Shears are tools used primarily to shear sheep to get wool and mine a few types of blocks.
Obtaining
Crafting
| Name | Ingredients | Crafting recipe | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shears | Iron Ingot | ||
| Shears | Damaged Shears | The durability of the two shears is added together, plus an extra 5% durability. |
Trading
Novice-level Shepherd villagers have a 40% chance to sell shears for 2 emeralds in Java Edition, and the trade is always offered in Bedrock Edition.
Natural generation
| Item | Structure | Container | Quantity | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Java Edition | ||||
| Shears | Village | Shepherd's chest | 1 | 12.3% |
| Bedrock Edition | ||||
| Shears | Village | Shepherd's chest | 1 | 12.3% |
Usage
Despite using iron in its crafting recipe, it cannot be smelted into iron nuggets.[1]
Shearing
Shearing is the most efficient way to get wool from a sheep, producing 1–3 wool. The same sheep can be sheared again after it eats from a grass block to regenerate its wool. In contrast, killing the sheep yields only 1 wool block.
Shearing a mooshroom drops 5 mushrooms of the same color, and irreversibly turns it into a normal cow.
Shearing a pumpkin turns it into a carved pumpkin, dropping 4 pumpkin seeds in Java Edition or 1-3 pumpkin seeds in Bedrock Edition.
Shearing a snow golem removes its pumpkin, dropping it and revealing its true face. The snow golem cannot get its pumpkin back unless through a command, such as /data[Java Edition only].
Shearing either a beehive or bee nest at honey level 5 drops 3 honeycombs. This does not break the hive or nest.
Shears can shear sheep, snow golems, mooshrooms, beehives, and bee nests when dispensed using a dispenser. This decreases its durability.
Cropping growing plants
By using shears on the tip of cave vines, kelp, weeping vines, and twisting vines, that block will automatically set its age value to 25 and they can stop them from keeping growing, using up one durability.
Breaking blocks
Shears can also be used to harvest blocks of wool, cobweb, leaves, tall grass, seagrass, ferns (both normal and 2-high), dead bushes, nether sprouts, vines, weeping vines, twisting vines and glow lichen. They can also be used to break tripwire connected to a tripwire hook without activating it.
When used to break weeping vines and twisting vines, the block always drops as an item, instead of a 33% chance by normal means.
The shears use 1 durability when it is used to break any block, even if it breaks instantly by hand.
The following table shows information about blocks that can be broken with shears. Colors indicate what gets dropped when the block is broken:
- White: The original block.
- Blue: The Block's normal drop (i.e. string, sticks, seeds, sapling, apple).
- Red: Nothing.
| No shears breaking time | Shears breaking time | |
|---|---|---|
| Cobweb | 20 s [note 1] | 0.4 s |
| Dead Bush | 0 s | 0 s |
| Fern | 0 s | 0 s |
| Grass | 0 s | 0 s |
| Nether Sprouts | 0 s [note 2] | 0 s |
| Leaves | 0.35 s | 0.05 s |
| Tripwire | 0 s | 0 s [note 3] |
| Vines | 0.35 s | 0.35 s |
| Wool | 1.25 s | 0.25 s |
| Seagrass | 0 s | 0 s |
| Glow Lichen | 0.3 s | 0.3 s |
- ↑ Breaking cobwebs with a sword is as fast as breaking with shears, and yields string. This costs double durability.
- ↑ In Bedrock Edition, the item drops when breaking it with fists.
- ↑ Using shears does not trigger a redstone pulse.
