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Minecraft: How to Make a Lead

Get yourself a lead to leash animals and passive mobs like dogs, cats, horses and more!

Leads are incredibly useful items in Minecraft, especially when it comes to rearing animals.

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They can be used to transport your animals safely, especially if they are unmountable mobs such as sheep or cattle. They stretch up to a maximum of 10 blocks before breaking, and can be attached to a wall to keep a mob or animal in one place so it doesn’t run off.

The question is, how do you craft one for yourself? Here’s everything you need to know about how to make a lead in Minecraft.

How to Make a Lead in Minecraft

Leads can be crafted using four pieces of string and a slimeball, presumably to stick it all together.

To obtain string, you can kill the spider mobs at night time, as they produce both string and spider eyes when defeated.

Slimeballs can be obtained by killing slime, which are usually found in the swamp biomes.

They aren’t difficult to spot; they’re huge green cubes of goo, with plenty going spare.

Once you have your ingredients, open up your 3×3 crafting grid, and place two strings in the first two boxes of the top row, a slimeball and another string directly below them, and your final bit of string in the last box of the bottom row.

How to Get Leads Without Crafting

If making a lead sounds like too much effort, there is a slightly crueler route to getting one much faster.

Traveling traders often visit you offering unique products to purchase, and they always come with two llamas.

These llamas are wearing two leads ripe for the taking, so all you have to do is, well…kill their master.

You may miss out on some bread or buckets of tropical fish, but you’ll have two brand new leads to put to use.

Plus, if I’m really being the devil’s advocate here, someone is bound to take his place eventually and you’ll get your pretty fish.

To summarize how to make a lead,

  1. First gather four pieces of string and one slimeball.

    String is dropped by spider mobs at nighttime, while slimeballs are dropped by slime enemies found in swamp biomes.

  2. Open your 3×3 crafting grid

  3. Place two strings in the first two boxes of the top row, a slimeball and another string directly below them, and your final bit of string in the last box of the bottom row.

All Mobs You Can Use a Minecraft Lead On

  • Allay
  • Axolotl
  • Bees
  • Boats
  • Cats
  • Chickens
  • Cows
  • Dolphins
  • Donkeys
  • Foxes
  • Frogs
  • Glow Squid
  • Goats
  • Hoglins
  • Horses
  • Iron Golems
  • Llamas
  • Mooshrooms
  • Mules
  • Ocelots
  • Parrots
  • Pigs
  • Polar Bears
  • Rabbits
  • Sheep
  • Skeleton Horses
  • Snow Golems
  • Squids
  • Striders
  • Wolves
  • Zoglins
  • Zombie Horses

So, that’s everything you need to know about how to make a lead in Minecraft. For more useful guides, such as how to breed turtles and how to tame foxes, check out Twinfinite.


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Author
Image of Sophie Naisbitt
Sophie Naisbitt
A former freelance writer for Twinfinite, Sophie is a Minecraft and Pokemon expert and regularly shared her knowledge with fellow fans of the blocky world builder and wannabe Pokemon Trainers. Some say she's mine every Diamond that can be found in Minecraft... at least in her world!
Author
Image of Chris Jecks
Chris Jecks
Chris Jecks has been covering the games industry for over eight years. He typically covers new releases, FIFA, Fortnite, any good shooters, and loves nothing more than a good Pro Clubs session with the lads. Chris has a History degree from the University of Central Lancashire. He spends his days eagerly awaiting the release of BioShock 4.