What a lead does in Minecraft
A lead is a rope you attach to an animal so you can pull it around or tie it in place. If you have ever tried to walk a cow back to your base by shoving it one block at a time, a lead solves that problem. You hook the animal, and it follows you on a short tether until you let go or tie it to a fence.
Leads are cheap to make and easy to reuse, so most players carry a couple once they start building farms or moving animals between pens. They work on a long list of passive and tamed mobs, with a few exceptions worth knowing.
Here is how to craft a lead, where to find free ones, which mobs you can attach them to, and the distance rules that decide when a lead snaps.
How to craft a lead
A lead is made from four string and one slimeball. The recipe gives you two leads at once, which is handy because you rarely need just one.
In the crafting grid, place string in the top-left and top-middle squares, string in the middle-left square, a slimeball in the center, and one more string in the bottom-right square. The two diagonal pieces of string are what trips people up, so picture the slimeball wrapped at the top with a tail running down to the opposite corner.
String comes from spiders, cobwebs, fishing, or breaking tripwire. Of those, fishing is the most reliable early on, since you will pull up string regularly while you wait for better catches. Spiders are the fastest source once you have a sword, and a single spider can drop up to two string.
Slimeballs are the harder half of the recipe for most players. You get them from slimes, which spawn in swamp biomes at night and in deep underground “slime chunks” below level 40. Swamp slimes are the simpler option because you do not have to map out chunk locations first. Baby pandas also drop a slimeball when they sneeze, and you can sometimes buy slimeballs from a wandering trader. If you have a slime farm running, leads become close to free.
How to get free leads from wandering traders
You do not always have to craft a lead. Every wandering trader spawns with two trader llamas, and each llama is tied to the trader with a lead. When the trader despawns on its own, or if you deal with the trader and its llamas, those leads drop on the ground for you to pick up.
This is the easiest renewable source of leads in the game. If you set up near a spot where wandering traders keep appearing, you can collect leads over time without spending a single slimeball.
How to use a lead
Hold the lead in your hand and use it on the animal you want to attach. A taut rope appears between you and the mob, and from then on it follows you wherever you walk, staying a few blocks behind.
To leave the animal somewhere, walk it next to a fence and use the lead on the fence post. This creates a lead knot, and the animal is now tied to that spot instead of to you. The knot frees your hand so you can attach a second animal, walk away, or build a pen around it.
You can tie more than one mob to the same fence post. Players use this to park a whole group of animals in one corner while they finish a pen, then release them inside. To take a lead back, use an empty hand on the knot, or break it by attacking it.
Which mobs you can leash
Most passive and tamed mobs accept a lead. Common ones include cows, mooshrooms, sheep, pigs, goats, horses, donkeys, mules, llamas, dolphins, and striders. Tamed wolves work too, which makes moving a pack much easier.
Some mobs cannot be leashed. Hostile mobs like zombies and skeletons refuse the rope in most situations, and you cannot leash other players. Villagers are a notable case: you cannot leash a villager in Java Edition, though you can in Bedrock Edition.
Llamas have a bonus behavior. If you lead one llama and other llamas are nearby, they form a caravan and trail along behind the first one. This lets you move a long line of llamas with a single lead.
Practical uses for leads
The obvious job for a lead is moving an animal from where you found it to where you want it. Walking a horse home from a plains biome, or bringing a pair of cows back to start a breeding farm, are the trips most players make first.
Leads also help when you are sorting animals you already own. If a pen has mixed animals and you want to split them, tie the ones you are keeping to a fence, herd the rest out, and untie the keepers afterward. It beats trying to push individual mobs through a gate.
For llamas, the caravan behavior turns a lead into a moving train. Leash the front llama, and a line of others will follow it across the map. Traders who move goods between bases sometimes use this to relocate a whole herd in one trip.
Striders are the special case in the Nether. A lead lets you pull a strider off its lava lake and toward a pen, though many players prefer to ride it with a warped fungus on a stick instead. Either way, a lead is the tool that gets a strider onto solid ground in the first place.
Distance, breaking, and other mechanics
A lead has a maximum length. The animal will try to stay close while you walk, but if it gets stretched past roughly ten blocks from you or from its fence knot, the lead snaps and drops as an item. You can pick it up and reuse it.
A lead also breaks if the rope has to pass through a solid wall, or if you and the mob end up separated by a barrier. The cleanest way to move animals is over open ground with no fences or hills between you and the mob.
Leads work while you are in a boat, so you can tow a swimming or floating mob across water behind you. They do not survive a trip through a Nether portal, though. The lead breaks when you cross, so plan to re-leash the animal on the other side.
Tips and common mistakes
The most common mistake is panicking when a lead snaps. It is not gone. Look on the ground where it broke and grab the dropped item.
Move animals in pairs when you can. Tie the first one to a fence near your destination, go back for the second, and you avoid the frustration of one animal wandering loose while you fetch another.
Build the destination pen before you start hauling. A lead keeps an animal close, but it does not stop other mobs from spawning or a creeper from wandering in, so an enclosed space waiting at the end of the trip saves a lot of trouble.
Keep a spare slimeball or two in storage. Leads are the kind of item you never need until you suddenly need three, and slimeballs are the part you cannot grab on a whim.
Java and Bedrock differences
The core crafting and leashing rules are the same in both editions. The clearest difference is villagers: Bedrock lets you put a lead on a villager, and Java does not. If a tutorial shows someone walking a villager on a rope and it will not work for you, that is almost always why.
Frequently asked questions
How many leads does the recipe make?
Two. Four string and one slimeball produce two leads in a single craft.
Can you leash a villager?
Only in Bedrock Edition. In Java Edition villagers cannot be leashed, so you have to move them with boats, minecarts, or by pushing them.
How far can a lead stretch before it breaks?
Around ten blocks. If the animal gets farther than that from you or from the fence it is tied to, the lead snaps and drops as an item.
Do leads work through a Nether portal?
No. The lead breaks when you walk a mob through a portal, so you will need to re-attach it after you cross.
Can you tie more than one animal to a single fence?
Yes. A fence post can hold several lead knots at once, which is useful for parking a group of animals in one place.
Where can I find leads without crafting?
From wandering traders. Their two trader llamas are each tied with a lead, and those leads drop when the trader despawns or is dealt with.
Once you have a lead in your hotbar, moving animals stops being a chore and becomes a quick walk. If you only make one thing before starting an animal farm, make a pair of leads and keep them on you.