Egg

Egg

• Normal
• Blue
• Brown

Rarity tier	Common
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (16)
Size	Height: 0.25 blocks Width: 0.25 blocks

{
    "title": "Egg",
    "rows": [
        {
            "field": "Common",
            "label": "(link to Rarity article, displayed as Rarity tier)"
        },
        {
            "field": "Yes",
            "label": "(link to Renewable resource article, displayed as Renewable)"
        },
        {
            "field": "Yes (16)",
            "label": "Stackable"
        },
        {
            "field": "Height: 0.25 blocks<br>Width: 0.25 blocks",
            "label": "Size"
        }
    ],
    "invimages": [
        "Egg",
        "Blue Egg",
        "Brown Egg"
    ],
    "images": [
        "Egg.png",
        "Blue Egg.png",
        "Brown Egg.png"
    ]
}

An egg is an item that can be used to craft food items, or thrown for a chance to spawn baby chickens on impact. They have three variants based on the variant of the corresponding chicken: the standard egg for temperate chickens, brown egg for warm chickens, and blue egg for cold chickens.

Obtaining

Mob loot

Every adult chicken lays an egg item every 5–10 minutes, except for those that are or were a part of chicken jockeys. The theoretical average would be expected at 1 egg every 7.5 minutes (9000 game ticks). The type of egg being laid depends on the chicken variant; temperate chickens lay normal eggs, cold chickens lay blue eggs, and warm chickens lay brown eggs.

A fox has a 3% chance of spawning with a normal egg in its mouth, which it drops upon death. Alternatively, a player dropping a food item causes the fox to drop the egg.

Generated loot

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	[hide]Chance
Java Edition and Bedrock Edition
Egg	Trial Chambers	Chamber dispenser	4–8	6.9% { "item": "Egg", "stacksize": "4–8", "chance": 0.06896551724137934, "structure": "Trial Chambers", "container": "Chamber dispenser" }
	Village	Fletcher's chest	1–3	23.3% { "item": "Egg", "stacksize": "1–3", "chance": 0.23252875118681526, "structure": "Village", "container": "Fletcher's chest" }

Usage

Crafting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe	[hide]Description
Cake	Milk Bucket + Sugar + Any Egg + Wheat		Empty buckets remain in the crafting grid after crafting the cake.
Pumpkin Pie	Pumpkin + Sugar + Any Egg

Combat

Players are able to throw eggs and deal knockback to mobs (but not other players‌), but no damage is dealt, similar to a snowball. Likewise, throwing eggs at neutral mobs provokes them. Eggs can also be fired from dispensers and are affected by gravity. Eggs thrown through fire or lava in Bedrock Edition catch fire, and set fire to entities they hit.

Spawning chickens

When thrown by a dispenser or by pressing the use button, an egg has a ¹⁄₈ (12.5%) chance of spawning a chick. If this occurs, there is a ¹⁄₃₂ (3.125%) chance of spawning three additional chicks (on average, 1 out of every 256 eggs spawns 4 chicks). In other words, whenever an egg is thrown, there is a ³¹⁄₂₅₆ chance of spawning 1 chick and a ¹⁄₂₅₆ chance of spawning four chicks.

The chick variant depends on which egg variant was thrown; regular eggs hatch temperate chicks, blue eggs hatch cold chicks, while brown eggs hatch warm chicks.

The expected value of the number of chicks an egg produces is ³⁵⁄₂₅₆ or 13.7%. This means that on average, a chick is spawned every 7.3 eggs, a stack of 16 eggs spawns 2.188 chicks, and a full inventory including the hotbar and off-hand (37 × 16 = 592 eggs) is expected to spawn approximately 81 chicks.

For the purposes of establishing a new chicken farm with eggs alone, the probability P for at least 2 chicks to spawn after throwing n eggs can be calculated using the following formula:

$P=1-{\left(\frac{7}{8}\right)}^n-n\times \frac{1}{8}\times \frac{31}{32}\times {\left(\frac{7}{8}\right)}^{n-1}$

When throwing 16 eggs, there is a 62% chance of spawning at least two chicks. When throwing 32 eggs, the probability rises to 92%

An average of 450 seconds elapses for a chicken to lay another egg. Accounting for all probabilities, the average chicken produces 1.09 chickens per hour when all the eggs it lays are thrown.

Sounds

Java Edition:
Thrown eggs use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

[hide]Sounds
Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	​Egg flies	Players	When an egg is thrown	entity.egg.throw	subtitles.entity.egg.throw​	0.5	1⁄3-0.5	16
	​Dispensed item	Blocks	When a dispenser shoots an egg	block.dispenser.launch	subtitles.block.dispenser.dispense​	1.0	1.2	16
	​Chicken plops	Friendly Creatures	When an egg is laid by a chicken	entity.chicken.egg	subtitles.entity.chicken.egg​	1.0	0.8-1.2	16

Bedrock Edition:

[hide]Sounds
Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Players	When an egg is thrown	random.bow	0.5	0.33-0.5
	Players	When a dispenser shoots an egg	random.bow	1.0	0.83-1.25
	Friendly Creatures	When an egg is laid by a chicken	mob.chicken.plop	1.0	0.8-1.2

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	[hide]Translation key
Egg	egg	Item	item.minecraft.egg
Blue Egg	blue_egg	Item	item.minecraft.blue_egg
Brown Egg	brown_egg	Item	item.minecraft.brown_egg

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	[hide]Translation key
Thrown Egg	egg	impact_projectiles	entity.minecraft.egg

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	[hide]Translation key
Egg	egg	390	Item	item.egg.name
Blue Egg	blue_egg	749	Item	item.blue_egg.name
Brown Egg	brown_egg	750	Item	item.brown_egg.name

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	[hide]Translation key
Egg	egg	82	entity.egg.name

Entity data

Thrown eggs have entity data that define various properties of the entity.

