Cow

For other uses, see Cow (disambiguation).

Cow

Health points	10
Behavior	Passive
Hitbox size	In Java Edition: Adult: Height: 1.4 Blocks Width: 0.9 Blocks Baby: Height: 0.7 Blocks Width: 0.45 Blocks In Bedrock Edition: Adult: Height: 1.3 Blocks Width: 0.9 Blocks Baby: Height: 0.65 Blocks Width: 0.45 Blocks
Spawn	Grass blocks with at least two blocks of space above them. After shearing a mooshroom.
Usable items	Bucket Wheat Lead

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

Spawning

Natural generation

Main article: Tutorials/Animal farming

In Bedrock Edition, herds of 2 to 3 cows spawn on grass blocks at a light level of 9 or higher with at least 2 blocks of space above, except in snowy tundras, meadows and wooded badlands plateaus. Cows commonly spawn individually above grass after world generation.

In Java Edition, 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 tundras, meadows and wooded badlands plateaus. Cows rarely spawn individually above grass after world generation.

Cows have a 5% chance of spawning as a calf, or baby cow.

Villages

A cow 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 leather. The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 5 with Looting III.
• 1–3 raw beef (or steak if killed while on fire). The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 6 with Looting III.
• 1–3 experience orbs are dropped when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
• 1–7 experience upon successful breeding.

Baby cows drop neither items nor experience.

Behavior

A calf compared to a cow.

A cow wanders around aimlessly, mooing and huffing in small herds occasionally. 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.

A cow quickly flees for a few seconds when harmed.

Milking

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

Breeding

Main article: Breeding

A cow follows a player who holds wheat but stops following if separated from the player by at least 6 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. The growth of baby cows can be slowly accelerated using wheat; each use takes 10% off of the remaining time to grow up.

Sounds

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Cow moos	Friendly Creatures	Randomly from adult	entity.cow.ambient	subtitles.entity.cow.ambient	0.4	0.8 - 1.2	16
	Cow moos	Friendly Creatures	Randomly from baby	entity.cow.ambient	subtitles.entity.cow.ambient	0.4	1.3 - 1.7	16
	Cow dies	Friendly Creatures	When adult cow dies	entity.cow.death	subtitles.entity.cow.death	0.4	0.8 - 1.2	16
	Cow dies	Friendly Creatures	When baby cow dies	entity.cow.death	subtitles.entity.cow.death	0.4	1.3 - 1.7	16
	Cow hurts	Friendly Creatures	When adult cow takes damage	entity.cow.hurt	subtitles.entity.cow.hurt	0.4	0.8 - 1.0	16
	Cow hurts	Friendly Creatures	When baby cow takes damage	entity.cow.hurt	subtitles.entity.cow.hurt	0.4	1.3 - 1.7	16
	Cow gets milked	Players	When a player milks a cow	entity.cow.milk	subtitles.entity.cow.milk	1.0	1.0	16
	Footsteps	Friendly Creatures	When cow walks	entity.cow.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	0.15	1.0	16

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Resource location	Translation key
Cow	cow	entity.minecraft.cow

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Resource location	Numeric ID	Translation key
Cow	cow	11	entity.cow.name

Entity data

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

Java Edition:

Main article: Entity format

• Entity data
  • Additional fields for mobs that can breed
  • Tags common to all entities
  • Tags common to all mobs

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS4)
PS4	Other platforms
		Cow Tipper	Harvest some leather.	Pick up leather from the ground.	15G	Bronze
		Repopulation	Breed two cows with wheat.	Breed two cows or two mooshrooms.	15G	Bronze

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed two animals together	Husbandry	Breed a pair of any of these 22 mobs: Axolotl Bee Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule Ocelot Panda Pig Rabbit Sheep Strider Trader Llama Turtle Wolf A mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breed-able together. Other breed-able mobs, if any, can be bred, but are ignored for this advancement.	husbandry/breed_an_animal
	Two by Two	Breed all the animals!	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed a pair of each of these 21 mobs: Axolotl Bee Cat Chicken Cow Donkey Fox Goat Hoglin Horse Llama Mooshroom Mule Ocelot Panda Pig Rabbit Sheep Strider Turtle Wolf A trader llama does not count as a llama, and a mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breed-able together. Other breed-able mobs, if any, can be bred, but are ignored for this advancement.	husbandry/bred_all_animals

