Overview
A Lead is a rope for animals. Use it on a mob and a visible tether appears; walk and the mob follows, and using the lead on a fence post ties it there until you take it back. That makes moving livestock a matter of walking rather than a two-hour operation with wheat, doors and swearing, and it is the only sane way to bring a llama caravan, a wandering trader's llamas, or a stray horse home across rough terrain. The tether snaps if you get more than about 10 blocks away or if a solid obstruction comes between you and the animal, and it drops the lead as an item you can pick up, so nothing is lost when it breaks. Leads work on most passive mobs including horses, donkeys, mules, llamas, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, polar bears, dolphins, striders and wolves, but not on villagers, which remains the reason villager transport is done with boats and rails. A single craft gives you two leads from four string and one slimeball, and wandering traders always arrive with two llamas each wearing one, which is the cheapest supply in the early game.
Moving animals from where they spawned to where you want them: a horse from a plains herd to a stable, a strider across a lava lake, or a pair of goats to a breeding pen.
Lead is a miscellaneous item in Minecraft 1.21.4. It stacks to 64. Chest loot in Woodland Mansion can contain it.
The recipe calls for String and Slimeball. It is not used in any crafting recipe.
How to get it
Craft 2 from 4 String and 1 Slimeball. Killing a wandering trader's llamas — or freeing them — leaves the 2 leads they arrived with, which is often the first pair a player owns.
Tips
- Tie animals to a fence post rather than a wall — leads attach only to fences, and the knot is what holds them.
- The tether breaks past roughly 10 blocks or through solid terrain, so lead animals along open ground, not through tunnels.
- A leashed strider lets you ride across a lava lake safely, with the lead stopping it wandering while you dismount.
- Boats beat leads for water crossings and for villagers, which cannot be leashed at all.
Properties
One inventory slot holds 64, so a double chest holds 3,456.
- Stack size
- 64
- Category
- Miscellaneous
Crafting recipe
Crafting Table
Lead ×2
Found in
Lead is in the loot tables of Woodland Mansion.
- Woodland Mansion — An enormous three-storey house of dark oak and cobblestone, generated only in dark forests and typically tens of thousands of blocks from spawn, which makes a woodland explorer map from a cartographer villager the practical way to find one.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Lead in Minecraft?
Lead is crafted from String and Slimeball.
What is the stack size of Lead?
Lead stacks to 64.
