Farming is one of the most important aspects of Minecraft’s game mechanics.
Majority of the players will start farming once they got a better set of tools and a decent base.
It is also one of the easiest ways to get a constant supply of food. Just from growing wheat, you can have an unlimited supply of bread in your world.
It’s easy to obtain because wheat is almost farmable in almost all biomes.
However, as you progress in the game, you will find out that bread and other crops will not suffice the food requirement.
To make better food options, you will likely need to make an animal farm.
Animal Ranching And Its Benefits
When a player established a base, decent armor, decent weapons, and a decent farm, the next thing to do is to make an animal farm.
Animal ranching has a lot of benefits, with the most beneficial being a source of better food.
As you go on adventures far away from your base, better food items in the inventory will help in survival.
Bread can restore three hunger points while better food items such as cooked mutton, which is acquired from sheep can restore six hunger points.
If you’re in danger, eating better food will regenerate hunger points faster, which in turn, regenerates health faster.
In addition to food benefits, passive mobs usually drop items such as leather, wool, and feather, which are some of the materials important for crafting.
The Best Animals To Farm In Minecraft
The majority of animals can breed in Minecraft.
However, not all animals need a farm for getting drops or food.
Cats and wolves will not drop anything except experience orbs. Here are the passive mobs that players can farm for food or item drops.
7. Horses
Horses are passive mobs which can be tamed by feeding wheat.
Its main purpose in the game for player’s transportation. Just like other tamed animals, when a tamed horse dies, a death message will be displayed to the owner. Horses will breed if the player feeds two tamed horses golden apples or golden carrots.
The offspring can either be a foal or a mule (when bred with a donkey). You can farm horses for leather if there is no cow in your immediate surroundings.
6. Rabbits
If you spawned in a desert world, you’ll benefit with a rabbit farm.
Other passive mobs don’t spawn in the desert. Rabbits can provide both raw rabbit and rabbit hide.
You can cook the raw rabbit in the furnace for a cooked rabbit which replenishes three hunger points. The rabbit hide can be used to produce leather, which can be used for armor or for crafting bookshelves.
5. Moshrooms
Moshrooms are found in the rare Moshroom Island Biomes, which is the rarest biome in the game.
Although this mob is rare, it can provide you with a lot of items such as a bucket of milk (for curing status effects) and mushroom stew, which recovers three hunger points.
This mob is very useful when you’re playing mods like Skyblock map which has the advancement pack.
4. Pigs
Pigs are easy to find in the plains, which makes it one of the easiest mobs to farm in the game.
You can start a pig farm early or late in the game, depending on when you’ll get your hands in a carrot, potato, or a beetroot farm for breeding.
When killed, Pigs can drop raw pork chops or cooked pork chops when you have a sword enchanted with fire aspect. A cooked porkchop (or bacon) can replenish four hunger points.
3. Chickens
Chickens need seeds for food and breeding.
If you already made your wheat farm, then there will be no problem in setting up your chicken farm. While alive, chickens will drop eggs which can be used to cook a Cake.
When killed, chickens will drop feathers which can be used to make more arrows for combat. It also drops Raw Chicken, which when cooked restores three hunger points and saturation.
If you want to speed up breeding your chicken, throw an egg into the ground.
There’s a 1/8 chance for that egg to spawn a baby chicken. This doesn’t really make sense, but that’s how it works.
2. Cows
Cows are probably one of the most useful mobs in the game.
When you use a bucket in an alive cow, you can get milk, which erases bad status effects. When killed, the cow can drop leather, which is used for crafting.
Additionally, it drops beef which can be cooked to make a steak. Steak restores four hunger points, which is a lot.
Some players consider the steak as one of the best primary food in the game.
Just like pork chops, if the cow is killed using a fire aspect sword, it will drop steak instead of beef. You can breed cows by feeding wheat.
1. Sheeps
Sheep are considered as one of the most useful passive animal mobs in the game.
This is because they can drop food or can provide wool when sheared.
Wools are necessary for crafting beds and carpets. If you kill a sheep without fire aspect, you will get one wool and one raw mutton.
Cooking the raw mutton will produce a food item called Cooked Mutton, which replenishes six hunger points and 9.6 hunger saturation.
If you use a dye on a sheep, it’s wool color will change.
The sheep will continue to provide colored wool, which is useful for decorations.
Fun fact: if you give a nametag with a “jeb_” name in it, its wool will change continuously in rainbow colors. However, if you sheer the sheep, it will drop wool with its original color.
Tips To Make Your Animal Ranching Easier
Put A Carpet Or A Dirt In The Fence. Animal mobs will usually follow the player outside of the fence before the fence door can is closed. Because of this, the animals can escape their cage. To avoid this, put one block above a fence (preferably, a carpet) where the player can jump in.
Don’t Slaughter All Your Animals. Some players kill all their animals and start anew when ranching. This is not efficient and will likely make luring animals repetitive.
Tend Your Crops. Having a constant supply of food is important for animal farms. Crops are very important because it facilitates the mode called the “love mode” which causes breeding.
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