Critters and Companions is a Minecraft mod that adds sixteen small animals to the Overworld, from Ferrets and Red Pandas in the forests and jungles to Otters, Koi and Sea Bunnies in the water. Most of them can be tamed, and quite a few of them do something useful once they are, rather than just following you around.
There’s a Ferret that digs up treasure for you, a Dumbo Octopus that gives you air when you’re drowning, Otters that crack open 
Clams for 
Pearls and a set of newer bugs that heal, guard or carry things for you. This guide goes through where to find each one, what you need to tame it and what it’s actually worth having it for.
Getting Started
Nothing in this mod needs a crafting table or a special block to get going, as everything starts with finding an animal and holding the right item. The steps below get you from a fresh world to your first tamed critter, and the taming table further down lists what each of them wants.
Head to a Forest or a Lush Cave
Where most of the critters live
Forests are the best place to start, as Ferrets, Jumping Spiders and all six of the newer bugs spawn in them. If you’ve found a Lush Cave, that’s even better, as the mod runs its own spawner down there while you’re inside it and eight different species turn up, which is more than anywhere else in the world.
Bring a stack of the taming item
Every attempt uses one up
Taming works the same way for every tameable critter. You right-click it with its taming item, the item is used up every time and there’s a 1 in 10 chance it works, so you’ll want a proper stack with you rather than a handful. A Ferret wants 
Raw Rabbit, a Red Panda wants 
Sweet Berries and the bugs mostly want Mushrooms or Leaves.
Tame it and set it to sit or follow
Right-click with anything else
Once hearts appear, it’s yours. Right-clicking it again with anything that isn’t its food will switch it between sitting and following you, and feeding it its food item heals it when it’s hurt. A tamed critter also slowly heals on its own over time, and it won’t despawn, which matters for the bugs as wild ones do.
Pick the ones that help you
Not every critter has a job
You’ll want to be a bit choosy, as some of them are there to be looked at and some of them change how you play. The Ferret, the Dumbo Octopus, the Otter and the Ladybug are the ones worth keeping around, and the sections below explain what each one does to earn its place.
How Taming Works
Every tameable critter in the mod uses the same system, so once you’ve tamed one you know how to tame the rest. The only thing that changes is the item, and some of them use one item to tame and a different one to heal and breed, which catches people out with the Ferret in particular.
| Critter | Tame With | Heal and Breed With |
|---|---|---|
| Ferret | Raw Rabbit | Raw Chicken |
| Red Panda | Sweet Berries | Bamboo |
| Jumping Spider | Dragonfly Wing | Dragonfly Wing |
| Dragonfly | Spider Eye | Spider Eye (can’t breed) |
| Shima Enaga | Seeds | Seeds |
| Ladybug | Red or Brown Mushroom | Red or Brown Mushroom |
| Roly-Poly | Red or Brown Mushroom | Dead Bush |
| Snail | Any Leaves | Carrot |
| Stag Beetle | Sweet Berries or Glow Berries | Sweet Berries or Glow Berries |
| Stick Bug | Any Leaves | Any Leaves |
| Acorn Weevil | Acorn | Acorn |
| Otter | Can’t be tamed | Fish or Clams |
| Leaf Insect | Can’t be tamed | Leaves |
| Sea Bunny | Can’t be tamed | Sponge or Wet Sponge |
| Koi Fish, Dumbo Octopus | Can’t be tamed | Don’t breed |
The taming item is used up on every try, whether it works or not, and the chance is 1 in 10 each time. That’s why a stack of the right item is the thing to bring, as you might get lucky on the first go but you might also go through fifteen or twenty before the hearts show up.
Babies bred from a tamed pair come out already tamed to you, which makes breeding the easy way to get a second or third of anything. Red Panda babies are the exception, as they’re born wild. Wild bugs, Dragonflies, Jumping Spiders and Leaf Insects also despawn when you’re far away, so tame them or use a 
Name Tag if you want them to stick around.
Ferret
The Ferret is the critter most people come to this mod for, and it’s the only one that finds treasure for you. It’s a fast little animal with a red collar, and it will hunt Chickens and Rabbits on its own, which is worth remembering if you keep either of them near your base.
Where to Find Ferrets
Ferrets spawn in groups of two or three in Plains and in the forest biomes, so they’re one of the easier critters to come across early on. Spawned adults sometimes turn up with a few babies following them, and a wild Ferret will run away from you if you hit it, so don’t swing at one you want to tame.
Taming a Ferret
You tame a Ferret with Raw Rabbit, not Raw Chicken. Right-click it with the Rabbit and there’s a 1 in 10 chance each time, and every piece is used up either way. 
Raw Chicken is still useful, as it’s the food you use to heal a hurt Ferret and to breed two of them, and babies from a tamed pair are born tamed to you.
Digging for Treasure
Once you have a tamed adult Ferret, stand it on Dirt, Grass, Sand or Gravel and right-click it with Raw Rabbit while it’s standing up. It will dig for a couple of seconds and drop an item along with a bit of experience, and then it needs about five minutes before it can dig again.
Ferret Digging
Bone 
Rotten Flesh 
String 
Sweet Berries 
Gold Nugget 
Flint 
Rabbit Hide 
Bottle o' Enchanting 
Golden Apple 
Name Tag 
Totem of Undying Most digs turn up junk like Bones, String or Flint, but there’s a small chance of a Golden Apple or a Name Tag, and a 2% chance of a Totem of Undying. That’s the reason to keep more than one Ferret, as each one has its own cooldown, so a few of them dug in a row every five minutes adds up.
Collar Colors
A tamed Ferret wears a red collar by default, and you can change it by right-clicking the Ferret with any Dye. It doesn’t change anything about how the Ferret behaves, but it’s handy for telling several of them apart, and it’s the easiest way to see at a glance which ones are yours.
Jumping Spider
The Jumping Spider is a small, fuzzy spider with big eyes that never attacks players, even wild ones. It hunts Endermites, Silverfish and Dragonflies instead, and both Endermites and Silverfish will run away from a Jumping Spider, which makes a tamed one a nice thing to have around in a Stronghold.
Where to Find Jumping Spiders
They spawn on their own in jungles and forests, but they’re fairly rare there, and Lush Caves are the better place to look. There are eight different colors of Jumping Spider, and if you don’t like spiders at all, the mod comes with a built-in resource pack called Friendly Art that swaps it for a more cartoon look.
Taming a Jumping Spider
To tame one you’ll need 
Dragonfly Wings, which drop from Dragonflies and also turn up in 
Silk Cocoons. It’s the usual 1 in 10 chance per wing, so bring a good few. The Jumping Spider doesn’t heal on its own like most tamed critters do, so feed it more Dragonfly Wings whenever it’s been hurt.
What a Tamed Jumping Spider Does
A tamed Jumping Spider attacks whatever you attack, and it leaps at targets that are a few blocks away, hitting for 8 damage, which is a lot for something this small. It won’t jump in to defend you when you’re the one getting hit though, so it follows your lead rather than guarding you like a Wolf would.
It also can’t be poisoned, it isn’t slowed down by Cobwebs and it takes less fall damage than most mobs. Killed Jumping Spiders drop 
Silk and 
Spider Eyes, and the Silk is used for a couple of the mod’s best items, which are covered in the next section.
Silk Cocoons and Silk Items
Silk Cocoons are small white cocoons that generate in the world, and breaking one is the main way to get Silk. They’re one of the most searched-for things in the mod, as Silk goes into the 
Silk Lead and the 
Grappling Hook, and a cocoon has a chance of dropping 
Ender Pearls as well.
Where to Find Silk Cocoons
Cocoons generate in forest and jungle biomes, somewhere between y 60 and y 140, either sitting on the ground or hanging under blocks and leaves. Lush Caves have them too, and they’re a lot denser down there, so a Lush Cave is the quickest way to collect a stack of them in one trip.
Breaking a cocoon by hand gives you three to five Silk and a couple of random extras, and there’s a separate chance of an Ender Pearl or a Name Tag. If you break it with 
Shears you get the cocoon itself instead, which you can place as decoration, so don’t use Shears if it’s the Silk you’re after.
Silk Cocoon Drops
Silk 
Ender Pearl Name Tag 
Dragonfly Wing 
Slimeball 
Spider Eye Rabbit Hide 
Coal 
Iron Nugget Bone The extras are rolled twice per cocoon, so you’ll usually get some Spider Eyes, Coal, Iron Nuggets or Bones alongside the Silk, and every so often a Dragonfly Wing or a couple of Slime Balls. Keep the Dragonfly Wings, as they’re what you need to tame a Jumping Spider.
Silk Lead
The Silk Lead is made from four Silk and a Slime Ball, and it’s a much stronger version of the normal Lead. It can hold any living mob, hostile ones and Villagers included, so you can walk a Zombie or a Villager wherever you need it to go, which is the main reason to make one.
It can also tie two mobs together. With one mob already on the Silk Lead, put the lead away and right-click a second mob, and the two will be tied to each other with your hand free. Right-click a leashed mob again to untie it, and the lead drops back out for you to pick up.
