If you’ve spent any time building out your Minecraft survival base, you’ve probably thought about adding a few friendly pets to the mix. Wolves guard your perimeter, cats keep creepers away, but parrots bring a unique, playful energy that no other mob can match. A lot of new players don’t know how to tame parrots in Minecraft, or make easily avoidable mistakes that cost them their feathery friend before they even get it back to base. This guide will walk you through every step of the process, from gathering supplies to keeping your parrot safe for months of in-game fun.
What You Need Before You Attempt to Tame a Parrot
You don’t need any fancy, hard-to-craft items to tame a parrot, but there are a few key things to gather before you head out looking for one. First, you’ll need a stack of crop seeds. Any type of crop seed works for taming parrots, so you can use wheat seeds, pumpkin seeds, melon seeds, or beet seeds depending on what you have growing on your farm. You don’t need enchanted gear or special potions, but it’s smart to bring a sword and some food to fight off hostile mobs you might run into in the jungle.
Next, you’ll need to find a jungle biome, since that’s the only place parrots spawn naturally. Parrots only spawn naturally in jungle biomes above Y-level 70, so you won’t find them in forests, deserts, or other biomes no matter how long you look. If you don’t have a jungle marked on your map, you can use an explorer map from a cartographer villager to speed up your search, or just wander until you spot the tall jungle trees and bright green foliage.
One last thing to leave at home before you leave: any tamed cats or ocelots. Parrots are naturally scared of these mobs, and they’ll fly away as fast as they can if you bring one within 10 blocks of them. You’ll have a way harder time getting close enough to feed a parrot if you have a cat trailing behind you, so leave your feline pets at the base for this trip.
Step-by-Step Process to Tame Your Parrot
Once you have your seeds and you’ve found a jungle with parrots spawning, the taming process itself is really straightforward. First, make sure you have your seeds selected in your hotbar, so the parrot can see you’re holding something it wants. Walk slowly toward the parrot, and don’t make any sudden movements or attack any mobs within a 10-block radius, since that will scare it off.
When you’re within 2 blocks of the parrot, right-click on it to feed it a seed. You’ll see gray particles appear if the taming attempt fails, and red hearts appear if it works. You might need to feed the parrot anywhere from 1 to 10 seeds before it’s tamed, so don’t get discouraged if the first few don’t work. Never feed parrots cookies, as they will instantly kill the mob — this is one of the most common mistakes new players make, and it’s a really sad way to lose a parrot before you even get it home.
Once you see the red hearts, the parrot is yours! Tamed parrots have a ton of fun, useful perks that make them worth the effort:
- They alert you to nearby hostile mobs by mimicking their sounds and looking in the direction of the threat, so you’ll never get snuck up on by a creeper again if you have a parrot with you
- They can perch on your shoulder when you walk through them after taming, following you anywhere you go without you having to leash them
- They dance if you play a jukebox with a music disc nearby, adding a fun, lively touch to your base when you’re hanging out between mining trips
Taming parrots is a pretty low-stakes activity, but it can get frustrating if you spend 20 minutes wandering a jungle and can’t find a single parrot, or burn through all your seeds without triggering the taming hearts. If you hit a slump, it’s totally fine to step away for 5 minutes to reset. Many players use short, casual games to fill that small break, and Slots Spin is a popular pick for quick, low-effort fun that doesn’t take long enough to throw you off your Minecraft grind.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Taming Parrots
Even though the taming process is simple, there are a few really common mistakes that players make that ruin the whole experience. First, don’t try to tame a parrot while it’s flying. Parrots fly away when they’re scared, and if you try to feed them mid-flight, you’ll almost always miss and waste your seeds. Wait until they land on a tree branch or the ground to approach them.
Second, don’t leave your tamed parrot out in the open while you’re exploring the jungle. Hostile mobs like skeletons and creepers will attack parrots just like they attack you, and parrots don’t have enough health to survive more than one or two hits. Either carry the parrot on your shoulder, or build a small temporary enclosure to keep it safe while you gather extra resources to bring home.
Keep tamed parrots away from cacti and lava, as they take damage from both just like player characters. Parrots are not the smartest mobs, and they’ll fly straight into dangerous blocks if you don’t block them off. If you have cacti growing in your base for dye, make sure you build a fence around them so your parrot can’t accidentally fly into them.
Another mistake to avoid: hitting your parrot by accident. Even if you hit it once by mistake while you’re fighting a mob, the parrot will get scared and fly away from you for a few minutes, and it might get lost if it flies too far. If you’re fighting mobs near your parrot, use a weapon with a short reach, or move the parrot to a safe spot before you start fighting.
How to Tame Parrots in Minecraft and Keep Them Safe Long-Term
Once you get your parrot back to your base, you’ll need to take a few steps to make sure it stays safe and happy for the rest of your playthrough. First, build a dedicated parrot enclosure if you don’t want it flying around your base all the time. A glass aviary works great, since you can see your parrot dancing and moving around, and it can’t escape or fly into dangerous blocks.
If you like having your parrot on your shoulder while you explore, remember that it will fall off if you jump off a block higher than 3 blocks, or if you get in a boat or minecart. If your parrot falls off in a dangerous area, stop and pick it up right away, or it might get attacked by a mob or fall into lava. You can press the sneak key to knock a parrot off your shoulder intentionally if you want to leave it at home while you go on a dangerous mining trip.
Use a name tag on your tamed parrot to prevent it from despawning if you travel far away from your base. Even tamed mobs can despawn if you’re more than 128 blocks away from them for too long, and a name tag will stop that from happening. You can get name tags from dungeon chests, fishing, or trading with librarian villagers, so they’re pretty easy to get even early in the game.
If you want to breed parrots, you’re out of luck for now — there’s no way to breed parrots in vanilla Minecraft as of the latest updates. You’ll have to go back to the jungle and tame more parrots if you want multiple feathery friends. It’s a small hassle, but it’s worth it to have a whole flock of dancing parrots in your base.
Parrots are one of the most underrated pets in Minecraft, and they add so much charm to any survival base. Whether you’re looking for a fun new base companion or a handy mob to alert you to hidden threats, learning how to tame parrots in Minecraft is a small, rewarding project that adds a ton of personality to any survival playthrough. Follow the tips we laid out, avoid the common pitfalls, and you’ll have a fluffy, dancing feathery friend following you on all your adventures in no time.