Cow

A cow is a common passive mob and a source of leather, beef and milk. Cows are found in most grassy biomes.

Natural generation
Herds of 4 cows spawn on grass blocks at a light level of 7 or higher with at least 2 blocks of space above, except in snowy tundras and wooded badlands plateaus. Cows rarely spawn individually above grass after world generation.

Cows have a 5% chance of spawning as a calf, or baby cow.

Villages
A cow spawns inside animal pens and butchers' houses in villages (PS4 only).

Mooshrooms
Shearing a mooshroom turns it into a cow and drops 5 mushrooms.

Drops
Adult cows drop:
 * 0–2 leathers. The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 5 with Looting III.
 * 1–3 raw beefs (or steaks if killed while on fire). The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 6 with Looting III.
 * 1-3 experience orbs are dropped when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
 * 1-7 experience upon successful breeding.

Baby cows drop neither items nor experience.

Behavior
A cow wanders around, mooing and huffing occasionally. Cows avoid going to water, hazards and walking off cliffs high enough to cause fall damage. They flee for a few seconds when harmed.

Milking
An adult cow can be milked by using a bucket on it, yielding a milk bucket.

Breeding
A cow follows a player who holds wheat but stops following if separated from the player by at least 6 blocks.

Cows enter love mode and pair off to create calves after cows are given wheat, granting the player one to seven experience orbs. The parent cows have a cooldown of 5 minutes before they can breed again. Babies follow adult cows and take 20 minutes to grow up. The growth of baby cows can be slowly accelerated using wheat; each use takes 10% off of the remaining time to grow up.

Trivia

 * Cows are visually based on the Norwegian Red cattle.
 * Cows prefer to stay on lit places to dim places.

History

 * Cows were added in Xbox 360 TU1, Xbox One CU1, PlayStation 3 1.0, WiiU Patch 1, and Nintendo Switch 1.0.1. Back then, they did not run away when attacked (Xbox 360 only.
 * A feature was added in Xbox 360 TU5 where cows would run away if attacked.
 * In Xbox 360 TU7, baby cows were added. Cows could be bred with wheat.
 * In Xbox 360 TU14 and PlayStation 3 1.04, using a cow spawn egg, baby cows could be spawned by using Left Trigger on an adult cow.
 * A feature was added in Xbox 360 TU31, Xbox One CU19, PlayStation 3 1.22, and WiiU Patch 3 where baby cow growth could be accelerated using wheat.
 * The baby cow's sounds were updated in Xbox 360 TU43, Xbox One CU33, PlayStation 3 1.36, and WiiU Patch 13.
 * The cow and baby cow's textures were changed in PlayStation 4 1.90 as part of the Texture Update.