Animal Husbandry

Luring/Moving Animals

Barley	Oat	Rice	Rye	Wheat	Jute Rope

Animals will follow any type of refined grain in a similar way that vanilla animals will follow wheat, carrots and seeds. Jute can also be crafted into rope, which behaves the same way as the vanilla leads in wrangling up animals.

Genders

Tamable and passive mobs (excluding squid), and bears have different genders (male or female), which is determined randomly at the time that the animals spawns. Other than horses and wolves, these animals have visual cues to easily determine the gender such as antlers, horns, tusks, udders and different feather colors. For mobs that do not have visual cues, the animal can be right-clicked on for a chat message stating the gender.

	Male Traits	Female Traits
Bear¹	N/A
Chicken	Red Feathers, Stands Upright	White Feathers, Vanilla Posture
Cow	Long Horns, No Udder	Shorter Horns, Udder
Deer¹	Long Antlers	No Antlers
Horse	N/A
Pheasant¹	Brightly Colored Feathers	Brownish Colored Feathers
Pig	Long Tusks	No Tusks
Sheep	Large Horns	No Horns
Wolf/Dog	N/A

¹While Bears, Deer, and Pheasants have distinguishable genders, they cannot be bred.

Breeding

Cows, Horses, Pigs and Sheep are bred by bringing two of the same animal of opposite genders relatively close together, and feeding both of them refined grain until they are full, and heart particles start appearing. The animals will consume 5 ounces of grain each time they are fed, until they are full. If both animals have heart particles, they will move to be close together for a few seconds, before the particles disappear. A successful breeding can be confirmed by right-clicking on the female animal, which will result in a chat message stating, "Pregnant".

Refined Grain

Barley	Oat	Rice	Rye	Wheat

Dogs

Tamed dogs are bred in a similar manner as other livestock; by bringing two of the same animal of opposite genders relatively close together, and feeding both of them "breeding meat" until they are full, and heart particles start appearing. The animals will consume 5 ounces of meat each time they are fed, until they are full. If both animals have heart particles, they will move to be close together for a few seconds, before the particles disappear. A successful breeding can be confirmed by right-clicking on the female animal, which will result in a chat message stating, "Pregnant".

Note: Different combinations of the dogs sitting and standing may need to be tried before a successful breeding.

"Breeding Meat"

While wolves can eat any type of meat, raw or cooked, to satiate their hunger, they can only be fed the following items in order to breed:

Raw Beef	Raw Mutton	Raw Pork

Chickens

Unlike all other animals, chickens are bred through the use of a Nest Box. Hens will lay eggs once a day, and if there's a rooster within 5 blocks of the nest box, the egg will be fertilized. A fertilized egg is noted with a "Fertilized" tool-tip on the item.

Wild Animals

The following animals are considered wild, and cannot be bred:

Bear	Deer	Pheasant

Pregnancy and Babies

For all breed-able animals other than chickens, the female will become pregnant directly after breeding. Once a female animal has become pregnant, four in-game months must pass before she is able to give birth. Note: This calculation is based on months, not days. So a world with a longer yearLength configuration will result in longer pregnancies, because there are more days in each month.

When the pregnancy time is complete, the female will give birth. The number of offspring that are born is dependent on the type of animal.

Animal		Babies
	Cow	1
	Horse	1
	Pig	8 to 12
	Sheep	1 to 3
	Wolf/Dog	3 to 7

Baby Chicks

After a fertilized egg has been sitting in a nest box for 3/4th of a month, the egg will hatch into a baby chick. Note: This calculation is based on months, not days. So a world with a longer yearLength configuration will result in longer incubation, because there are more days in each month.

Genetic Traits

Each animal has a size modifier which is randomized when they spawn into the world, that determines how big it is. The size of an animal is inheritable, and determines how much meat and the size of the hide that is dropped on death. When two animals mate, the resulting offspring have a size which is partially randomized, but also affected by the sizes of its parents (specifically, how its parent's sizes compare to the average for the species). In other words, breeding two animals which are larger than average will produce babies that have a statistically larger average size, and could possibly be larger in size than any animal that could spawn in the wild naturally.

Other genetic traits that are currently in the code, but not fully implemented include: strength, aggression, obedience, color, climate and hard. It is currently unknown what is planned for the use of these trait modifiers.

Resources

	Butchery Products	Harvestable Products	Notes
Chicken	Raw Chicken, Feathers, Bones	Eggs	If the hens have a Nest Box nearby, they will lay eggs once a day.
Cow	Raw Beef, Raw Hide, Bones	Milk, Cheese	Combined Milk with Vinegar to make Cheese. Female Cows can be milked once a day.
Horse	Raw Horse Meat, Raw Hide, Bones
Pig	Raw Pork, Raw Hide, Bones
Sheep	Raw Mutton, Sheepskin, Bones	Wool	Right click with shears or a knife on adult sheep to get Wool. Use a knife on the Sheepskin to get Wool and Raw Hide.

History

Beta
v2 Build 48f		Animals give birth to the correct number of animals as they would in real life. This should give more incentive to breed animals.
0.78.11		Breeding animals consumes 5 oz of the specific food, not the entire item.

Trivia

Currently all pregnancies last 4 in-game months, regardless of the species of the animal. This may be changed to a variety of more believable numbers in the future after proper balancing has been considered.