Breeding

Breeding is the method of choosing two of your Pokemon to send to the local region's Day Care in the hopes that the pair will produce an Egg. This is a useful technique to raise Pokemon with unusual attributes, such as elevated Attack, Defense, Speed, etc compared to members of the same species on a similar level. Pokémon that are hatched from Eggs can have access to stronger attacks earlier than normal, such as learning a parent's TM or HM move. Some Pokémon, like Pichu, can learn a move the parents would never learn, such as Volt Tackle.

Locations
The locations of the Day Care center depends on the versions of the game.
 * Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal - Route 34
 * Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - Route 117
 * Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen - Four Island
 * Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum - Solaceon Town
 * Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver - Route 34
 * Pokémon Black/White - Route 3

Conditions
When the Day Care Center alerts you of a new Egg, you must work at hatching it. You must have an empty slot on your team to accept the Egg. The Day Care center will keep it if you did not do so. Every egg has a special number of steps required to hatch it, so travel around the region (a bicycle will be much quicker) and hatch the egg.

Certain conditions must be met to create an Egg. The two Pokémon left at the Day Care Center must be opposite genders and they must like each other. Talk to the person in front of the Day Care Center to see whether the two Pokémon are compatible. He will tell you whether your Pokémon have an egg. When an Egg is created, the resulting Pokémon is the most basic form of the female parent Pokémon.

Pokémon keep track of family trees. You cannot mate the offspring of a Pokémon with its parent, even if they are compatible.

Some Pokémon cannot produce Eggs, such as the Legendary Pokémon (except Manaphy), and baby Pokémon such as Pichu cannot produce Eggs. Some Pokémon belong to multiple groups, meaning they can breed with more Pokémon.

Hatching
When you carry an egg, you need to walk a number of steps for it to hatch. Different eggs have different amount of steps for it to hatch. The number of steps for the Pokémon eggs to hatch depends on the following factors:
 * If you breed two of the same species of Pokémon, the egg will hatch faster.Also if it the same type.
 * If you breed two Pokémon that like each other, the egg will hatch faster (slower than the first one).
 * If you breed one Pokémon with Ditto, Pokémon may hatch slower, depending whether they like each other.
 * If you breed two Pokémon that does not seems to like each other, but can lay an egg, the egg will hatch slower.
 * If the Pokémon is a rare species (e.g. Dratini), the egg will hatch slower.
 * If you carry a Magcargo with the ablility Magma Body in the same party as your egg it will speed up the hatching process.

When the egg is about to hatch, the players roaming around the maps will receive a message. Then the screen will show you to egg being hatched into a new baby Pokémon.

The baby Pokémon will be at Level 5 when hatched (Level 1 in Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum).



Breeding Moves and Stats
Newborn Pokémon inherit stats from the parent of the opposite gender. If the baby Pokémon is male, it enjoys the stat increases of the female parent Pokémon. If the baby Pokémon is female, it earns the stat upgrades of the male parent Pokémon. The offspring will be Level 5 (Level 1 in Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum), but loaded with power.

Certain held items can also be used to pass on stats regardless of gender. These items include: Power bracer, Power belt, Power band, power lens, power anklet, and power weight. Wich stat inherited depends on the item:

HP-Power weight

Attack-Power Bracer

Defense-PowerBelt

Special Attack- Power Lens

Special Defense-Power Band

Speed-Power Anklet

If a pokemon holds an everstone while breeding the offspring has a 50% chance of inheriting the nature.

Your new Pokémon can inherit moves from its parents, some high-level moves can be learned by the offspring. For example, if you have a Blaziken with the move Overheat, which is learnable from TM that can only be use once, it's offspring that is the opposite gender of its parents will learn Overheat.

There are three types of moves that can be taught through this strategy.

Learned Moves - It is the moves that any Pokémon caught in the wild would know at Level 5.

Inherited Moves - It is the moves learned through the Evolutionary process or via a TM can be passed from the male parent Pokémon, even if the move cannot be learned or used until after Level 5.

Egg Moves - Egg Moves are learned from the male parent Pokémon, but these are different than Inherited Moves. Egg Moves are moves the Pokémon would not normally be able to learn.

When a Pokémon hatches, it has the moves a wild Pokémon at Level 5 would know. For example, Pichu will know Thundershock and Charm. The Pokémon has enough room to learn two more moves: these spots can be filled with Inherited Moves. If the Pokémon has access to more moves than you have empty space for, it will replace the Learned Moves with the Inherited and Egg Moves.

If both parents know the same high-level move, the baby Pokémon will also know it, despite being Level 5. Also, TM moves you would normally have one shot at using can be "re-used" by breeding the move down from the male parent Pokémon.

By Breeding
The list below shows the Pokémon that cannot be caught in the wild but can be obtainable by breeding.

* can be caught in the wild in Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. But not in other versions.

By Breeding While Holding an Item
The table below shows the Pokémon that requires a parent to hold a special item in order to obtain that particular baby Pokémon.

Breeding Groups
These tables display Pokémon that can breed with other Pokémon from the same group. For example, Pikachu can breed with Marill as they are found in the same group. Those that belongs to Group 0 cannot produce Eggs.

Group 0 - No Eggs-Group
Note: All Legendary Pokémon, except Manaphy, cannot breed.Rotom can breed but only with Ditto

Group 14 - Ditto Group
This group consists of Pokémon that can breed with all the Pokémon from Group 1 to Group 13, and the egg will produce the most basic form of Pokémon in Group 1 to 13.

Please edit the group 1 to 13 because it only contains the Hoenn region Pokémon.

Trivia

 * ﻿The first hatchable egg appeared in pokemon Gold and Silver. Togepi hatched from it.
 * No one really knows where eggs come from.
 * Togepi evolves to Togetic much faster than other egg pokemon, still, it will depend on how happy you make Togepi