Minecraft wiki entry for Things_not_to_do, associated text: However, there is a benefit to using a sword instead of an axe to slaughter animals when the sword is enchanted with Looting or Fire Aspect, as these enchantments are unavailable to axes in survival and can cause additional resources to drop from the animals you kill or cook meat without having to do so in a furnace, respectively. To avoid doing a sweep attack with a sword, either attack the animal while sprinting or jump and attack the animals in midair, as doing either of these actions prevent a sweep attack from occurring. In addition, attacking animals while falling after a jump causes a critical hit, which can provide enough of a damage boost to kill the animal in a single strike.