Minecraft Lead

There are two ways that a lead will naturally generate in a world in the Java edition of Minecraft. You can find them in woodland mansions from chests, or you can find them from wandering traders and separate them from their llamas. In the Bedrock edition of Minecraft, you can also find them through these methods, additionally you can find them in buried treasure chests.

As you can see the wandering trader will have two llamas with him that are connected by leads. You can kill the trader or the llamas to get the leads they drop, or you can simply keep them separated and the leads will drop without any violence.

Finally, you can craft it yourself if you have strings and slimeball.

- 4 String

- 1 Slimeball

To make a lead yourself you will need 4 pieces of string which you can obtain easily by defeating some spiders. To get a slimeball will be a little more tricky. You will need to track down a slime in order to get a slimeball, you can find slime in swamp biomes or in specific chunks of your world below layer 40.

Once you have the requisite ingredients head to a crafting table. Arrange the string in the top left or right corner, place a slimeball in the middle-most slot and another piece of string in the opposite bottom corner to make two leads.

You can flip this recipe and it will still output two leads.

Leads are usable on the following mobs.

-Axolotl -Bees -Boats (Bedrock edition only)

-Cat -Chicken -Cow

-Dolphin -Donkey -Fox

-Goat -Hoglin -Horse (any variant)

-Iron Golem -Llama -Mooshroom

-Mule -Ocelot -Parrot

-Pig -Polar Bear -Rabbit

-Sheep -Snow Golem -Squid (Bedrock edition only)

-Strider -Wolf -Zoglin

The hoglin is the only hostile mob you can leash with a lead. To use a lead, simply hold the lead in your hand and right click on the mob you wish to leash.

The mob is now tied to your player, it will follow you until the lead breaks or until you unleash it. You can also right click on a fence post to tie the mob to the fence and keep it from moving more than five blocks from that area. Right clicking on the post will leash any tied mobs you had to that post and they will wander aimlessly in a 5 block radius centered on the fence post.

To break this leash you can left click on the fence post and it will drop the lead you were using. You can also right click on the mob while connected to the player to have it drop its lead.

You can have multiple mobs leashed to the player at once.

As long as the player stays in the chunk with its leashed mob, there is not much that will break the connection. You can even sleep in a bed while holding a leashed mob and wake up to find it still connected.

Mobs can still take fall damage while on a leash. They will rubber band themselves upwards and fall until they reach the full length of the lead.

In Bedrock edition you can tie a lead to a boat similarly to how you can tie a lead to a fence post. You can then ride the boat to drag many mobs across oceans if needed.

Does a lead keep mobs from despawning?

A mob that would normally despawn will still despawn even if they are tied to a fence post with a lead. To prevent passive mobs from despawning you can name them, or keep them fully enclosed in an area smaller than 20x20 blocks.

Why did my lead disappear when the connection broke?

Leads will appear on the mob itself when the lead breaks. This is true for wandering trader leashes and killing the wandering trader will cause the leads to appear where the llamas are standing.

How far can a lead go before breaking?

A lead can go up to 10 blocks before breaking. Normally mobs will only be able to walk about 5 blocks before being pulled forward by the leash. If there is a block between you and the mob the leash will most likely break.

Can you tie multiple mobs to the same fence post with a lead?

Yes you can leash many mobs to the same fence post. To leash them all at the same time you will need to ensure that it is the first lead tied to that fence post. Another subsequent right click will break the leads that connect any mobs to that fence post.