How to Breed Axolotls in Minecraft

What strategy do you use to breed Axolotls in Minecraft?

Did you know? Axolotls are one of the few creatures in Minecraft that you can recruit to help you out for combat purposes. These mobs can help you hunt down other aquatic mobs, even helping you regenerate some health during fights.

All Axolotls are passive mobs against players and will only attack aquatic mobs—they come in different colors too! Even then, there are certain aquatic creatures they will not try to fight as well. Axolotls will not engage Turtles, Frogs, Dolphins, and fellow Axolotls.

If you want to learn how to breed these passive mobs, check out this quick guide on how to Breed Axolotls in Minecraft.

Minecraft Passive Mobs

There are three types of normal non-boss mobs in Minecraft. Hostile mobs are aggressive mobs that attack players that draw their attention or get too close to them. Neutral mobs are typically passive but will attack players that provoke them. Lastly, passive mobs are harmless creatures that do not attack players even when provoked.

When you attack a passive mob, they will simply try to escape. Passive mobs have unique ways of protecting themselves or escaping from aggressive players. 

Horses and Mules will run away at speeds players usually cannot catch up to. Squids, on the other hand, secrete black ink and swims away.

Axolotls are very unique passive mobs for their defense mechanism and other uses. When you attack an Axolotl, it can play dead for about 10 seconds, healing itself in the process. While an Axolotl is healing, other aquatic hostile mobs will typically ignore it.

There’s about a 33% chance that an Axolotl will play dead whenever it is attacked.

Axolotls in Minecraft

Besides being a passive mob, Axolotls also have other uses in Minecraft. You can attach a Lead on an Axolotl to make it your pet or companion. Once you successfully tame an Axolotl, you can have them help you in combat against aquatic mobs.

Like in real life, Axolotls are quite rare and hard to find in Minecraft. They can only be found underwater in the Lush Caves biome. They also require a Clay block within a five-block range of where they spawn.

The Lush Caves biome only generates in the Overworld and is usually underground, right below Jungles, Dark Forests, or Wooded Badlands biomes.

Axolotls can spawn in five colors. Namely, blue, cyan, gold, brown, and pink. Blue is by far the rarest color for this animal. When breeding them, there is only a 1 in 1200 chance that the offspring is of the blue variant, granted neither of the parents is blue themselves.

Although they are aquatic mobs, Axolotls can only walk on land and must return to at least two-block deep water within 5 minutes. They only typically wander up to 9 blocks of land away from the edge of the water, but sometimes they wander farther if they cannot find any nearby.

When forced to be on land for more than 5 minutes, an Axolotl will die. However, exceptions include when it is raining or during a thunderstorm. Axolotls cannot survive as passengers on a boat for more than 5 minutes as well.

Taming an Axolotl

To tame an Axolotl, you must first find one. We already discussed where they spawn, but it is possible to spawn one with these specific requirements. Axolotls can only appear in levels below Y-63 and in complete darkness (with 0 Light level).

Once you find an Axolotl, you can start drawing their attention. Technically, Axolotls in Minecraft cannot be tamed. However, they can be attracted by showing them a Bucket with a Tropical Fish inside. Once they approach you, you can attach a Lead to the Axolotl to have them follow you around.

If you want to keep the Axolotl long-term, you should use a Bucket instead. Pick up the Axolotl using a Bucket of Water to ensure they never despawn. Also, make sure to build a pond where you can keep your Axolotls.

How to Breed Axolotls in Minecraft

Now that you have tamed some Axolotls, you can start breeding them. Just like other mobs, you need to get Axolotls into Love Mode to have them breed. To do that, you need some Tropical Fish and a Bucket.

First, make sure two Axolotls are in the same small pond to interact freely. Next, put a Tropical Fish inside a Bucket of Water. You should then feed one Bucket of Tropical Fish to each of the Axolotls you want to breed. Finally, once both Axolotls are in Love Mode, you can leave them alone to breed.

After some time, the Axolotls will produce a baby Axolotl in the water. A baby axolotl takes only 20 minutes to grow into an adult. During those 20 minutes, the baby Axolotl will just follow its parents around. If you want it to grow faster, feeding it with a Bucket of Tropical Fish will help speed up the process.

If you are lucky, you may get the extremely rare blue Axolotl even when breeding two non-blue Axolotls. Otherwise, you may get the more common pink, gold, cyan, or brown variants. And FYI, there is a 50% chance that the baby Axolotl will take after the color of one of its parents.

Now that you have learned how to breed Axolotls in Minecraft, you can start taking them with you to fight off aquatic mobs whenever you need to!