Sheep

**Sheep** are passive mobs that supply wool and mutton.

## Spawning

The majority of sheep are white, with an 81.836% chance of spawning. The light gray, dark gray, and black sheep have a 5% chance of spawning. Using a spawn egg to get one of these sheep types lies at a reasonable 15%. Brown sheep have an uncommon 3% chance to spawn. Pink sheep have a rare 0.164% chance of naturally spawning.

### Natural generation

Sheep spawn on grass blocks at light level of 9 or higher with at least 2 block space above. They often spawn in flocks of 4 during world generation.

## Drops

Sheep drop:

* 1 wool of the corresponding color when killed.
* If sheared, it drops 1-3 wool instead of 1 wool.
* 1-2 pieces of
raw mutton (1-2 pieces of
cooked mutton if the sheep dies while on fire)
* Wool drop is **not** affected by Looting.
* Meat drop is affected by Looting.
* Sheep will also drop 1 to 7 experience when breeding and 1 to 3 experience upon death.
* Lambs drop nothing when killed.

## Behavior

Sheep act like most passive mobs; they wander around aimlessly, usually avoiding falling off cliffs high enough to cause damage, and usually staying out of water. They can be heard bleating occasionally. They will try to jump over obstacles one block high, which causes strange and somewhat humorous behavior near fences, walls and similar blocks. Sheep will follow a player holding wheat within a radius of 10 blocks, but will cease following if the player moves out of the radius.

### Dyeing

Sheep's wool can be dyed by pressing the use key (the interact button in Bedrock Edition) while holding any dye, and can be sheared the same way when holding shears. Sheared sheep cannot be dyed until they grow their wool back.

### Eating grass

Sheep will eat grass blocks (turning them into dirt) and tall grass (destroying them). When they do this, their wool grows back. This means that if there is no grass anywhere, a sheep cannot regain its wool after being sheared. They will retain their wool color if it has been dyed before it was sheared, although the wool patches seen on a sheared sheep will be white regardless of their actual color. However, in the Bedrock, they will be dyed accordingly, and the white patches on the face will also be dyed.

In Bedrock Edition, baby zombies can mount sheep if it want to be a jockey upon attacking a player, NPC Villager or golem.

### If the sheep is named jeb\_

If a sheep is named *jeb\_*, its wool will smoothly cycle through all dye colors in a similar manner to prismarine. [*Java and Bedrock editions only*]

Note: This is only a visual effect, as when it is sheared, the sheep will drop the same color of wool that it actually is.

### Breeding

Sheep can be bred with wheat, after which they spawn a baby sheep (or lamb), and cannot breed for 5 minutes. If the parents have 'compatible' wool colors (meaning that the corresponding dye items could be combined into a third dye color), the resulting lamb will be a mix of their colors (e.g., blue sheep + white sheep = light blue lamb). Otherwise, the lamb will be the same color as one of the parents, chosen at random. It doesn't matter if either parent has been sheared.

The growth of baby sheep can be slowly accelerated using wheat. Each use takes 10% off the remaining time to grow up.

The sheep will always share its color with one of its parents.[*Bedrock Edition only*]