Sheep

Sheep are passive mobs found in grassy biomes that supply wool and mutton.

Spawning
The majority of sheep are white, with an 81.836% chance of spawning. The light gray, gray and black sheep each 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 chance (0.164%) of spawning naturally.

Natural generation
2 to 3 sheep spawn on grass blocks at the surface at a light level of 9 or higher with at least 2 block space above, except in snowy tundras, mushroom fields and wooded badlands plateaus during the world generation. They later spawn individually on grassy biomes if there are no other farm animals close to a player.

2 sheep spawn in shepherd houses, butcher house, and animal pens in villages.

They spawn at a light level of 7.

Drops
An adult sheep drops:
 * 1 of the corresponding color. Sheep that have not regrown their wool do not drop wool.
 * 1–2 ( if killed while on fire). The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 1–5 with Looting III.
 * if killed by a player or tamed wolf.

When sheared, sheep give 1–3 wool and do not take any damage. A sheared sheep regrows its wool after eating from a grass block.

Upon successful breeding, is dropped.

Killing a lamb yields no items nor experience.

Behavior
Sheep wander aimlessly, avoid falling off cliffs high enough to cause damage and stay out of water or lava. They can be heard bleating occasionally. They flee around for a few seconds if harmed; make no special attempt to avoid a wolf.

Dyeing
Sheep's wool can be dyed by pressing the key or the interact button while holding any dye. Sheared sheep cannot be dyed until their wool grows back.

Dyeing changes the color of the sheep's wool permanently or until the sheep is dyed again. The new wool color can be inherited by lambs. (see )

If a sheep is dyed and then sheared, it retains its new dyed wool color after the wool regrows. The wool patches that are seen on a sheared sheep always appear white regardless of their actual color.

The patches keep the original dye color.

Grazing
Sheep eat grass blocks, changing them into dirt blocks. When a sheared sheep eats a grass block during the daytime, its wool grows back. Therefore, if no grass is available, a sheep cannot regrow its wool after being sheared. They can't eat a grass block with tall grass on it but can eat the tall grass, making it disappear. If an adult sheep has the opportunity, the chance of eating grass is $$ per game tick ($1/1000$ for lamb).

Naming easter eggs
Main article: Easter eggs

jeb_ sheep
If a sheep is named jeb_, its wool smoothly cycles through all dye colors in a similar manner to prismarine. This is purely a visual effect; the sheep still drops wool in its original color when sheared.

Upside-down sheep
Naming a sheep Dinnerbone or Grumm causes the sheep to appear upside down. The sheep's behavior and the color stay the same.

Breeding


Sheep follow a player holding wheat within a radius of 8 blocks but cease following if the player moves out of the radius.

Sheep can be bred with wheat, after which they spawn a lamb. They cannot breed for about 5 minutes after the baby sheep appears.

If the parents have 'compatible' wool colors (meaning that the corresponding dye items could be combined into a third dye color), the resulting lamb inherits a mix of their colors (e.g., blue sheep + white sheep = light blue lamb).

Otherwise, the lamb spawns with the same color as one of the parents, chosen randomly, regardless of whether one or both parents have been sheared.

The 20-minute growth of baby sheep can be slowly accelerated using wheat. Each use takes 10% off the remaining time to grow up.

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

Trivia

 * If a sheep spawner is placed via, the sheep model spinning inside appears 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 the 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.
 * While an evoker is not engaged in combat and is set to , it changes the wool color of any blue sheep within 16 blocks to red. It signals the spell by producing orange color particles  and making a "wololo" sound.