Catching mobs
Craft Capture Eggs and throw one at a mob to catch it in a spawn egg. The catch chance for every mob, what can't be caught, and how to release it.
Throw a Capture Egg at a mob and, if the catch works, the mob turns into a spawn egg you can carry home and release. Move animals to your farm, bring a villager to your trading hall, or put a new mob in a spawner.
Make Capture Eggs
Put 4 
eggs around 1 
gold nugget in a crafting table: an egg above, below, left and right of the nugget. You get 4 Capture Eggs.
On Bedrock this recipe may not show in the recipe book. Lay it out by hand in a crafting table and it works.
Catch a mob
Throw a Capture Egg at the mob, like a normal egg. If the catch works, the mob disappears and its spawn egg drops. If the mob breaks free, the Capture Egg is used up, so throw another. A thrown Capture Egg never hatches a chick.
Every mob has its own chance per throw. Tries on average is how many Capture Eggs one catch costs you across many catches, so bring a few spare.
| How hard | Catch chance per throw | Tries on average |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 60% | about 2 |
| Normal | 35% | about 3 |
| Hard | 15% | about 7 |
| Rare | 5% | about 20 |
Every mob and its chance
Easy, 60%: armadillos, bats, bees, chickens, cod, copper golems, cows, frogs, glow squid, goats, pigs, pufferfish, rabbits, salmon, sheep, snow golems, squid, tadpoles, tropical fish, turtles.
Normal, 35%: axolotls, bogged, camels, camel husks, cats, cave spiders, creepers, dolphins, donkeys, drowned, endermites, foxes, horses, husks, llamas, magma cubes, mules, nautiluses, ocelots, pandas, parched, parrots, phantoms, pillagers, polar bears, silverfish, skeletons, skeleton horses, slimes, spiders, strays, striders, sulfur cubes, trader llamas, vexes, vindicators, witches, wolves, zombies, zombie horses, zombie nautiluses, zombie villagers, zombified piglins.
Hard, 15%: allays, blazes, breezes, endermen, ghasts, guardians, happy ghasts, hoglins, iron golems, mooshrooms, piglins, ravagers, shulkers, villagers, wandering traders, wither skeletons, zoglins.
Rare, 5%: evokers, piglin brutes, sniffers.
Endermen teleport away from thrown items, so they are harder still than their chance says.
Babies, sheared mobs and mobs with a name can all be caught. A named mob keeps its name.
What you can't catch
- Seven mobs, ever: creakings, elder guardians, the ender dragon, giants, illusioners, wardens and the wither.
- Tamed animals, yours or anyone's. A wild wolf, cat, horse, donkey, mule, llama or parrot can be caught; a tamed one can't. Camels are the exception: you can catch a camel whether it is tamed or not.
- Mobs where you can't build. In another player's ward, or at spawn, the catch doesn't land.
What chat tells you
Every message starts with a red ✦ and names the mob.
| What happened | Chat says |
|---|---|
| You caught it | ✦ You caught the mob |
| It broke free | ✦ The mob broke free · throw another egg |
| It can never be caught | ✦ The mob can't be caught |
| It belongs to someone | ✦ Tamed mobs can't be caught |
Release it
Use the spawn egg like any other: right-click the ground. The mob comes back as it was. A named mob keeps its name, and a villager keeps its trades and level. Release villagers onto a full block, not a slab, trapdoor or cauldron.
Fill a spawner
Right-click a spawner with a spawn egg to change what it spawns. Most caught eggs work, but a spawner can't hold a villager, an iron golem and a few others. The full list and the rules are on Spawners and stacks.
On Bedrock
Crafting and throwing Capture Eggs should work the same way. If a throw does nothing for you on Bedrock, tell staff.
See also
- Spawners and stacks: change a spawner's mob with the eggs you catch
- Recipe book: the server's extra recipes
- Building and claiming: protect your animals and your farm
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