How to breed villagers in Minecraft

What is a Minecraft world without large, active villages? Helping to build these communities will make your Minecraft adventure feel a lot more real and engaging, so it’s an important aspect of the game. You’ll also a get a lot of gameplay benefits from a lively village.

However, a village can only thrive if it has plenty of villagers, and it can be a bit tricky to make them breed. Most passive mobs can be tamed and bred by giving certain items, but villagers act a bit differently.

We’ve got everything you need to know in our Minecraft villager breeding guide, which covers how villagers breed in Minecraft version 1.14 and above (including 1.19). Here’s how to breed villagers in Minecraft.

How to breed villagers in Minecraft

Unlike many mobs, such as most animals, villagers have a degree of autonomy and cannot be forced to breed. However, if you create the correct conditions for villagers to breed then it’ll only be a matter of time before new child villagers are produced. Villagers can breed if the following conditions are met:

There must be more beds than villagers in the village
2 villagers must have sufficient willingness to breed and access to the beds

As such, there must be at least 3 beds in the village, since you’ll need at least 2 villagers to breed. You can craft beds yourself with 3 Wool and 3 Planks.

How to make villagers willing to breed

Villagers can be made willing to breed in two ways:

Make a trade with them. If you trade an item with a villager for the first time, they will automatically be willing to breed. If it is an item they have traded before, they will have a 20% chance of instantly becoming willing to breed
Cause the villager to accumulate 12 Food points from the food in their inventory

Food points are gained when the villagers collect Bread, Carrots, Potatoes or Beetroots. When they have got enough food, they will be willing to breed with another willing villager who has satisfied one of the same conditions.

Breeding will reset both villagers’ willingness, so you need to make them willing again if you want them to breed again. You will also need to create a new bed to account for the new villager, unless the village already has spare beds.

Once a child villager has been conceived, it takes them 20 minutes to grow into an adult villager, when they can be given a new job by placing a Job block near them.

How do you make a villager willing to breed with food?

As discussed, a villager is willing to breed by trading or accumulating Food points. Note that if trading with them has made them willing to breed, you do not have to give that villager any food to make them breed. If a first-time trade isn’t available, then food is a bit more reliable because it doesn’t rely on random chance.

If you are using the food points method, there are four foods that contribute towards this total:

Bread – 3 Points

Carrots – 1 Point
Potatoes – 1 Point
Beetroots – 1 Point

Therefore any mix and match combination of these that adds up to 12 will do the trick. You can give the same items if you want, such as 4 Bread, 12 Carrots, 12 Potatoes or 12 Beetroots.

Give them these food items by dropping them in front of the villagers, but they can collect food themselves if they are lying around in the village. Villagers will walk through nearby food which automatically adds it to their inventory. When the conditions are met, the familiar shower of red hearts will emerge from the two villagers, who will go to a bed and produce a child villager.

The beds do not have to be within a specific block radius, but the beds do have to be within the village bounds, and there can’t be an obstacles preventing the villagers finding them (eg, beds in a room without a door).

Remember, once a Villager has bred once, then their willingness will be reset and they must accumulate another 12 food points to be willing to breed again. It is important to ensure you keep adding beds to your village to allow additional breeding to take place. The number of villagers is capped at the number of beds you have in your village.

How to make villagers breed on their own in Minecraft

It’s all well and good encouraging your villagers to breed, but it’s a lot better to leave them get down to business on their own. Not only does it save your time, but it also saves you wasting your food items.

To make villagers breed on their own, you’ll need a farmer who can produce a continuous supply of food and pass it on to the other villagers.

To do this, put a Composter Job block near a villager to make them a farmer. A farmer will farm on farmland blocks or their job lot to automatically create the items of food required to breed. If all your villagers have different jobs, then destroy their Job block and plonk a Composter one near them to convert them into a farmer.

If you have numerous farmers, your village will soon have an excess of food. Farmers throw extra food to other villagers, and the villagers themselves will also do this when they have more food than they need. Between all the villagers, they should share enough food to keep them regularly breeding.

Make sure you craft plenty of beds in the village before you leave them, as well as adequate protection from hostile mobs. This can come in the form of tamed animals like wolves, or simply building structures that will keep them out (and protect from the elements). Villages will also spawn Iron Golems automatically, which will add some extra protection.

Why aren’t my Minecraft villagers breeding?

There are a few common reasons why your villagers may not be breeding, even when it seems the appropriate conditions are met:

The beds need to have at least 2 blocks of space above them for them to count
The beds must be unobstructed so the villagers can actually get to them
There must be more beds than villagers within the village bounds. If there are 3 unoccupied beds nearby but the village still only has 1 bed per villager, you need an extra bed

There are hostile mobs nearby, so the villagers do not feel safe enough to breed
They have already bred before and haven’t had their willingness bumped back up by another batch of food
The villagers are too far from the beds – they will probably breed eventually but you can literally push them closer to the beds by walking into them

Check that none of these issues have arisen and act accordingly. If there are hostile mobs around, then kill them or make a sturdier defensive structure to stop them getting inside the village.

Even then, you may simply need to be a little bit patient as villagers do not always breed immediately upon all conditions being met. This is especially true in bigger areas where the villagers aren’t necessarily close to each other or the beds. However, it doesn’t usually take that long so if you are waiting a while, revisit the conditions and make sure everything has been done correctly.

What is the benefit to breeding villagers?

There are lots of different benefits to having big villages in Minecraft. Here are the main perks:

The more villagers, the more trading opportunities, allowing you to gain more items. If your village has a wide variety of different villagers with different jobs, there’ll be a lot of items available.
By continuously trading with different villagers of different jobs, they will level up their trading level, starting at Novice and ending as Master, which unlocks better quality items

More trading grants more EXP. Each trade will gain you 3-6 EXP orbs, and if a trade is done whilst they are willing to breed this increases to 8-11 EXP orbs. They will also provide more EXP to the player when the villager levels up their job level from the trade
Villagers automatically spawn Iron Golems to protect them. This makes villages a good place to stay safe from hostile mobs, but beware – they will also attack you if your reputation is too low. Reputation is affecting by things like attacking/killing villagers, and is bumped up by curing them or trading with them
Iron Golems are a source of Iron Ingots when they die, as well as poppies

Ultimately, lively villages with professionals you are trading with regularly will provide opportunities for many of the most important items in Minecraft. Keep trading with villagers to help them reach Master status, where they can offer the best items for each of the 13 different jobs. Not only that, but it’s just a nice feeling to have lots of people living and thriving in your world.

That’s everything you need to know about how to breed villagers in Minecraft. This villager breeding guide should give you everything you need to build a successful and vibrant village. For more Minecraft tips and guides, check out the articles below: