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Minecraft's baby mob drop: Everything you need to know about the first update for 2026

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Now that we know it's coming, here's what you need to know about baby animals and more.

Minecraft baby drop showing player feeding new baby mobs in Minecraft cherry blossom grove
(Image credit: Mojang)
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Minecraft is gearing up to release its first update for 2026, and thanks to a post shared on the official blog, we've received our first look at what it'll involve. Even with this post though, there's still a lot we don't know about the drop, like its name or release date. In fact, only one feature has been revealed so far, and much like the Spring to Life drop from March 2025, it will change the appearance of mobs we're so used to seeing. Yes, it's baby mobs.

But even though we've only seen this one feature so far, it's still worth getting excited about—especially if you're an avid farmer or general animal lover and tend to spend more time with the mobs in the overworld rather than the monsters underground. Here's everything you need to know about Minecraft's first update for 2026.

When will the Minecraft baby mob update release?

There is no concrete release date for the first Minecraft drop for 2026, though it's safe to assume it will roll out this spring. Even though the post announcing the update shared to the official blog doesn't give any indication as to when it'll launch, if it follows the same drop routine as the last two years, we could see this update as early as March.

What's included in the Minecraft baby mob drop?

Minecraft wolf puppy looking at the player with piglets and kittens behind

(Image credit: Mojang)

So far, we've only seen one feature for Minecraft's next drop: a complete re-skin of some of the baby mobs. As it currently stands, baby animals are just down-scaled skins of the adult version with larger heads. But, thanks to this update, they'll have a far cuter and more unique appearance, including single-pixel eyes rather than the adult double, and an entirely new set of audio to match their smaller size.

This overhaul applies to eight mobs within the game: cows, pigs, ocelots, cats, chickens, wolves, sheep, and rabbits. Whether or not any other baby mobs, like baby villagers or baby zombies, will get this treatment is currently unknown. It's still the early days of reveals about the next drop though, so who knows what might be unveiled in the weeks to come. Maybe every mob will get a cutesy baby equivalent.

The Spring to Life drop, which was released in March 2025, gave mobs biome variants too, and this new look will also apply to each and every version of the base mob rather than just the default skin. As for cats, all 11 variants of kittens will get the same treatment, so it's no wonder that giving baby mobs a new look has taken some time to prepare.

However, the most important element of the update to me is that this new appearance comes with an entirely new soundscape for baby mobs. Rather than the up-pitched sound effects we're used to hearing, the official blog post revealed that the team has recorded a full set of new sounds for the baby animals. According to Sandra Karlsson, the audio designer, they wanted to "capture the uniqueness of a kitten meow and a puppy yapping to let them have their own personalities and bring more life to the Minecraft universe."

Outside of baby animals, name tags are being added as a craftable item in this update, rather than sending you on a wild goose chase to try and find them. It'll be easier than ever to name your pets, as all you need is a sheet of paper and any metal nugget, but that will make it more devastating when your beloved pet plummets from a high space or accidentally takes one too many hits from an incoming zombie horde.

Kara Phillips
Kara Phillips
Evergreen Writer

Kara is an evergreen writer. Having spent four years as a games journalist guiding, reviewing, or generally waffling about the weird and wonderful, she’s more than happy to tell you all about which obscure indie games she’s managed to sink hours into this week. When she’s not raising a dodo army in Ark: Survival Evolved or taking huge losses in Tekken, you’ll find her helplessly trawling the internet for the next best birdwatching game because who wants to step outside and experience the real thing when you can so easily do it from the comfort of your living room. Right?

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