Cow

A cow is a passive mob found in most grassy biomes and a source of leather, beef and milk.

Natural generation
Cows spawn in small herds above grass blocks. However, their spawn rate varies per biome. Most cows spawn as adults, but they have a 5% chance of spawning as a calf, or baby cow.

$$, herds of 2 to 3 cows spawn in grass blocks at a light level of 9 or higher with at least 2 blocks of space above, except in snowy taigas, snowy plains, meadows, mangrove swamps and wooded badlands. Cows commonly spawn individually above grass after world generation.

$$, herds of 4 cows spawn on grass blocks at a light level of 7 or higher with at least 2 blocks of space above, except in snowy plains, meadows, mangrove swamps and wooded badlands. Cows rarely spawn individually above grass after world generation.

Villages
A cow sometimes spawns inside animal pens and butchers' houses in villages.

Mooshrooms
Shearing a mooshroom turns it into a cow and drops 5 mushrooms corresponding to the type of mooshroom.

Drops
Adult cows drop:
 * 0–2 . The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 5 with Looting III.
 * 1–3 (or  if killed while on fire). The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 6 with Looting III.
 * experience orbs are dropped when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
 * experience orbs upon successful breeding.

Killing a calf yields no items nor experience.

Behavior
A cow wanders around aimlessly, mooing and huffing in small herds occasionally. A cow quickly flees for a few seconds when harmed. Additionally, cows tend to:
 * go to lit and grassy places.
 * sometimes look at players within eight horizontal and four vertical blocks for two to four seconds.
 * avoid going to water unless they are following players and always avoid traversing minecart rails and walking off cliffs high enough to cause fall damage.
 * avoid environmental hazards, such as fire, lava, cactus, sweet berry bushes or dripstone, but make no attempts to avoid explosions.
 * cows can step on pressure plates, jump on dripleaves or farmland and climb ladders, stairs, vines and cave vines.

Milking
An adult cow can be milked by a bucket on it, yielding a milk bucket.

Breeding
A cow follows a player who holds wheat but stops following if separated from the player by at least six blocks. Adult cows enter love mode and pair off to create calves after they are given wheat, granting the player one to seven experience orbs. The parent cows have a cooldown of 5 minutes before they can breed again. Babies follow adult cows and take 20 minutes to grow up.

A calf that results from breeding attempts to pathfind to the nearest available block to its parent, even if no path can be found. However, if the calf is separated from its parent by more than 24 blocks, it pathfinds to another adult cow. The growth of calves can be accelerated using wheat; each use reduces the remaining growth duration by 10%.

ID




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




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

Trivia

 * Cows are visually based on the Norwegian Red cattle.
 * Cows in the PC Gamer Minecraft Demo are branded with a 'PCG' logo on their side.
 * Notch stated in a Tumblr post that all "breedable" peaceful mobs displayed traits of both genders and could breed with any other individual of their species. This applies to cows as they have horns and give milk (although, in some breeds, female cows also have horns).
 * Cows prefer to stay on lit places to dim places.