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- To breed villagers in Minecraft, you need to have at least two "willing" villagers and at least three beds.
- You can increase your villagers' "willingness" to breed by giving them food.
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Even in Survival mode, Minecraft gives you a tremendous amount of control over your world. You can grow forests, blow up mountains, enter new universes – there's not much that you can't do.
Your control extends to the game's NPCs, too. If you want to make more villagers without wandering around to find a new village, you can breed the villagers together. This might sound strange, but it's an efficient way to bump up a town's population, or even make your own city.
Here's how to breed villagers in Minecraft, either manually or with an automatic breeder.
How to breed villagers in Minecraft
If you just want a few new villagers, breeding them is a pretty quick process. Here's what you'll need:
- At least two villagers
- At least one bed for every villager, plus one more
- Food – bread, carrots, potatoes, or beetroots
1. Get your villagers close to each other. The best way to do this is to build a wall around them and trap them inside, or build a structure and move a villager into it using a boat.
2. Once your villagers are stuck in a small space, place beds around them. You need to have more beds than you have villagers, since the child they make will need a bed too. And any bed you place needs to have at least two blocks of free space above it.

Mojang; William Antonelli/Insider
3. Now you'll need to increase the "willingness" of your villagers. Villagers will only breed once they're "willing" enough, and you can increase a villager's willingness by giving them food. Here's how effective each type of food is:
Type of Food | Amount Needed to Make a Villager Willing |
Bread | Three |
Carrot | 12 |
Potato | 12 |
Beetroot | 12 |
4. Give your villagers food - you can just throw it at them - until hearts appear above their heads. This means that they're willing.

Mojang; William Antonelli/Insider
5. Wait. The next time two willing villagers bump into each other, they should stand together for a few moments and then spawn a baby villager between them.

Mojang; William Antonelli/Insider
You can continue this until you have as many villagers as you want - just remember that you need more beds than villagers. Baby villagers will "grow up" 20 minutes after they're born.