How to Make a Lead in Minecraft and Use It on Every Mob

Here's how to make a lead in Minecraft: put 5 string in a crafting table and you get 2 leads. Two string go in the top row on the left, two right below them, and one in the bottom-right corner. You don't need a slimeball anymore: that changed in Java 1.21.6 and Bedrock 1.21.90. Below you'll find where to get string, which mobs you can leash and how to tie them up. Checked for Java 26.3.

How to make a lead in Minecraft: the recipe

A lead needs the full 3 by 3 grid, so use a crafting table. Fill it like this:

• Top row: string, string, empty.
• Middle row: string, string, empty.
• Bottom row: empty, empty, string.

That gives you 2 leads. In the game files of Java 26.3 the lead recipe in Minecraft is exactly this: five string, no other ingredients. One craft covers two animals, since every mob you lead needs its own lead.

Do you still need a slimeball?

No. In Java, from 2013 until 2025, the recipe was four string with one slimeball in the center. Java 1.21.6 (snapshot 25w18a) and Bedrock 1.21.90 replaced the slimeball with a fifth string. Older guides and videos may still show the slimeball, so don't let them send you to a swamp for nothing.

Want to know how to get slime balls anyway, for sticky pistons, slime blocks or magma cream? These are your options:

• Kill small slimes. Only the smallest size drops slimeballs, 0 to 2 each. Slimes spawn in swamps and mangrove swamps between Y=51 and Y=69 at light level 7 or lower, most often at full moon. They also spawn in slime chunks below Y=40, about one in ten chunks.
• Trade with a wandering trader. Some sell 1 slimeball for 4 emeralds.
• Wait for a baby panda to sneeze. It drops a slimeball once in about 700 sneezes.

Where to find string and spare leads

• Spiders and cave spiders drop 0 to 2 string, plus up to one more per level of Looting.
• Cobwebs drop 1 string when you break them with a sword. You find them in mineshafts, strongholds, woodland mansions, trial chambers and abandoned camps.
• Striders drop 2 to 5 string.
• Tamed cats sometimes leave you a gift when you wake up, and string is one of the options.
• Piglins sometimes barter 3 to 9 string for a gold ingot, and fishing can bring up string as junk.

Leads also turn up as loot. In Java 26.3 they're in chests in woodland mansions and ancient cities, in suspicious gravel in trail ruins, and in the new abandoned camps. A common chest in an abandoned camp can hold 1 to 3 leads.

Wandering trader leads: two for free

A wandering trader usually spawns with two trader llamas, each on a lead. Use shears on the llamas' leads and both leads drop. Shearing the trader himself does nothing. The leads also come loose if you pull the llamas far away or put a llama in a boat or minecart. You don't have to kill anyone.

A trader llama you free this way no longer despawns, and in Java you can tame it. Careful, though: hit the trader or a llama and the llamas start spitting at you, except on Peaceful.

Which mobs can you put on a lead?

According to the Minecraft Wiki, you can leash these in 26.3:

You can't leash villagers, wandering traders, pandas, turtles, bats, fish, tadpoles or most monsters, at least not without editing the world. An angry wolf can't be leashed either. If it gets angry while it's already on a lead, the lead stays on. Leading horses home? See how to tame a horse. For animals that follow food instead, see what animals eat in Minecraft.

How to tie a lead to a fence

1. Put the lead on a mob: hold it and use it on the mob.
2. Walk to a fence. Any wooden fence works, and so does the nether brick fence.
3. Use the fence. A knot appears and the mob is tied to the post.

One post can hold several leads, and a tied mob stays within about 5 blocks of it. Use the knot again while leading other mobs and they're tied up too. Use it while you're not leading anything and you take every mob on that knot with you. You can also sneak and use a leashable mob to tie your other mobs to it, so they walk in a line.

A lead comes off when you use the mob again, hit the knot, break or push away the fence, or use shears. Projectiles break leads too. The lead stays on for up to 12 blocks, then it snaps. Firing a firework rocket while flying with elytra also breaks it. Tie a mob to a post more than 7 blocks above the ground and it dangles in the air.

Leads on boats and happy ghasts

Since Java 1.21 you can put a lead on a boat or a boat with chest and tow it. That only works while no player sits in the boat. A lead also pulls a mob out of a boat without breaking the boat.

A happy ghast takes leads further. Its own lead stretches to 16 blocks instead of 12. Sneak and use the happy ghast while you hold a leashed boat or a big mob, and it hangs below the ghast on four ropes. That works for a horse, donkey, mule, skeleton horse, zombie horse, camel, camel husk or sniffer. Smaller mobs hang on one rope. You can carry several at once, and shears on the ghast cut them all loose. Players can't ride in a carried boat, but they can sit on a pig or an unsaddled horse that hangs below.

Leads and pets on a server

• Anyone can untie your animals. On a shared server every player can cut a lead with shears, hit the knot or break your fence. A dispenser with shears can do it too. A closed fence pen keeps animals in without any lead. With GriefPrevention, /containertrust decides who may use the animals inside your claim. More in how to protect your server from griefers.
• Tie your dog up before a long trip. A tamed wolf on a lead attached to a fence post won't teleport to you, so it stays at home.
• Some mobs only stay because of the lead. Since 26.1, untamed cats, hoglins, zoglins, squid, glow squid and dolphins no longer despawn while they're on a lead.
• Portals break leads. If a leashed mob walks into a Nether portal, the lead snaps and drops on the other side.
• For admins. Wandering traders, and so their free leads, only appear while the game rules spawn_mobs and spawn_wandering_traders are true, as they are by default. On Paper, misc.max-leash-distance in config/paper-world-defaults.yml sets how far a lead stretches. The default keeps the vanilla distance.