Grappling Hook
The Grappling Hook is made from four Silk and an 
Iron Ingot, and it’s the mod’s traversal tool. Right-click to throw the hook, and it sticks to whatever block it hits, and from then on you’re tethered to that spot, so you’ll swing on it rather than being able to walk further away.
Right-click again to pull yourself toward the hook, which uses a point of durability and brings the hook back. The line snaps if you get more than 32 blocks away or put the hook away, and it has 256 durability, repaired with Silk. The pull is quick, so practice over water first, as hitting a wall at speed can still hurt.
Otters, Clams and Pearls
Otters can’t be tamed, but they’re the only way to turn Clams into Pearls, and Pearls go into the mod’s Pearl Necklace. Otters live in rivers in small groups, they swim on their backs and they’ll hunt fish, so you’ll usually spot one floating around the edge of a river somewhere.
Getting Clams
Clams come from fishing anywhere, about one catch in ten, and from underwater loot. Shipwreck treasure chests and Underwater Ruin chests can have an extra Clam, Drowned sometimes drop one in place of Rotten Flesh, and a few Drowned spawn holding a Clam in their off hand, which they always drop when they die.
Opening Clams
Drop a Clam near an Otter or hand it one with a right-click, and the Otter will crack it open for you. There’s a 25% chance of a Pearl each time, so bring a good few Clams rather than one or two. Otters also breed with fish or Clams, which is worth doing if you want a few of them near your base.
Clams that don’t come out as Pearls aren’t wasted though, as a Clam can be crafted into three 
Bone Meal. Pearls can also be combined with 
Popped Chorus Fruit to make an Ender Pearl, which is a handy extra source if you’re short on Endermen to farm.
Pearl Necklace
The 
Pearl Necklace starts from four Pearls, and you add one more Pearl to go up a level, up to level three. Each level makes you swim 20% faster and makes Drowned notice you from 10% less far away, and from level two it also cuts how far Guardians can see you by 10% per level.
A level three necklace gives you 60% more swim speed, which makes a real difference when you’re clearing an Ocean Monument or hunting for Shipwrecks. It’s a lot of Clams to get there, so pair it with a couple of Otters near the water and it’s a job you can do over a few sessions.
The Pearl Necklace only works when it’s worn, and it goes in a necklace accessory slot, which comes from the Curios mod. Carrying it in your inventory does nothing at all, so if you don’t have Curios installed there’s nowhere for it to go and nothing for it to do.
Red Panda
The Red Panda only spawns in jungles, on its own or in pairs, so you’ll have to travel a bit to find one. When a player walks up close, a wild Red Panda will stand up on its back legs for a moment, and it has no drops, so there’s no reason to hurt one while you’re looking for them.
Taming a Red Panda
You tame a Red Panda with Sweet Berries, at the usual 1 in 10 chance per berry, and you heal and breed it with 
Bamboo. Babies from two tamed Red Pandas are born wild though, unlike almost every other critter in the mod, so each baby will need taming again with more Sweet Berries.
What a Tamed Red Panda Does
A tamed Red Panda stands up when an angry neutral mob gets close, like a Bee, Wolf, Enderman or Iron Golem, and while it’s standing those mobs run away from it. That makes it more useful than it looks, as it can keep an angry Enderman or a hive of Bees off you without anything having to fight.
Tamed ones will also lie on your bed and relax on you when you’re nearby, and they’ll sprint to keep up when following. Wild Red Pandas no longer sleep through the day, so you won’t have to wait around for one to wake up before you can get its attention.
Dragonfly
Dragonflies hover over rivers, swamps and Mangrove Swamps, and they’re common in Lush Caves too. They’re tiny, with only a couple of hearts, but a tamed one will attack whatever hurts you, and it’s the only critter in the mod that can wear armor, which is how you stop it dying in one hit.
Taming a Dragonfly
You tame a Dragonfly with a Spider Eye, and feeding it more Spider Eyes heals it, though Dragonflies can’t be bred. A tamed Dragonfly gets double the health of a wild one, and it will keep clear of Jumping Spiders unless they’re yours too. It can’t be put on a lead and it doesn’t take fall damage.
Dragonfly Armor
Dragonfly Armor comes in Iron, Gold, Diamond and Netherite. Right-click your tamed Dragonfly with a piece to put it on, and sneak and right-click with an empty hand to take it off. The first three are three Iron Ingots, 
Gold Ingots or 
Diamonds in a diagonal line, and Netherite is an upgrade at a Smithing Table.
