Sheep

Sheep are common passive mobs that supply wool and mutton and are found in many of the grassy biomes.

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 of 0.164% of spawning naturally.

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
$$, 4 sheep may spawn above grass blocks, at a light level of 9 or higher, even on snowy taigas.

$$, 2 to 3 sheep spawn during the world generation on grass blocks at the surface at a light level of 7 or higher with at least a 2 block space above, except in snowy taigas, snowy plains, ice spikes or wooded badlands. They later spawn individually on grassy biomes. 5% spawn as baby sheep.

Two sheep sometimes 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 or when in water using a sword with fire aspect). The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 1–5 with Looting III.
 * experience orbs if killed by a player or tamed wolf.

When sheared, sheep give 1–3 wool and do not take any damage.

Upon successful breeding, is dropped.

Killing a baby sheep yields no items nor experience.

Behavior
Sheep wander aimlessly and individually or in small flocks of two to four. Sheep avoid cliffs and hazardous areas if it warrants damage. Sheep emit hoarse bleats in mostly random patterns and especially when attacked. If harmed, sheep flee for a few seconds, but make no special attempt to avoid wolves.

Sheep are nonchalant to players or other mobs, but follow a player holding wheat within a six blocks 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.

Sheep graze grass blocks, changing them into dirt blocks. $$, they can also eat the grass or fern on a block, making it disappear. Baby sheep graze grass much more often than adults. Sheep can eat grass through blocks that are less than a full block thick, including extremities such as honey blocks, as well as from inside minecarts. A sheared sheep regrows its wool after grazing. 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 baby sheep). If is set to false, grass blocks remain, but the sheep still regrow their wool.

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 colors will be inherited by baby sheep.

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.

Easter eggs
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 or easter egg to the priest unit of the 1997 game Age of Empires.

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. A sheep named jeb_ can still be dyed without changing the rainbow effect, and any wool obtained from one of these sheep has the most recent color as if the sheep was not named.

Breeding


Sheep can be bred using wheat, after which they spawn a baby sheep. They cannot breed for five minutes after the baby sheep appears. In Java Edition, if the parents have compatible wool colors (meaning that the corresponding dye items could be combined into a third dye color), the resulting baby sheep inherits a mix of their colors (e.g., blue sheep + white sheep = light blue baby sheep). If the dye colors cannot normally be mixed, and also always in Bedrock Edition, 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.


 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.



Achievements
Main Article: Achievements