How to Tame a Fox in Minecraft [Step-by-Step Illustrated Guide]

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Featured image credit: Mojang

If you’re still somewhat new to the world of Minecraft, then you might still be figuring out how to do things such as how tame and breed animals like fx foxes, horses, or axolotls.

Read on to learn how to tame a fox in Minecraft aka get it to trust you. This will help you understand exactly what you need to do to have your very own fox.

Let me get this out of the way first: it actually isn’t possible to tame a fox in Minecraft per se. But you can make a fox trust you and not run away from you, but you cannot tame them like a horse. And you can even weaponize them, have them defend you against mobs, and do other useful things!

You’ll be able to keep foxes at your home base if you want to once you understand the proper taming method.

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1. Locate the Fox

Taiga biome Minecraft example
A typical Taiga biome in Minecraft combines jungle and forest biomes with spruce trees and ferns. The snowy groves in the back near the mountain peaks can spawn snow foxes.
(Image credit: Mojang).

Locating the fox is the first step when you want to tame one.

Minecraft foxes spawn in the taiga, old-growth taiga with large spruce trees, snowy taiga, and grove biomes.

Taiga biomes are a type of forest biomes that consist of a combination of ferns and spruce trees.

Red foxes spawn in taiga and old-growth taiga biomes. White foxes can be located in the snowy taiga forest and snowy grove biomes.

So if you’re looking for a specific type of fox, you’ll have to keep that in mind.

A Snow fox in a snow grove near Taiga biome in Minecraft
Snow fox in a snowy grove near Taiga biome.
(Image credit: Mojang).

It’s also worth noting that there is a five percent chance that a baby fox will spawn.

Generally, the foxes will spawn in groups of two to four. So you could find up to four foxes in one forest biome, depending on how things go.

Can White and Red Foxes Breed in Minecraft?

Yes, you can breed white and red foxes. However, you won’t create some hybrid foxes with a different color than usual.

What will happen is that the baby fox will have a 50% chance of coming out red and a 50% chance of coming out white.

You’ll have to wait and see which type of baby fox you will get.

2. How to get Foxes to breed in Minecraft

How to feed sweet berries to a fox in Minecraft
You need to crouch to approach a fox in Minecraft.
(Image credit: Mojang).

So you’ve located the foxes and want to know how to tame them. You’re going to need to convince two foxes to breed.

The baby made by the foxes is what you can tame and take.

To convince two foxes to mate, you must feed each of them a handful of sweet berries.

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Don’t just toss the sweet berry on the ground, though! Instead, hold the sweet berries in your hand and then approach the fox slowly while crouching and right-clicking on the fox.

When done right, hearts will appear above the foxes that show, which tells you that the foxes are getting in the mood for some loving.

How to tame a fox in Minecraft - feed them sweetberries and get them to breed
Hearts will appear above the fox after you’ve fed it sweet berries.
(Image credit: Mojang).

Then you can wait for the two foxes to breed. Eventually, a new baby fox will appear due to the breeding.

Red Baby Fox and parents in Minecraft. How to breed foxes in Minecraft.
A new baby fox together with its parents.
(Image credit: Mojang).

3. Put the baby fox on a lead to get it to go with you

This new baby fox will be loyal to you and follow you around.

But it’ll also want to follow the parent foxes around, though.

This is a problem, but it’s one that you can easily solve by creating a lead and attaching it to the baby fox.

How to make a lead in Minecraft

Leads can be found out in the wild, but you can make your own as well. You need one slimeball and four strings to make the lead you need.

how to make a lead in Minecraft crafting
To make a lead in Minecraft, get four strings and a slime ball and put them on a crafting table like this.
(Image credit: Mojang).

Once you have the lead, attach it to the baby fox and walk it away from the parents.

Just hold the lead in your hand and right-click on the baby fox.

How to put a lead on a fox in Minecraft
Say hello to my little baby fox on a lead
(Image credit: Mojang).

You can bring it back to your home base if you want to. Once there, you can create a little pen for your new pet fox. You’ll be able to enjoy your new fox friend moving forward.

How Long Does It Take the Baby Fox to Grow up?

Your baby fox will fully trust you and be able to help you out once it reaches maturity.

After twenty minutes have passed, the baby fox is suddenly going to turn into an adult fox.

When you’re breeding sheep, you can make the baby sheep grow up faster by making them eat grass.

However, you can’t speed the process up for foxes. So for baby foxes, you’ll need to wait until the twenty minutes have passed.

How Do Foxes Act in Minecraft?

Foxes are nocturnal animals and often sleep during the daytime cycle in Minecraft
Foxes like to sleep during the daytime in Minecraft because they’re nocturnal animals.
(Image credit: Mojang).

When looking at foxes in Minecraft, it’s good to try to understand their behavior. These animals are quite interesting since they’ve been coded to act like real-world foxes.

For example, foxes are nocturnal in this game and will be much more active at night. During the day, they prefer to sleep.

During the night, wild foxes will sometimes try to steal chickens from nearby villages

Thus, you might sometimes find foxes near villages, not just in the forests. Foxes also like to steal items and carry them around.

If you slay a fox, you might notice that it will drop some item it stole from the village.

Weaponize your fox

Foxes can even use the items that they steal.

For example, a fox can pick up weapons and use them to attack you. As crazy as that sounds, it is something that can happen.

More commonly, you’ll see foxes carry around food and use it to heal. These animals certainly do have interesting behavior.

You should note that foxes are very good at jumping, too. Foxes can leap between four and five boxes high. This makes them incredible jumpers overall.

If you’re looking to protect a chicken coop from foxes, you’ll want to make it pretty tall so the foxes can’t jump inside.

In Closing

Now you’ve learned how you can tame foxes in Minecraft. You’re really going to encourage wild foxes to breed and then take the baby fox with you.

This will allow you to keep the baby fox as a pet. When it reaches adulthood, it’ll trust you completely.

You must attach a lead to the baby fox and return it to your home. After twenty minutes have passed, the baby fox is going to be a full-grown adult fox.

There isn’t anything that you can do to speed the process up. Twenty minutes isn’t that long to wait, thankfully.

Some might even choose to seek out multiple types of foxes. You might want both red and white foxes as pets.

They certainly do look neat, and it makes sense to want to have both. Remember that white foxes show up in snowy forests.

Foxes can be a lot of fun to keep on your homestead. They can jump very high, though; you’ll want to keep this in mind.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jan has played video games since the early 1980s. He loves getting immersed in video games as a way to take his mind off stuff when the outside world gets too scary. A lifelong gamer, the big interest led to a job as a lecturer on game sound at the University of Copenhagen and several written articles on video games for magazines.

Read more on the About Page.