Enchantments
Shears can receive the following enchantments:
| Name | Max Level | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency | V | |
| Unbreaking | III | |
| Mending | I | |
| Curse of Vanishing | I | |
| Silk Touch[BE only] | I |
Sounds
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shears click | Players | Plays when shearing mooshrooms | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Shears click | Players | Plays when shearing sheep | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Shears click | Players | Plays when shearing snow golems | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Shears scrape | Blocks | Plays when harvesting honeycombs | block | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Shears carve | Blocks | Plays when carving pumpkin | block | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Plant cropped | Blocks | Plays when cropping growing plants | block | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Item breaks | Players | When durability is exhausted | entity | subtitles | 1.0 | 0.9 | 16 |
Data values
ID
| Name | Identifier | Form | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shears | shears | Item | item.minecraft.shears |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Form | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shears | shears | 421 | Item | item.shears.name |
Achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| Have a Shearful Day | Use Shears to obtain wool from a sheep. | — | 15G | Bronze | ||
Video
This video is outdated, since snow golems drop carved pumpkins when sheared, and cobwebs drop itself when broken with shears
History
| June 3, 2011 | Shears were first mentioned by Jeb on Twitter. The tweet revealing Jeb's work on shears was written in Swedish (Jag jobbar på shears nu), which translates to "I'm working on shears now". | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 7, 2011 | Jeb tweets about how shears were originally planned as a way to defuse TNT, but he dropped this shortly after deciding TNT would detonate only with redstone or fire. | ||||
| Java Edition Beta | |||||
| 1.7 | |||||
| Before Beta 1.7, sheep would drop 1-3 wool blocks at most when hit, but shears can harvest up to 4 wool blocks per sheep. | |||||
| 1.8 | Pre-release | Shears can now be used to harvest a fern, vines and grass. | |||
| Java Edition | |||||
| 1.0.0 | Beta 1.9 Prerelease | Shears now harvest red mushrooms from a mooshroom and turn it back into a normal cow. | |||
| 1.1 | 11w49a | Sheep now drop only 1-3 wool blocks when sheared, but they can also regrow their wool by eating grass, which is part of a plan to have animals stay in the game longer.[2] | |||
| 1.2.1 | 12w05a | Shears can now be used to harvest dead bushes. | |||
| 1.3.1 | 12w21a | Shears can now be bought from farmer villagers for 3 emeralds each. | |||
| 12w22a | Shears can now be used to break tripwire string and not set it off. | ||||
| 1.4.2 | 12w38a | Added a sound when using shears on sheep. | |||
| 1.4.6 | 12w50a | Shears can now be enchanted. | |||
| 1.8 | 14w02a | Trading has been changed: Shepherd villagers now sell shears for 3–4 emeralds each. | |||
| Farmers no longer trade shears. | |||||
| pre1 | Shears now lose durability when breaking wool blocks. In previous versions, shears would take durability damage only when destroyed or when breaking tall grass or leaves, the damage remaining the same for all other blocks.[3] | ||||
| 1.9 | 15w34a | Shears may now be used in a crafting grid to zoom in maps. | |||
| 15w45a | Shears no longer zoom in maps. | ||||
| 15w47b | Shears can no longer be enchanted with Silk Touch. | ||||
| Shears now lose durability when used to break any block (formerly lost durability only from leaves, web, grass, vines, tripwire and wool). | |||||
| 15w47c | Shears now harvest cobweb without requiring Silk Touch. | ||||
| 15w49a | Snow golem's pumpkin can now be removed with shears. | ||||
| 1.13 | 17w47a | When shears are used on an un-carved pumpkin, it now turns into a carved pumpkin and drops 4 pumpkin seeds. | |||
| Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 359. | |||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep. | |||
| 18w49a | Shears can now be found in chests in village shepherd houses. | ||||
| 1.15 | 19w34a | Shears can now be used on bee nests and beehives to harvest honeycomb. | |||
| 1.16 | 20w15a | Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear mooshrooms and snow golems. | |||
| 1.16.2 | pre1 | Shears are now required in order to pick up roots. | |||
| pre2 | Shears are no longer required to pick up roots. | ||||
| 1.18 | 21w37a | Shears can now stop cave vines, kelp, weeping vines, and twisting vines from aging. | |||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.2.0 | |||||
| v0.3.2 | Survival players no longer start out with infinite durability shears in the inventory. | ||||
| v0.4.0 | Removed shears from the creative inventory. | ||||
| v0.8.0 | build 3 | Re-added shears to creative mode. | |||
| v0.9.0 | build 1 | Shears can now be used to transform mooshrooms into cows. | |||
| v0.12.1 | build 3 | Shearing a snow golem now removes its pumpkin. | |||
| Shears can now be enchanted in an anvil. | |||||
| v0.13.0 | build 1 | Shears can now be used to break tripwire string without triggering it. | |||
| v0.15.0 | build 1 | Shears now lose durability when used to break any block. | |||
| Pocket Edition | |||||
| 1.0.4 | alpha 1.0.4.0 | Shears can now be bought from shepherd villagers. | |||
| 1.1.0 | alpha 1.1.0.0 | Breaking a melon block with shears now always drop 9 melons. | |||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.4.0 | beta 1.2.13.8 | Shears can now be used to turn un-carved pumpkins into carved pumpkin and spit out 4 pumpkin seeds. | |||
| ? | Shears now harvest cobweb without requiring Silk Touch. | ||||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep. | |||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.1 | Shears can now be found in village shepherd houses. | |||
| beta 1.11.0.4 | Shears sold by shepherd villagers now cost only 2 emeralds. | ||||
| 1.14.0 | beta 1.14.0.1 | Shears can now be used on bee nests and beehives to harvest honeycomb. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU3 | CU1 | 1.0 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | |
| TU69 | 1.76 | Patch 38 | Shears can now be used to turn regular pumpkins into carved pumpkins. | ||
| 1.90 | |||||
| Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep. | |||||
| New Nintendo 3DS Edition | |||||
| 0.1.0 | |||||
Issues
Issues relating to "Shears" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
