How to tame a cat in Minecraft

To tame a cat in Minecraft you need raw cod or raw salmon. Hold the fish, let the stray cat come to you and keep feeding it until hearts appear: each fish has a one in three chance of working.

Below you’ll find where cats live, what they eat, how to breed them and why a cat by your front door keeps creepers away. Everything is checked against Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.52.

Where do you find cats?

Cats live in villages. In Java they spawn when there are at least five claimed beds within 48 blocks and no more than four cats nearby. In Bedrock it’s one cat for every four beds that belong to villagers, up to five cats once a village has twenty beds or more, and a quarter of them spawn as kittens.

An all-black cat only turns up in a village if it spawns during a full moon. There’s one place where you’ll always find one, though: the swamp hut, where it lives with the witch.

How do you tame a cat?

1. Get some raw fish. Raw cod or raw salmon, ideally a few of them. Cooked fish won’t work.
2. Sneak with the fish in your hand. Stray cats run from players within 7 blocks, but slowly come closer if you hold fish within 10 blocks. Mojang’s own advice is to sneak while you do it (Shift by default on PC).
3. Don’t make sudden moves. Turn too quickly or put the fish away while the cat is within 6 blocks and it bolts, keeping its distance for a few seconds.
4. Feed it until you see hearts. Each fish has a one in three chance. Once it works, the cat wears a red collar.

A tamed cat follows you, never despawns and teleports to you once you’re more than 12 blocks away. Use it (right-click on PC) to make it sit or stand, and a sitting cat stays put at home. Dye changes the colour of its collar.

What do cats eat and how do you breed them?

Cats in Minecraft only eat raw cod and raw salmon. You use the same fish to tame them, heal them (each fish restores a full heart) and breed them. Stray cats also hunt rabbits and baby turtles on their own.

To breed cats, give two tamed cats at full health a fish each, with at least one of them standing. A kitten appears with the coat of one parent and belongs to one of the two owners. The parents then need five minutes before they can breed again. A kitten grows up in twenty minutes, faster if you feed it fish. Want it to stay tiny? Give it a golden dandelion, crafted from eight gold nuggets around a dandelion since Java 26.1 and Bedrock 26.10.

Why does a cat keep creepers away?

Creepers stay 6 blocks away from cats, even when they’re chasing you. Phantoms keep a full 16 blocks away. The one exception is a creeper that has already started hissing: that one won’t back off, so walk away yourself. In Java a cat even hisses at phantoms that are after you.

A couple of cats around your base make cheap security. Just mind where they settle: cats love to sit on chests, the foot of a bed or a lit furnace, and a chest with a cat on it won’t open until you tell the cat to stand.

Sleep at night with a tamed cat nearby that isn’t sitting, and there’s a 70% chance it brings you a gift when you wake up. Usually it’s a rabbit’s foot, rabbit hide, string, rotten flesh, a feather or raw chicken, each about 16% of the time. Very occasionally (about 3%) it’s a phantom membrane, which you can brew into a potion of slow falling.

Which cat coats are there?

There are eleven coats. The game never shows their names, so the table below uses the ones from the Minecraft Wiki.

Jellie is a real cat: she belonged to YouTuber GoodTimesWithScar and won a Mojang contest in 2018. Tame all eleven in Java and you earn the advancement A Complete Catalogue.

Java vs Bedrock: what’s different?

• A tamed cat has 20 health points in Bedrock and 10 in Java.
• In Bedrock a baby zombie can ride a wild cat.
• Only Java cats hiss at phantoms.
• When a tamed cat dies, Java only tells its owner. In Bedrock everyone on the server sees the message.

An ocelot looks a lot like a cat, but you can’t tame one in either edition. Raw fish does win its trust, again with a one in three chance. A trusting ocelot stops running away, but it won’t follow you around.

Cats on a server with friends

On a server, each cat belongs to whoever tamed it. Heading out on an adventure? Leave your cat sitting at home: a sitting cat doesn’t teleport after you and won’t get lost. Curious what the rest of your farm eats? See what animals eat in Minecraft. More of a dog person? Here’s how to tame a wolf, and a parrot fits nicely on your shoulder too.