Iron
Gold
Diamond
Netherite
Gold is actually a step down from Iron, so there’s no reason to use it unless it’s all you have to hand. Diamond is the first tier that adds toughness, which takes the edge off bigger hits, and it’s the one to put on a Dragonfly you plan to take out exploring with you.
Netherite is the one to aim for, as it gives a Dragonfly twice the armor of Diamond. You make it from a 
Diamond Dragonfly Armor, a 
Netherite Ingot and a 
Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template, the same way you’d upgrade your own gear, and it’s the only armor that lets a Dragonfly survive a real fight.
The Newer Bugs
Six small bugs were added to the mod more recently: the Ladybug, Roly-Poly, Snail, Stag Beetle, Stick Bug and Acorn Weevil. They all spawn in forests and Lush Caves, on Grass, Moss, Podzol or Rooted Dirt, and wild ones despawn when you walk away, so tame them or name them if you want to keep them.
Ladybug
The Ladybug is a healer. Tame one with a 
Red Mushroom or a 
Brown Mushroom, and every few seconds it gives Regeneration to your other tamed animals within four blocks that are hurt. That works on vanilla Wolves, Cats and Parrots too, so it’s a good one to keep near a group of pets.
It flies and takes no fall damage, and a tamed one slowly heals itself like the rest of the critters. The aura only reaches pets that are actually hurt, so it’s something to leave near your animal pens rather than take out exploring with you.
Roly-Poly
The Roly-Poly is a pack animal. Tame it with a Mushroom, heal and breed it with a 
Dead Bush, and then right-click a tamed adult with a 
Chest to strap it on. Sneak and right-click it to open a small ten-slot inventory, and if it dies, the Chest and everything in it drop on the ground.
Snail
The Snail is tamed with any Leaves and healed or bred with 
Carrots. Tell it to sit and it hides in its shell, which gives it a big boost to armor, so it’s hard to kill while it’s tucked away. It’s the slowest mob in the mod, and if you name it Gary it gets a few special sounds.
Right-click a Snail with a 
Glass Bottle to fill a 
Snail Slime Bottle, which works on wild ones as well, and then that Snail needs five minutes before you can fill another. Snail Slime Bottles are used to brew Potions of Resistance, and one can also be crafted into a Slime Ball.
| Brew | Result |
|---|---|
| Awkward Potion + Snail Slime Bottle | Potion of Resistance (3:00) |
| Potion of Resistance + Glowstone Dust | Potion of Resistance II (1:30) |
| Potion of Resistance + Redstone | Potion of Resistance (8:00) |
Resistance isn’t a potion vanilla lets you brew, so this is a new option for boss fights, and Splash and Lingering versions work the usual way with Gunpowder and Dragon’s Breath. A couple of Snails in a pen near your brewing stand will keep you stocked, as their slime is the only ingredient you can’t find lying around.
Stag Beetle
The Stag Beetle is tamed with Sweet Berries or 
Glow Berries, and a tamed one fights for you. It attacks whatever hurts you and whatever you attack, hitting for 4 damage with heavy knockback, and arrows and other projectiles can’t hurt it at all, which makes it a good bodyguard against Skeletons.
Stick Bug
The Stick Bug is tamed and bred with any Leaves, and its trick is that Illagers are scared of it. Pillagers, Vindicators and Evokers will run from a Stick Bug that’s within eight blocks, so a few of them sitting around your village can keep a raid party from getting close to your Villagers.
Acorn Weevil
The Acorn Weevil is tamed and bred with 
Acorns, which drop from breaking 
Oak Leaves, with Fortune raising the chance. A tamed adult throws Mud Balls at whatever hurts you or whatever you attack, about one a second for 3 damage, so it’s a small ranged defender that stays behind the fight.
Acorns can also be made into an 
Acorn Hat, five of them in a helmet shape. It’s a weak helmet for armor, but it gives you two extra hearts of max health while you wear it, which is a nice early game boost before you have a proper Iron Helmet.
The hat is repaired with more Acorns, and it can be enchanted like any other helmet. Breaking Oak Leaves with a Fortune tool is the quickest way to build up a pile of Acorns, and you’ll want plenty anyway, as they’re also what you tame and breed the Acorn Weevil with.
Ocean Critters
Three of the critters live in the water, and none of them can be tamed. The Dumbo Octopus is the one to know about, as it helps you breathe, and the other two, the Sea Bunny and the Koi Fish, give you useful items and a small bonus to your luck.
