How to Make A Minecraft Lead & Use It + Pros & Cons [2024]

As most of us do in real life, Minecraft also allows you to keep pets. And when you have pets, you want to take them outside for a stroll from time to time. Unfortunately, the Minecraft world is not as safe as the real world towards animals. Hostile mobs do not care to differentiate between helpless animals and your armed character. That’s where a lead comes handy.

What is a Lead?

A lead in Minecraft is a leash used to restrain animals, some monsters and most “passive“ mobs to a fence or a wall (Bedrock Edition only). This will allow your companion to rest easy while you go take care of any threats or obstacles you’ve observed in the distance that might hinder you or pose a threat.

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Who Can I Use a Lead On?

You can use a lead on the following creatures:

In Bedrock Edition, you can use a lead to tie a boat to a fence or wall.

The Salient Features and Limitations of a Lead

A lead is by no means a sturdy object. It has many limitations which everyone should be aware of:

1. A lead has a maximum length of 10 blocks. Usually, a mob tied with a lead tends to move only 5 blocks away from the fence/wall it has been tied to.
2. If the creature attached to the lead dies, the lead remains intact.
3. If a mob tied with a lead is moving very quickly towards the opposite direction, the lead will break.
4. The lead will break if you press the “use item” control on the mob again. The “use item” control refers to a right-click on PC , tapping on the mob on mobile or pressing the left trigger on a console (LT on Xbox, L2 on PlayStation and ZL on the Nintendo Switch).
5. Hitting the knot of the lead, destroying the fence/wall it is attached to, or damaging the lead with a projectile will cause it to break.
   

   

6. You can use a lead on mobs attacking you. These leads will not break.
7. Multiple leads can be attached to a single fence. However, all the leads will break if that fence is destroyed.
8. Leads cannot be used on wolves if they’re angry.
9. Mobs that can randomly despawn, will do so even if they’re on a lead.
10. If a leaded mob walks into a nether portal and the player doesn’t, it will cause the lead to be break and be dropped in the other dimension.
11. If a hoglin attached to a lead transforms into a zoglin, the lead will break.
12. If a mob can be leaded, you can use the lead to remove it from the boat without destroying the boat.

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Where Can I Get a Lead?

A lead is an uncommon item. Therefore, it is a bit bothersome to find but not too much. There are 3 ways of obtaining a lead:

1. Chest Loot
2. Wandering Traders
3. Crafting

Now, let’s discuss each of these sources in detail.

1. Chest Loot

The loot from chests is a source of several rare and uncommon items in Minecraft. This also holds true for leads in Minecraft. In the case of trail ruins, you’ll have to hunt for suspicious gravel instead of chests, which is a bit rare. At any rate, here are the locations and the drop rates of the sources for leads you can hope to find in the Java Edition of Minecraft:

For the Bedrock Edition, you have an additional source, so it’s much easier to find a lead in that edition. This new source also has a chance of dropping additional leads; up to 3.

2. Wandering Traders

Wandering traders are randomly spawned mobs that have 2 trader llamas with them. While they sell a variety of goods, they don’t exactly sell the leads you’re looking to get. Instead, the leads you want are hooked on to the llama. In order to get them for yourself, you’ll have to do any one of the following actions. These actions will cause the lead to drop on the ground like loot:

1. Kill the trader
2. Kill the llamas
3. Drag llamas far apart
4. Place the llamas in either a boat or minecart.

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3. Crafting

This method is probably the most logical option for most Minecraft players. This way, you can stockpile the materials and craft a lead any time you need one. Naturally, first we’ll be looking at the requirements of crafting a lead:

1. 4 Strings
2. A Slimeball

Now let’s look at how you can get both these components.

1. String

The string is a raw material and one of the few items that cannot be crafted. It’s pretty common and there are multiple ways to get some strings. If you’ve opted to go chest hunting for the lead, you might have gotten some string if you were unlucky. The easiest way, however, would be to kill spiders and cave spiders. Destroying cobwebs also drops strings.

2. Slimeball

Slimeballs may be a bit bothersome, but are still common. There are only 3 ways of obtaining a slimeball. Of these 3, the best is to just go deep underground, or in a swamp biome, and kill a slime. Slimes are block-shaped hostile mobs that will spawn below Y level 40 underground, or between Y level 51-69 provided that the light levels are less than 7.

Other than that, there’s a small chance that a wandering trader may offer you a slimeball for 4 emeralds.

↪ Crafting the lead

It shouldn’t take you long to gather the ingredients. Once you have them all, follow this recipe and craft the lead with your Crafting Table.

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Using the Lead

Using a lead is very simple. Follow the steps below:

1. Firstly, equip the lead from your inventory.
   

   

2. Next, use it on the creature you want to leash.
   

   

3. A rope will be shown tied to the creature. Now, gently lead the creature to wherever you want it tied down to. Keep in mind that the lead’s range is only limited to 10 blocks.
   

   

4. Finally, use the leash on the fence post to tie down the creature. In Bedrock Edition, you can also tie it to a wall, but the lead must be equipped to your main hand.
   

   

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Conclusion

A lead is perfect for keeping your pets at bay while you set off to explore. If you have a farm, there’s no better tool to keep your animals enclosed and within the farm boundaries. Therefore, you should craft plenty of fences for your base so that you have a place to tie down any creatures you want to keep. However, keep in mind that the string has limitations and it is not very durable or sturdy.