History

Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.8					Added cows.
					Cows are currently black and white.
					Cows exhibit strange sounds.
v1.0.9					Cows now emanate a new and realistic bovine sound.
v1.0.14					Added horns to cows. Cows now have a new look, brown with white spots, instead of black with white spots and have a 3D udder.
Java Edition Beta
1.3					The position of the cow's horns has been changed.
1.8		Pre-release			Cows now run away when attacked.
					Added raw beef and steak, which are now dropped from cows.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2			Cows can now be bred using wheat.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3			The cow's horns have been moved, once again.
					The cow udder's model has been changed from to .
					Added calves.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6			The texture of the cow's back has been changed from to .
1.2.1		12w07a			The cow AI has been updated.
					Cows can no longer be bred with mooshrooms.
1.4.2		12w38a			Cows' sounds have been changed.
1.8		14w02a			Calf growth can now be accelerated using wheat.
1.9		15w39a			Cows are now slightly taller (1.4 blocks tall rather than 1.3, with babies 0.7 blocks tall rather than 0.65).
		15w50a			Added a sound when the player milks a cow: entity.cow.milk.
1.10		16w20a			Cows no longer spawn in snowy tundras.
1.11		16w32a			The entity ID for cows have been changed from Cow to cow.
1.14		18w43a			The textures of the cow and calf have been changed.
1.15		19w37a			Five percent of cows now spawn as babies.
		19w39a			The models of the calves have been changed.
1.16		pre1			Cows can now be milked in Creative mode.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.3.0					Added cows with old sounds.
v0.6.0					Added calves that spawn naturally 25% of times.
					Cows can now drop leather.
v0.7.0					Cow spawn eggs have been added to creative.
v0.8.0		build 2			Cows are now attracted to wheat and can now be bred.
					The cow AI has been improved, cows now avoid falls, fire, water, cactus and lava.
v0.12.1		build 1			The cow sounds have been updated.
v0.14.0		build 1			Baby zombie jockeys now check for nearby cows to mount prior to attacking the player, villager or golem.
					Cows no longer spawn in snowy tundra biomes and variants.
v0.15.0		build 1			Baby husks can now mount cows.
?					The chance of baby cows spawning instead of adults has been reduced to five percent.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The textures of the cow and calf have been changed.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.1			Cows spawn in animal pens in villages.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added cows.
					Cows do not run away when attacked.
TU5					Cows now run away when attacked.
TU7					Added calves.
					Cows can now be bred with wheat.
TU14		1.04			Using a cow spawn egg, calves can now be spawned by using on an adult cow.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Calf growth can now be accelerated using wheat.
TU43	CU33	1.36	Patch 13		The baby cow's sounds have been updated.
		1.90			The textures of the cow and calf has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added cows and calves.

Historical images

• 

  The old black-and-white cow.

• 

  The cow as it appears in the PC Gamer Demo.

• 

  A cow from the PC Gamer Demo, with an exclusive texture.

Historical sounds

Sound	From	to	Pitch
Idle	Alpha v1.0.8	Alpha v1.0.9	?
Hurt	Alpha v1.0.8	Alpha v1.0.9	?
Idle	Alpha v1.0.9	1.4.2	?
Hurt/Die	Alpha v1.0.9	1.4.2	?

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.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 

  A dying cow.

• 

  A cow begging at the player holding a wheat.

• 

  A cow attempting to follow the player through a fence.

In other media

• 

  A cow in promotional artwork for the Horse Update.

• 

  A cow in promotional artwork for the first Caves & Cliffs update.

• 

  Lego Minecraft cow.

• 

  A cow plush.

Issues

Issues relating to "Cow" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

References

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]