Pokémon breeding
Pokémon breeding is a method of making a new Pokémon by producing and hatching a Pokémon egg. In the anime, it also refers to Pokémon grooming and caretaking.
How to Breed
Pokémon can be breed by leaving two compatible Pokémon at the Pokémon Daycare in Generation II and Generation III. Two Pokémon are compatible if they are of opposite gender, share one Egg Group (see below), or one of them is Ditto. Legendary and baby Pokémon cannot breed. Pokémon with gender unknown can only breed with Ditto. After returning to the Daycare, the old man will be outside (Generation II) or out of line with the fence (Generation III). The man will hand you an egg. After walking around for a while, the egg should hatch into a level 5 version of the bottom of the female's evolutionary chain.
Examples:
+ 
= 
♀ + ♂ =
However, there are three pairs of Pokémon species where the male and female are treated as different Pokémon. In these cases, the egg may hatch into either the male or female species:
Passing Moves Down
The moves obtained by a Pokémon when hatching are as follows:
- The Pokémon will start with any moves that it would learn at a level of 5 or lower.
- The Pokémon will start with any moves that it would learn by leveling up only if both parents know the move.
- The Pokémon will start with any TM or HM moves that the father knows and the baby can also learn by machine.
- The Pokémon will start with any Egg Moves that the baby can learn and the father knows.
The moves will take precedence in the order listed, and if there are more then four moves to learn, the moves will start being knocked off much like at the Pokémon Daycare.
Inheriting Stats
A Pokémon's Individual Values are also passed down. This is determined differently between Generation II and III games.
Generation II
In Generation II games, the baby inherited its stats from the parent of the opposite gender, unless one parent was Ditto, and in that case it would inherited from Ditto. The Defense Individual Value is passed, and also either the Special Individual Value, or the Special plus or minus 8, depending on whither it was origianally greater or less than 8. Whether Special changed or not is determined at random. Attack and Speed are determined at random.
When determining if two Pokémon are compatable, if the Defense Individual Values are the same, and the Special is the same, or 8 off, they are incompatable. This means they are related, and no egg will be produced.
Generation III
In these games, three of the baby's Individual Values are inherited from either parent, the other three are determined at random.
In Pokémon Emerald, if the mother (or Ditto) is holding an Everstone the baby will inherit that Pokémon's Nature.
