in Minecraft and Make a Rainbow Sheep

To breed sheep, hold wheat and use it on two adult sheep standing near each other. They show hearts and a lamb appears, along with 1-7 XP. The parents can breed again after five minutes, and the lamb grows up in 20 minutes, faster if it eats grass or you feed it more wheat.

What you need to breed sheep

• Two adult sheep. Plains, meadows, forests and most other grassy biomes have them.
• Wheat. Two pieces per breeding, one per sheep. Grow it from seeds you get by breaking grass (our farming guide covers setting up a field).
• A fence pen, so your sheep don’t wander off.

Sheep can’t be tamed, but they follow anyone holding wheat. Walk them back to your base with a stalk in your hand, or use a lead.

Breeding sheep step by step

1. Lure two sheep into a fenced pen while holding wheat.
2. Use wheat on the first sheep, then the second. Hearts appear over both.
3. The sheep walk together and a lamb spawns.
4. Wait five minutes before breeding the same pair again.

To build a flock quickly, breed every adult pair you have, wait, and repeat. Lambs speed up their own growth by eating grass, so a grassy pen helps.

How lamb colors work

A lamb inherits wool color from its parents. If the parents’ colors are ones you could mix as dyes, the lamb gets the mixed color: a red sheep and a yellow sheep give an orange lamb, blue and white give light blue. If the colors can’t be mixed, the lamb copies one parent at random.

Dye the sheep, not the wool

Use any dye on a sheep and its wool changes color for good. Every time it regrows, it comes back in the dyed color. One dyed sheep gives you endless wool of that color, which is much cheaper than dyeing white wool block by block. A pen of 16 sheep, one per color, covers everything you’ll need for beds, banners and carpet.

Natural sheep colors

Since 1.21.5 (Java) and 1.21.70 (Bedrock), the climate decides a sheep’s usual color:

Biome type	Most common	Also seen	Rare (3%)	Very rare (0.164%)
Temperate	White	Light gray, gray, black	Brown	Pink
Cold	Black	White, light gray, gray	Brown	Pink
Warm	Brown	White, light gray, gray	Black	Pink

The most common color appears about 82% of the time.

Watch out near woodland mansions: evokers turn nearby blue sheep red with their “wololo” spell.

The jeb_ rainbow sheep

Rename a name tag to jeb_ in an anvil (all lowercase, ending with the _ symbol) and use it on a sheep. Its wool fades through every color nonstop, a tribute to Mojang developer Jens “jeb” Bergensten. The effect is cosmetic: shearing a jeb_ sheep still gives the color the sheep actually has underneath, and you can still dye it.

Shearing and wool farms

Use shears on a sheep for one to three wool. It takes no damage, and the wool grows back once the sheep eats a grass block, which turns the grass into dirt. Killing a sheep only drops one wool, so always shear.

An automatic wool farm uses the grass-eating mechanic: put a sheep over a single grass block, have an observer watch the block turn to dirt, and fire a dispenser with shears at the sheep. A hopper underneath collects the wool. Build one per color and you never run short.