Two white frogs in a pond with some Tadpoles.

Minecraft: How to Breed Frogs


Written by:
Avatar photo
Reyadh is a writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction who loves to play video games full of monsters and magic. When he's not scribing unique and unrelenting speculative fiction or slaying demons in virtual worlds, he is writing strategy guides to help others reach their gaming goals.

Reviewed by:
Avatar photo
Marshall is a seasoned writer and gaming enthusiast based in Tokyo. He's a prolific wordsmith with hundreds of articles featured on top-tier sites like Business Insider, How-To Geek, PCWorld, and Zapier. His writing has reached a massive audience with over 70 million readers!

Key Takeaway

You can breed Frogs in Minecraft by feeding them Slimeballs.

Like with many other animals in Minecraft, you’ll need a certain item to breed Frogs. In this case, the food item in question isn’t food for you—nor is it easily found. You’ll need to hunt down some rare mobs.

Table Of Contents

    What You Need to Breed Frogs

    A player trying to breed Frogs by feeding them Slimeballs.

    To breed a pair of Frogs, you’ll need to feed each of them a Slimeball. This works much like how you would breed other animals with more traditional food items.

    Firstly, you’ll need to find a pair of Frogs. Next, make sure they’re close enough to see each other. Afterward, feed each Frog a Slimeball and they will then enter love mode. This will result in the mating pair nuzzling for a few moments before separating.

    How Frogs Create Frogspawn After Breeding

    When two Frogs mate, one will become pregnant. This is similar to how Turtles breed in-game. The pregnant Frog heads to the nearest block of water that has a block of air above it. Here, the Frog will lay the tiny eggs on the surface of one water block.

    You cannot pick up Frogspawn in Survival Mode. If you try (even with a Silk Touch Pickaxe), you’ll only break the Frogspawn—which will drop nothing. As such, do not disturb Frogspawn, otherwise, you’ll destroy the eggs.

    However, you can transport Tadpoles safely. If you use a Water Bucket on a Tadpole, the object will turn into a Bucket of Tadpole. If used on a water block, you can release the Tadpole into a new body of water.

    Where to Find Slimeballs to Breed Frogs

    The primary source for Slimeballs is Slime mobs. However, since these gelatinous cubes are relatively tough to find, farming Slimeballs from them can be tough. With that said, Slimes most commonly spawn in Swamp biomes—which makes them close to where Frogs can naturally spawn. For this reason, an ideal place to set up a frog Farm would be in a Swamp biome.

    Alternatively, you can also get Slimeballs from baby Pandas. On occasion, a baby Panda will sneeze, which will cause them to create a Slimeball. Just keep in mind that baby Pandas do not sneeze that often and that adult Pandas do not create Slimeballs in this manner. As such, it would be harder to farm Slimeballs from Pandas than from Slimes.

    The only other method of getting Slimeballs is to find a Wandering Trader who sells them. But such a trader is a relatively rare find. Although, when you do find a Wandering Trader that sells Slimeballs, they’ll cost four Emeralds each—which is ridiculously expensive.

    Why Do Frogs in Minecraft Eat Slimeballs?

    Not only do Frogs eat Slimeballs in-game, but they also like to snack on small-sized Slime and Magma Cube mobs. The reason for this is likely due to many Frogs in real life eating invertebrates like insects and worms.

    There aren’t that many insect or invertebrate mobs in the game right now, so Slimes were probably the easiest prey to assign to Frogs. Furthermore, since insects and worms don’t have skeletons, their innards are basically tiny organs floating in a kind of real-world slime. This makes the food chain in Minecraft seem a bit less odd in comparison.

    Interestingly, Frogs do not eat Bees, Silverfish, or Endermites. They can only eat small Slimes and small Magma Cubes. Maybe in a future update Frog behavior will be expanded. However, for now, Frogs seem to be on a strict diet.

    Where to Find and Breed Frogs

    A group of orange and white Frogs.

    Frogs only spawn naturally in Swamp and Mangrove Swamp biomes. However, Tadpoles can grow into Frogs in any biome that has water. Furthermore, Frogs can easily survive in biomes that they are not native to.

    There are three types of Frogs in Minecraft: temperate-climate Frogs (orange), cold-climate Frogs (green), and warm-climate Frogs (white).

    Temperate (Orange) Frog Biomes

    • River
    • Beach
    • Taiga
    • Old Growth Pine Taiga
    • Old Growth Spruce Taiga
    • Birch Forest
    • Old Growth Birch Forest
    • Dark Forest
    • Forest
    • Flower Forest
    • Mushroom Fields
    • Meadow
    • Plains
    • Sunflower Plains
    • Swamp
    • Windswept Hills
    • Windswept Gravelly Hills
    • Ocean
    • Windswept Forest
    • Dripstone Caves
    • Lush Caves
    • Stony Peaks‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Cold Ocean‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Deep Cold Ocean‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Lukewarm Ocean‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Deep Lukewarm Ocean‌ (Java Edition only)
    • The Void‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Deep Dark‌ (Java Edition only)

    Cold (Green) Frog Biomes

    • Frozen River
    • Snowy Beach
    • Grove
    • Frozen Peaks
    • Jagged Peaks
    • Snowy Plains
    • Ice Spikes
    • Snowy Slopes
    • Snowy Taiga
    • Frozen Ocean
    • Deep Frozen Ocean
    • The End
    • End Barrens‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Deep Dark‌ (Java Edition only)
    • End Highlands‌ (Java Edition only)
    • End Midlands‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Small End Islands‌ (Java Edition only)
    • Cold Ocean‌ (Bedrock Edition only)
    • Deep Cold Ocean‌ (Bedrock Edition only)

    Warm (White) Frog Biomes

    • Jungle
    • Bamboo Jungle
    • Sparse Jungle
    • Badlands
    • Eroded Badlands
    • Wooded Badlands
    • Desert
    • Savanna
    • Savanna Plateau
    • Windswept Savanna
    • Warm Ocean
    • Mangrove Swamp
    • Basalt Deltas
    • Crimson Forest
    • Nether Wastes
    • Soul Sand Valley
    • Warped Forest
    • Stony Peaks‌ (Bedrock Edition only)
    • Lukewarm Ocean‌ (Bedrock Edition only)
    • Deep Lukewarm Ocean‌ (Bedrock Edition only)

    How Long Does It Take for Frogspawn to Hatch Into Tadpoles?

    Frogspawn in the water next to an orange Frog. The player is trying to breed Frogs.

    After Frogspawn is deposited onto a water block, it takes about 10 minutes for them to hatch. When the eggs do hatch, between two to five Tadpoles will spawn.

    Tadpoles will swim around randomly in the body of water they hatch in. To keep them safe from predators, such as Axolotls, be sure to enclose the area where the Frogspawn will hatch.

    Also, it’s worth noting that neither Frogspawn nor Tadpoles spawn naturally. They only occur when you breed Frogs.

    How Long It Takes for Tadpoles to Grow Into Frogs

    It takes around 20 minutes (a full day cycle in-game) for a Tadpole to grow into a Frog by itself. However, you can speed this up by feeding Tadpoles Slimeballs. Each Slimeball you feed a Tadpole will cause it to grow 10% closer to being an adult.

    When the Tadpoles finally grow into Frogs, they will have different colors depending on which biome they grow up in. What determines this is the location of the water block where the Tadpole transforms into a Frog. For example, if that water block is in a temperate biome, the Tadpole will turn into an orange Frog.