Shears

Shears

160px

Rarity color	Common
Durability	238
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	No

Shears are tools used primarily to shear sheep to get wool and mine a few types of blocks.

Obtaining

Crafting

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Description
Shears	Iron Ingot
Shears	Damaged Shears		The durability of the two shears is added together, plus an extra 5% durability.

Trading

Novice-level Shepherd villagers have a 40% chance to sell shears for 2 emeralds in Java Edition, and the trade is always offered in Bedrock Edition.

Natural generation

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition
Shears	Village	Shepherd's chest	1	12.3%
Bedrock Edition
Shears	Village	Shepherd's chest	1	12.3%

Usage

Despite using iron in its crafting recipe, it cannot be smelted into iron nuggets.

Shearing

Shears are the most efficient way to get wool from a sheep, producing 1–3 wool. The same sheep can be sheared again after it eats from a grass block to regenerate its wool. In contrast, killing the sheep yields only 1 non-renewable wool block.

Shearing a mooshroom drops 5 mushrooms of the same color and turns it into a normal cow.

Shearing a pumpkin turns it into a carved pumpkin after dropping 4 pumpkin seeds in Java Edition or 1-3 pumpkin seeds in Bedrock Edition.

Shearing a snow golem removes its pumpkin, dropping it.

Shearing either a beehive or bee nest at honey level 5 drops 3 honeycombs. This does not break the hive or nest.

In Minecraft Earth, shears can be used to get Buttercups from Mooblooms and Wool from Wooly Cows and variant Sheep.

Breaking Blocks

Shears can also be used to harvest blocks of wool, cobweb, leaves, tall grass, seagrass, ferns (both normal and 2-high), dead bushes, nether sprouts, vines, weeping vines, twisting vines and glow lichen‌^{[upcoming: 1.17]}. They can also be used to break tripwire connected to a tripwire hook without activating it.

When used to break weeping vines and twisting vines, the block always drops as an item, instead of a 33% chance by normal means.

The shears use 1 durability when it is used to break any block, even if it breaks instantly by hand.

The following table shows information about blocks that can be broken with shears. Colors indicate what gets dropped when the block is broken:

• White: The original block.
• Blue: The Block's normal drop (i.e. string, sticks, seeds, sapling, apple).
• Red: Nothing.

	No shears breaking time	Shears breaking time
Cobweb	Template:Tc	0.4 s
Dead Bush	Template:Tc	0 s
Fern	Template:Tc	0 s
Grass	Template:Tc	0 s
Nether Sprouts	Template:Tc	0 s
Leaves	Template:Tc	0.05 s
Tripwire	0 s	0 s
Vines	Template:Tc	0.35 s
Wool	1.25 s	0.25 s
Seagrass	Template:Tc	0 s

Enchantments

Shears can receive the following enchantments via an anvil.

Name	Max Level	Method
Efficiency	V
Unbreaking	III
Mending	I
Curse of Vanishing	I
Silk Touch‌[BE only]	I

Sounds

Sound	Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
File:Shear.ogg	Shears click	Players	Plays when shearing mooshrooms	entity.mooshroom.shear	subtitles.item.shears.shear	?	?	16
File:Shear.ogg	Shears click	Players	Plays when shearing sheep	entity.sheep.shear	subtitles.item.shears.shear	?	?	16
File:Shear.ogg	Shears click	Players	Plays when shearing snow golems	entity.snow_golem.shear	subtitles.item.shears.shear	?	?	16
File:Beehive shear.ogg	Shears scrape	Blocks	Plays when harvesting honeycombs	block.beehive.shear	subtitles.block.beehive.shear	?	?	16
File:Pumpkin carve1.oggFile:Pumpkin carve2.ogg	Shears carve	Blocks	Plays when carving pumpkin	block.pumpkin.carve	?	?	?	16
File:Random break.ogg	Item breaks	Players	When durability is exhausted	entity.item.break	subtitles.entity.item.break	1.0	0.9	16

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Form	Translation key
Shears	shears	Item	item.minecraft.shears

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Shears	shears	359	Item	item.shears.name

Video

This video is outdated, since snow golems drop carved pumpkins when sheared, and cobwebs drop itself when broken with shears