Dumbo Octopus
The Dumbo Octopus lives in oceans and warm oceans, and it doesn’t need taming to help you. When your air drops below half, any Dumbo Octopus within a few blocks swims over and gives you a bubble, and your air stays at half for as long as it’s close by. It won’t do anything while your air bar is still above half.
Sea Bunny
Sea Bunnies are tiny sea slugs that climb the walls in warm and lukewarm oceans. Right-click one with a Glass Bottle to get a 
Sea Bunny Slime Bottle, with a five-minute wait before the same Sea Bunny gives you another, and you can breed them with a 
Sponge or 
Wet Sponge to get more.
Four Sea Bunny Slime Bottles make a 
Sea Bunny Slime Block. You can walk right through it, and anything inside it counts as being in water, so you can swim up through it and it cancels fall damage. It’s sticky for pistons, which makes it handy for builds where you’d normally use a Slime Block.
The bottles are also an easy source of Slime Balls, as each one crafts into a single Slime Ball. That’s handy if you’d rather not go looking for Slimes in a swamp or dig around for a slime chunk, since a couple of Sea Bunnies will keep giving you bottles every five minutes.
Koi Fish
Koi Fish swim in rivers in small schools and come in over twenty color patterns. If three or more of them are within ten blocks of you, you get the Luck effect for as long as you stay nearby, which is a nice reason to build a pond right next to where you go fishing.
A 
Water Bucket scoops one up to move it, and killing one drops a 
Koi Fish item. Cats and Ocelots can be tamed and bred with Koi Fish, and Axolotls will hunt them, so keep your Axolotls out of the pond. Koi also turn up while fishing, about one catch in twenty.
Leaf Insect and Shima Enaga
The last two critters are mostly there for the look of them, though the Leaf Insect has one handy trick. Neither of them can be tamed, the Leaf Insect because it’s a wild animal and the Shima Enaga because it’s a flying bird that just follows other mobs around.
Leaf Insect
Leaf Insects live in jungles and forests and look just like a leaf. They can be bred with Leaves, and they’ll pick up any Leaves blocks you drop and eat them, dropping whatever that leaf block would normally drop, so Saplings, Sticks and Apples. A few of them in a pen will turn a pile of spare Leaves into Saplings for you.
Shima Enaga
The Shima Enaga is a small round white bird that spawns in snowy biomes, on grass rather than in the frozen water. It flies around following other mobs and it doesn’t have a job, but it drops a few 
Feathers when it dies, so it’s a way to get Feathers if you’re somewhere cold without any Chickens.
Tips
Always bring a full stack of the taming item, as the 1 in 10 chance means it can take a while. Raw Rabbit for Ferrets is the one people get wrong, as older guides say Raw Chicken, and Chicken now only heals and breeds them. If you’re throwing items at a Ferret and nothing happens, check what you’re holding first.
Breed your favorites once you have two, since babies from a tamed pair come out tamed. It’s a lot quicker than finding and taming a second wild one, especially for the Ferret, as several Ferrets digging on their own cooldowns is how you actually see Totems of Undying turn up.
Head to a Lush Cave early if you have one nearby. Eight of the critters spawn there, including Jumping Spiders, Dragonflies and all the new bugs, and the cave is also full of Silk Cocoons, so one trip down can get you your first Grappling Hook and a couple of tamed pets at the same time.
Put your Dragonfly in Diamond or Netherite armor before you take it anywhere dangerous. Even with armor it’s a small mob, so keep it sitting at home when you go somewhere like the Nether, and keep a Ladybug nearby to heal your other pets after a fight.
FAQ
Right-click a Ferret with Raw Rabbit. Every piece is used up and there’s a 1 in 10 chance each time, so bring a stack. Raw Chicken doesn’t tame it, but it does heal a tamed Ferret and breeds two of them, and once it’s tamed you use Raw Rabbit again to make it dig for treasure.
No, Otters can’t be tamed in Critters and Companions. They’re still worth finding though, as they’re the only way to open Clams into Pearls, with a 25% chance per Clam. Drop Clams near an Otter or hand them over, and breed them with fish or Clams to keep a few near your base.
Find one in a jungle and right-click it with Sweet Berries, which has a 1 in 10 chance each time. Once it’s tamed, heal and breed it with Bamboo. Babies from two tamed Red Pandas are born wild, so each baby needs taming again with more Sweet Berries before it will follow you.
Silk Cocoons generate in forest and jungle biomes between y 60 and 140, on the ground or hanging under leaves, and in Lush Caves, where they’re much more common. Break one by hand for three to five Silk and a chance at an Ender Pearl, or use Shears to pick up the cocoon itself.