Java Edition:

• [NBT Compound / JSON Object] Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template[show]
  • Tags common to all projectiles see Template:Nbt inherit/projectile/template[show]
  • [NBT Compound / JSON Object] Item: The item to render as, may be absent.
    • Tags common to all items see Template:Nbt inherit/itemnoslot/template[show]

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

[hide]
Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		The Lie	Bake a cake using: wheat, sugar, milk, and eggs.	Pick up a cake from a crafting table output.	30	Bronze

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Bullseye	Hit the bullseye of a Target block from at least 30 meters away	Be at least 30 blocks away horizontally when the center of a target is shot with a projectile by the player.

History

[hide]Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.14							Added eggs.
							Eggs currently have no purpose and cannot be thrown.
[hide]Java Edition Beta
1.0							Eggs are now throwable at the request of a fan as the result of a Twitter conversation about a man eating his USB, if Notch added egg throwing.
1.2							Eggs are now used to craft cakes.
							Eggs can now be thrown by dispensers.
[hide]Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2				Breeding has been added, making eggs easier to obtain.
			RC1				Thrown eggs now hatch chicks instead of adult chickens.
							The egg's throw sound has been changed.
1.4.2			12w37a				Eggs are now used to craft pumpkin pies.
1.9			15w32a				Eggs no longer damage the ender dragon.
			15w36b				Eggs now produce particles when thrown at an entity.
			15w49a				Eggs, like all throwable projectiles, now take the thrower's motion into account when fired.
1.14			18w43a				The texture of eggs has been changed.
			18w50a				Eggs can now be found in chests in village fletcher houses.
							Therefore, chickens are no longer the only source of eggs.
							Thrown egg now have an optional Item tag that can specify a different item stack to render.
			19w07a				Added foxes, which sometimes spawn with eggs in their mouths.
1.16			20w09a				Thrown eggs can now break chorus flowers.
1.16.2			Pre-Release 1				Eggs are now affected by bubble columns.
1.20.3 Experiment Update 1.21			23w45a				Eggs can now generate in trial chambers dispensers.
1.21.2			24w34a				Thrown eggs no longer go through the world border if hit.
1.21.5			25w06a				Added blue and brown eggs alongside the chicken variants they come from.
[hide]Upcoming Java Edition
Combat Tests			Combat Test 5				Eggs now do knockback to players.
[hide]Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.4.0							Added eggs. They are currently unobtainable.
							Eggs are throwable, but are unable to spawn chickens.
v0.7.0							Chickens now occasionally lay eggs.
							Eggs can be used to craft a cake.
							Thrown eggs now have a chance of spawning adult chickens.
v0.8.0			build 1				Eggs are now used to craft pumpkin pies.
			build 3				Thrown eggs now have a chance of spawning chicks instead of adult chickens.
[hide]Pocket Edition
1.1.0			alpha 1.1.0.0				The entity ID has now been changed from thrownegg to egg.
[hide]Bedrock Edition
1.2.0							Eggs now deal knockback to players.
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				The texture of eggs has been changed.
1.11.0			beta 1.11.0.1				Eggs can now be found in village fletcher chests.
			beta 1.11.0.4				Eggs can now be sold to farmer villagers.
1.13.0			beta 1.13.0.1				Added foxes, which can drop eggs.
1.16.0			beta 1.16.0.57				Trading has now been changed, eggs can no longer be sold to farmer villagers.
1.20.60 Experiment Update 1.21			Preview 1.20.60.20				Eggs can now generate in trial chambers dispensers.
1.21.70 Experiment Drop 1 2025			Preview 1.21.70.22				Added blue and brown eggs.
1.21.70			Preview 1.21.70.23				All features behind the "Drop 1 2025" experimental toggle have now been fully implemented.
[hide]Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU1	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added eggs.
TU7							Thrown eggs now hatch chicks instead of adult chickens.
TU14		1.04					Eggs are now used to craft pumpkin pies.
TU46	CU36	1.38	1.38	1.38	Patch 15		Eggs, like all throwable projectiles, now take the thrower's motion into account when fired.
			1.90				The texture of eggs has been changed.
			1.91				Eggs can now be sold to farmer villagers.
[hide]New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Added eggs.

Data history

[hide]Java Edition
1.11			16w32a				The entity ID has now been changed from ThrownEgg to egg.
1.13			17w47a				Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 344.​

Issues

Issues relating to "Egg" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• Eggs break mid-fall if hit by another projectile; the chance of spawning a chick is not affected.
• Throwing an egg at a nether portal breaks the egg when it hits the portal.
• A thrown egg faces toward the player in first-person view, while it appears rotated horizontally in third-person view. This is the case for all throwable items (ender pearls, eggs, snowballs, and all throwable potions).