How to make Leather in Minecraft: Step by Step Guide

Leather is legitimately one of the hardest to find and yet one of the most versatile materials in Minecraft, as several items have very specific recipes that can only be crafted using Leather. If one ever needs a backup suit of Leather armor, a book,or item frames, you need to have Leather on hand. However, obtaining it isn’t as simple as fencing in an animal and feeding it. Unlike most animal products, you must explicitly kill an animal to obtain it.

There are 7 entities in Minecraft that drop leather directly upon dying and while it may be morbid, this process is used in real life crafting every day. The best way to obtain a steady supply of leather is mating animals and making sure you never have less than 2 animals. “Farming” for leather is not sustainable unless you are very careful!

Required Materials to craft Leather

To craft Leather in Minecraft, you will need the following:

A Cow, Mooshroom, Horse, Donkey, Mule, Llama, or Rabbits.

Most biomes will contain at least one of these animals.

How to make Leather in Minecraft?

In a Nutshell:

Either combine 4 Rabbit Hides or kill a Cow, Mooshroom, Horse, Donkey, Mule, or Llama until they drop your desired amount of Leather.

Step-by-Step Guide (with Pictures):

Step 1- Find an animal which drops Leather.

Step 2- Kill the animal until they drop Leather.

Use a sword for best results.

OR

Step 1- Combine 4 rabbit hides into 1 leather.

How to use Leather in Minecraft?

While one of the purest uses of leather is to create armor from your spoils, better armor can be crafted with easier to find materials. However, Item Frames and Books must be created using Leather. Item Frames are a fun way to showcase your favorite tools in your house once their usage case has passed. Books have multiple uses, including Enchanting.

Book Recipe

Item Frame Recipe

Explainer Video

FAQs

Q. Is Leather Armor as durable as Iron Armor?

Leather armor is unique because it is literally the least durable armor in the game, yet significantly harder to obtain than Iron. It is almost half as durable as Iron Armor.

Q. Is Leather Armor at least better than any other armor in terms of defense?

Nope. Leather armor also offers by far the least amount of protection in the game. It should be avoided unless necessary to survive.

Conclusion

Leather is a versatile tool that is required mostly as a gateway for enchanting your items later down the road. You can create subpar armor using Leather but this is not recommended as it is too expensive to justify killing sources of food and other materials. While leather farms are possible, they are rarely utilized unless creating a library of books or keeping a stock of enchantable blank books.