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 when killed, while shearing woolly sheep will drop 1 to 3 wool. The wool dropped will be the same color as the sheep's wool. The rates and amounts of both drops is not affected by looting.

Sheep also drop 1–2 raw mutton. The maximum amount of meat dropped can be increased by 1 per level of Looting, up to a maximum of 5 when using Looting III. If the sheep dies while on fire, the mutton will be cooked.

Sheep will also drop 1 to 7 experience when breeding and 1 to 3 experience upon death.

Lambs, like other baby animals, do not drop items or experience. They also cannot be sheared for their wool.

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.

Sheep's wool can be dyed by pressing the key 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.

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 Pocket Edition, they will be dyed accordingly, and the white patches on the face will also be dyed.

If a sheep is named jeb_, its wool will smoothly cycle through all dye colors in a similar manner to prismarine. 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.

In Pocket Edition the sheep will always share its color with one of its parents.

Data values
Sheep have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob. Their entity ID is.

Trivia

 * If a sheep spawner is placed via, the sheep model spinning inside will appear with one of the six naturally spawning colors. Independently from the displayed color, all six variants are able to spawn, the usual chances apply. To guarantee sheep to always spawn with a desired color, additional NBT tags can be applied to the spawner, utilizing the -tag.
 * Sheep can eat grass through partial blocks, and also while moving in minecarts.
 * Sheep cannot fit through the gap if the 90 degree intersection of two fences is removed whereas the player (and most other mobs) can get through easily.
 * An already dead sheep can be sheared (if it still has its wool) before its body turns into smoke and disappears, causing it to drop one wool and some mutton in addition to 1–3 more wool from the shearing.