History

June 3, 2011					Shears were first mentioned by Jeb on Twitter. The tweet revealing Jeb's work on shears was written in Swedish (Jag jobbar på shears nu), which translates to "I'm working on shears now".
June 7, 2011					Jeb tweets about how shears were originally planned as a way to defuse TNT, but he dropped this shortly after deciding TNT would detonate only with redstone or fire.
Java Edition Beta
1.7					32px Shears have been introduced into the game.
					Before Beta 1.7, sheep would drop 1-3 wool blocks at most when hit, but shears can harvest up to 4 wool blocks per sheep.
1.8		Pre-release			Shears can now be used to harvest a fern, vines and grass.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease			Shears now harvest red mushrooms from a mooshroom and turn it back into a normal cow.
1.1		11w49a			Sheep now drop only 1-3 wool blocks when sheared, but they can also regrow their wool by eating grass, which is part of a plan to have animals stay in the game longer.
1.2.1		12w06a			Shears can now be used to harvest dead bushes.
1.3.1		12w21a			Shears can now be bought from farmer villagers for 3 emeralds each.
		12w22a			Shears can now be used to break tripwire string and not set it off.
1.4.2		12w38a			Added a sound when using shears on sheep.
1.4.6		12w50a			Shears can now be enchanted.
1.8		14w02a			Trading has been changed: Shepherd villagers now sell shears for 3–4 emeralds each.
					Farmers no longer trade shears.
		pre1			Shears now lose durability when breaking wool blocks. In previous versions, shears would take durability damage only when destroyed or when breaking tall grass or leaves, the damage remaining the same for all other blocks.
1.9		15w34a			Shears may now be used in a crafting grid to zoom in maps.
		15w45a			Shears no longer zoom in maps.
		15w47b			Shears can no longer be enchanted with Silk Touch.
					Shears now lose durability when used to break any block (formerly lost durability only from leaves, web, grass, vines, tripwire and wool).
		15w47c			Shears now harvest cobweb without requiring Silk Touch.
		15w49a			Snow golems' pumpkin can now be removed with shears.
1.13		17w47a			When shears are used on an un-carved pumpkin, it now turns into a carved pumpkin and drops 4 pumpkin seeds.
					Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 359.
1.14		18w43a			Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep.
					32px The texture of shears has been changed.
		18w49a			Shears can now be found in chests in village shepherd houses.
1.15		19w34a			Shears can now be used on bee nests and beehives to harvest honeycomb.
1.16		20w15a			Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear mooshrooms and snow golems.
1.16.2		pre1			Shears are now required in order to pick up roots.
		pre2			Shears are no longer required to tick up roots.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.2.0					32px Added shears.
v0.3.2					Survival players no longer start out with infinite durability shears in the inventory.
v0.4.0					Removed shears from the creative inventory.
v0.8.0		build 3			Readded shears to creative mode.
v0.9.0		build 1			Shears can now be used to transform mooshrooms into cows.
v0.12.1		build 3			Shearing a snow golem now removes its pumpkin.
					Shears can now be enchanted in an anvil.
v0.13.0		build 1			Shears can now be used to break tripwire string without triggering it.
v0.15.0		build 1			Shears now lose durability when used to break any block.
Pocket Edition
1.0.4		alpha 1.0.4.0			Shears can now be bought from shepherd villagers.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Breaking a melon block with shears now always drop 9 melons.
Bedrock Edition
1.4.0		beta 1.2.13.8			Shears can now be used to turn un-carved pumpkins into carved pumpkin and spit out 4 pumpkin seeds.
?					Shears now harvest cobweb without requiring Silk Touch.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep.
					32px The texture of shears has been changed.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.1			Shears can now be found in village shepherd houses.
		beta 1.11.0.4			Shears sold by shepherd villagers now cost only 2 emeralds.
1.14.0		beta 1.14.0.1			Shears can now be used on bee nests and beehives to harvest honeycomb.
Legacy Console Edition
TU3	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	1.0.1	32px Added shears.
TU69		1.76	Patch 38		Shears can now be used to turn regular pumpkins into carved pumpkins.
		1.90			32px The texture of shears has been changed.
					Shears placed in a dispenser can now shear sheep.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					32px Added shears.

Issues

Issues relating to "Shears" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Gallery

• Enchanted Shears.gif

  An enchanted pair of shears.

References

Items

View at: Template:Items/content [edit]