A cat in Minecraft is a passive creature found in villages and abandoned huts. They can be tamed and used to fend off creepers and Phantoms.
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How to tame them ?
Feral cats can be tamed with raw cod or raw salmon. Once tamed, the cats follow the player who tamed them. They do not disappear, no longer fear the player and purr or meow frequently. Like wolves, and with the same limitations, they can teleport to a player who moves 12 blocks away.
You can command a cat to sit or stand by pressing the “use” button. If you hold a raw cod or salmon when you command a cat to sit or stand, the fish is given to the cat instead, causing it to go into love mode. Once in love mode, you can command a cat to sit or stand while holding a fish. Cats can also sit on certain objects on their own.
Where to find them ?
Cats can appear every 1200 ticks (1 minute). A player is chosen at random and a random location is chosen between 8 and 32 blocks away from the player, horizontally in both directions and at the same height. A cat can appear if that block is within 2 chunks of a village with less than 5 cats, or inside an abandoned hut.
Villages
Feral cats appear in villages provided there are at least five claimed beds within 48 blocks and no more than four cats in a 97×17×97 square centered around the point of appearance. Cats that appear when a village is created do not disappear. However, any additional cats that appear in a village may disappear. A village cat appears randomly, but black cats only appear during the full moon, which works on both the Java and Bedrock versions. The appearance of cats in villages is a separate process from the natural appearance of passive creatures and is therefore not affected by the creature limit.
In the Bedrock edition, a village periodically spawns feral cats to fill a quota of 1 cat for every 4 owned beds, up to a maximum of 5 cats for every 20 or more owned beds. Only owned beds (those currently claimed by a villager) are counted for this purpose. All cats within the village boundaries are counted, including kittens, cats walking around outside, and even tame cats owned by a player. If the number of cats found is less than the quota, the village tries to make a cat or kitten appear in a 16 × 6 × 16 block area centered on the center of the village. (This is the same area used when a village makes an iron golem appear).
Abandoned hut
A wild black cat appears alongside a witch in the abandoned huts during the generation of the world. This cat never disappears. Other cats may appear in the hut in the same way as witches. In the Java edition, all other cats that appear in the witches’ hut (from appearance eggs and orders without a defined cat type) always appear in black. A new cat does not appear in a hut if there is already a cat in a 16×8×16 block volume.
Bedrock Edition
25% of the cats appear as kittens. During a full moon, 50% of the cats that appear are black.
Behavior
Cats are immune to fall damage, but they still avoid falling off a cliff high enough to cause fall damage normally.
Cats can see players even if they have the Invisibility status effect. With the exception of faster movement speed, kittens behave the same as adults. They hiss at Phantoms that are chasing a player. Creepers and Phantoms avoid cats, even when chasing a player, by keeping a distance of 6 and 16 blocks respectively from any cat. However, a creeper that has begun its explosion does not flee unless the player leaves its blast radius.
Feral cat
A feral cat is an untamed cat. Naturally occurring cats always appear as feral cats. Unlike untamed wolves, stray cats can become untamed naturally. They chase and attack chickens, rabbits, and baby turtles up to 15 blocks away. Even if they appear in villages, they do not necessarily stay there; instead, they explore.
They sprint away from any player within 7 blocks (unless the player is sneaking or the difficulty is set to peaceful), and avoid players within 16 blocks. However, they slowly approach a player holding raw cod or salmon within 10 blocks, allowing the player to feed and tame it. If the player turns around too quickly or stops holding the fish within 6 blocks, the cat runs away and does not attempt to approach the player for a few seconds.
Feral cats can be leashed.
Tame Cat
Unless ordered to sit, tame cats do not stay still for long and explore the player’s surroundings.
A cat that is not already sitting will attempt to climb onto chests, bed legs, or ovens active at the cat’s current Y level in a square of 4 blocks horizontal radius, and once on top, will often assume a sitting position without a player’s command. A cat can also try to sit on these blocks if they are at ground level. A box on which a cat is sitting becomes unusable unless the cat is ordered to stand up. Cats that are sitting on their own can be ordered to stand up, or they can stand up if the player is holding a raw fish nearby. The cat can also be knocked down by removing the block or by pushing it. A cat can also be forcibly moved by attacking it. A cat cannot sit on a block that is obstructed by another block above it.
Like other creatures, cats will enter nearby ships and trap themselves.
If a player is wounded by a hostile creature or a wounding potion, but not by environmental damage, a cat sitting near the player gets up, moves a few blocks from its sitting position, and then sits back down.
Gifts
When the player is sleeping, the tamed cats move to their owner and sleep next to him. When the player wakes up, his or her tame cats also wake up. There is a 70% chance that a tamed cat will give the player a gift after waking up, but only if the player sleeps through the night (if the player sleeps through a storm during the day, or if the tamed cat has been told to sit down, the player will not receive a gift).
Here are the percentage chances of getting the gifts from the cats :
- Rabbit’s foot : 16.1
- Rabbit skin : 16.1
- String : 16.1
- Putrefied flesh: 16.1
- Feather : 16.1
- Raw chicken : 16.1
- Phantom membrane : 3.2
When a cat gives a gift, the cat and gift are in the general area of the bed the player slept on, including the other side of the walls or floor.
If a player has more than one tame cat standing in the area, only the tame cat that is sleeping on top of the player can offer a gift. If all the tame cats standing in the area cannot reach the player (for example, if they are trapped in cars or boats), then in the Java Edition each cat has a 70% chance of offering a gift, while in the Bedrock Edition only one cat can offer a gift.
Appearance
Although they share the same model, the cats are smaller than the ocelots. There are currently 11 skins that cats can have. One of them was designed after Jellie, the cat of YouTubers GoodTimesWithScar, and was chosen by the community in a vote on Twitter. The current skins are as follows :
Like tame wolves, tame cats also have a collar around their neck. The color of the cat’s collar is red when tamed and can be changed with dyes.
