Minecraft is full of animals to tame, so there’s something for everyone. You can tame a cat to keep at home or a horse to accompany you on adventures, or you could start a whole farm full of pigs, cows, and sheep. If those are a little too mainstream for you, you could always take a different approach and hunt down a furry little fox to be your digital companion.

Here’s our guide on how to tame a fox in Minecraft — they’re a little trickier to tame than other animals.

Further reading

Foxes spawn in taiga, giant tree taiga, and snowy biomes in groups of two to four. Being nocturnal creatures, foxes are more active at night — that’d be the best time to start your search if you’re looking for one.

Foxes that spawn in snow biomes will have snow-white fur, and foxes in forest biomes are red. There’s a small chance you could run into a baby fox as well. Foxes also have a 20% chance to spawn holding items, which include an emerald, rabbit foot, rabbit hide, egg, wheat, leather, or a feather (presumably left over from previous meals).

During the night, foxes sometimes go to villages and prey on chickens.

Now that you’ve found a fox in the wild, it’s time to approach it. But be careful; foxes are shy and will run away from you if you approach too quickly. You’re going to need to approach a fox with a sweet berry in hand to help build a relationship with the little guy. Bring a good stock of sweet berries with you — you don’t want to run out before you tame your fox.

Unlike other animals, you can’t tame a wild fox — so you’ve got to get two wild foxes to breed and create a new, totally tamed fox for you to raise. Find a mob of foxes and feed sweet berries to two of them until hearts appear over both of their heads. Apparently sweet berries are an aphrodisiac for foxes, and they’ll produce a baby fox that is born tame!

Foxes are quick to scamper off for cover once the sun comes out, so building a fence around the group you’re feeding will guarantee they won’t run off in the middle of the process.

Your new baby fox will trust you, but still trusts its parents more. Because baby foxes also follow nearby adult foxes, an adult running away from the player may cause the baby to do the same, even if it’s tamed. You can attach a lead to your baby fox to keep it by your side until it matures and no longer follows other foxes.

Foxes will attack chickens, rabbits, cod, salmon, and tropical fish. It will also attack anything attempting to harm the player.

If any item is on the ground near a fox, the fox travels to the item and picks it up, and the item appears in the fox’s mouth. A fox can pick up any items a player can, but prefers food items, which it will eventually eat.