Sheep

Sheep are common passive mobs found in many of the 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, or a 15% chance collectively. Brown sheep have an uncommon 3% chance to spawn. Pink sheep have a rare chance (0.164%) of spawning naturally. 5% of all sheep spawn as babies.

Sheep spawn most commonly in the Mountains biome.

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 that sheep always spawn with the desired color, additional NBT tags can be applied to the spawner, utilizing the  tag.

Natural generation
2 to 3 sheep spawn on grass blocks at the surface at a light level of 7 or higher with at least 2 block space above, except in snowy tundras and wooded badlands plateaus during the world generation. They later spawn individually on grassy biomes. 5% spawn as lambs.

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

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. So don’t kill lambs you monster!

Behavior
Sheep wander aimlessly, typically in small flocks of 2-4. Despite this, solitary sheep are still common. Sheep avoid cliffs and hazardous areas if it warrants damage. Sheep emits hoarse bleats in mostly random patterns, but especially when attacked. If harmed, sheep flee for a few seconds, but make no special attempt to avoid wolves.

Sheep are mostly aloof to other mobs and are not very wary of wolves. Sheep will follow a player holding wheat within 6 blocks but stop following the player when out of this radius.

Adult sheep cannot fit through a gap if the 90-degree intersection of two fences is removed whereas the player (and most other mobs) can get through easily.

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 after eating a grass block.

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. They can also eat the grass and fern on a block, making it disappear. Sheep can eat grass through partial blocks, as well as from inside minecarts. When a sheared sheep eats a grass block, grass or fern during the daytime, its wool grows back. Therefore, if no grass is available, a sheep cannot regrow its wool after being sheared. If an adult sheep has the opportunity, the chance of eating grass is $1/1000$ per game tick ($1⁄50$ for lamb). If is set to , grass blocks remain, but the sheep still regrow their wool.

Evoker "wololo" easter egg
An evoker can also change a sheep's wool color if the evoker isn't engaged in combat and is set to. Then it can change 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. This is a reference to the monk unit of an older game, Age of Empires.

sheep easter egg
If a sheep is named, its wool cycles with interpolation 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 or killed.

Breeding


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 baby sheep).

Otherwise, the baby sheep 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 slightly accelerated using wheat. Each use takes 10% off the remaining time to grow up. It can also accelerate its own growth by eating grass.

ID




Entity data
Sheep have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Achievements
Main Article: Achievements