Chicken is a docile mob you’ll find roaming the vast Minecraft world often, specifically in grassy biomes such as forests, plains, and jungles. Consequently, you’ll never see them spawn in wooded badlands, frozen peaks, snowy plains, deserts, snowy slopes, stony peaks, meadows, jagged peaks, or ice spikes. Further, you can find chickens both running solo or as part of groups. That’s because they spawn in sets of four during world generation, and may split up afterward. Thereafter, chickens spawn individually in Java Edition. Things are simple in Bedrock Edition. Chicken can spawn alongside one to three more chickens anytime. Now, let’s answer what chickens eat in Minecraft.
Which foods do chickens consume in Minecraft?
We won’t beat around the bush and tell you chickens in Minecraft only eat Seeds. More precisely, Minecraft chickens can consume the following kind of food items:
- Wheat Seeds
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Melon Seeds
- Beetroot Seeds
Giving them food is simple, too. You merely have to hold any type of seeds in your hand and approach them. If they are within 6 blocks, chickens will immediately look at you and start following you. So long as the distance never exceeds 6 blocks, chickens will pursue you. This technique is pivotal in creating chicken farms for eggs, feathers, raw meat, and farming experience, as it lets you lure them easily.
Four valuable facts about feeding Minecraft chickens
Though the list of items is short and giving food is straightforward, there are 4 noteworthy bits of information you need to know about food consumption for chickens in Minecraft:
1. Feeding boosts the growth of a Minecraft chicken
If you find a chick, i.e., a baby chicken, and want to grow it to an adult, the process takes 20 real-life minutes without your influence. However, every time you give any form of seeds to a chick, it accelerates their maturing by 10% i.e., 2 minutes per feeding. Thus, keeping a seeds farm near your chicken farm can streamline the growth process.
2. You can, but don’t need to use food to breed Minecraft chickens
We often talk about breeding passive and friendly mobs in Minecraft. Nearly all procedures involve feeding two mobs until they enter “love mode” and the baby spawns nearby. This is still the case with chickens, and we’ll elaborate on that separately. However, we ought to notify you that chicken can randomly spawn from a chicken egg thrown at the ground. They are the sole mob in the Overworld realm that can procreate without a special item. This means you don’t necessarily have to stack seeds, though you should for best results.
3. Chickens can swim in Minecraft
One fact that surprises players is that chickens are capable of swimming while following you. More specifically, they can float on the surface of a body of water, and will noticeably flap their wings meanwhile. Be careful if you’re taking them to your underground lair, though. They must have one empty block above the water surface to continue swimming.
4. You can’t feed some chickens in the game
Minecraft introduced a rare spawn, called “chicken jockey”, of a chicken mounted by a baby zombie, drowned, piglin, zombie villager, or husk. Once again, these are a topic we plan to go over individually, but we need to warn you not to try feeding them. The mobs on their back can carry items, including a sword and armor. Chickens also don’t suffer fall damage, pick up dropped items, and are hostile. This is proven by the fact these chickens use Zombie AI (Artificial Intelligence) in Java Edition rather than chicken one.