AnimalX: Big Companions

What if every animal was huge, and every huge animal could be yours?

• A chicken as tall as you. A rabbit you can ride. A cow with a chest on its back.
• One Giant Treat makes any of them a friend for life.
• Saddle them to ride, and load them up with a Saddlebag.
• Every species gives you its own perk, sized to match.

Big world

Chickens, rabbits, cats, foxes, frogs, bees and 27 land animals in all grow, hitboxes included. The smaller the animal, the bigger the jump: chickens, rabbits, frogs, bees and axolotls are 3 times their vanilla size, cats and foxes 2.5, wolves and turtles 2, pigs 1.8, cows 1.6, and horses, llamas and polar bears 1.3. The Happy Ghast is already a giant and stays as it is.

• Spawns are vanilla: same places, same rates. Only the size changes.
• Bigger animals are tougher: health grows with size, and damage, jumping and step height grow with it too.
• Babies stay small, and never shrink below a sixteenth of normal size.
• A big animal never appears stuck inside blocks: in a tight spot it spawns with less of the extra size, or at vanilla size.
• Fish, squid and bats keep their normal size (you can switch them on in the config).
• The killer bunny stays full size and hostile.

Make a big friend

Craft a Giant Treat: 1 wheat, 1 sugar and 1 apple make 4. Right-click a wild big animal with one and it is yours: hearts, a chime and a message.

• Only the Giant Treat bonds. Wheat, carrots, seeds and the rest still breed animals exactly like vanilla.
• Right-click your companion with an empty hand to switch follow / sit / wander. Followers stay within about 4 blocks.
• Heal it: a Giant Treat on a hurt companion restores 2 hearts.
• Pat it: sneak + right-click with an empty hand shows hearts.
• You can have up to 24 companions at once.
• Wolves, cats and horses use their normal vanilla owner, so everything else you know about them still works.
• You cannot hurt your own companion by accident. Sneak while hitting to really do it. Other players and mobs can still hurt it.
• Too big for a door? A follower that is stuck for 8 seconds hops to you, and a bonded big animal takes no damage from squeezing into walls.

Ride anything

Craft a Big Saddle from 3 leather, 2 iron ingots, 1 Giant Treat and 1 string. Right-click your own companion with it, then right-click the animal with an empty hand to climb on.

• Steer with WASD, look to turn, Space to jump, sneak to get off. Speed and jump follow the animal's size, capped at the best vanilla horse.
• Turtle and axolotl swim: the way you look steers you up and down, and you breathe under water while riding. The axolotl will not be steered onto land.
• Chicken glides: hold Space in the air to fall slower for up to 6 seconds, then wait 4 seconds. It is a glide, not flight.
• Pig, strider, horse, donkey, mule and camel keep their vanilla riding. The Big Saddle works on them too, and a pig or strider needs no carrot or fungus stick. Llamas get a ride they do not have in vanilla.
• No ride for the parrot, the bee and the Happy Ghast (the Ghast keeps its vanilla harness).
• Only the owner can ride and steer. Anyone else is put off.
• Taking the saddle off: sneak + right-click the animal with the saddle in hand.
• A rider on a big animal is taller than a door, so try open ground first.

Saddlebags

Craft a Saddlebag from 6 leather, 1 chest and 1 string. Right-click your own companion with it to hang it on the animal's back.

• Open it with sneak + right-click and an empty hand. On a horse, donkey, mule, llama, trader llama or camel that gesture is their vanilla screen, so right-click while holding the Saddlebag instead.
• Size by animal: 9 slots for the small ones, 18 for the medium ones and 27 for cow, mooshroom, polar bear, sniffer and camel.
• Donkey, mule and llamas keep their vanilla chest. A bonded donkey also carries a separate 9-slot pack.
• Contents are saved with the animal. If it dies, the bag, its contents and the saddle drop where it fell. You cannot take a bag off while it holds items.
• Only the owner can open it.

Companions that keep up

• Teleports and portals: followers within 32 blocks come with you through dimension changes, respawns and a moment after you log in. Followers more than 16 blocks behind hop to you, placed where a body that size fits.
• Recall: sneak + right-click in the air with a Giant Treat and every loaded companion that is following you teleports next to you, from any distance and any dimension. It costs no treat and has a short cooldown. Sitting and wandering companions stay where they are.
• Companions in chunks that are not loaded cannot hear the call.

A perk from every animal

Keep a companion within 8 blocks, or ride it, and its perk switches on. The wolf and the bee work within 6 blocks and the Happy Ghast within 12. Timed perks have their own cooldown for each animal. Jump perks do not stack: only the strongest counts.

Perks apply to the owner only.

Compatibility

Install it on both the client and the server.

Configuration

Everything is in animalx_big.json, created with its defaults on the first launch. Missing keys fall back to the defaults.

• Size: big.enabled, big.profile (normal or mild, which trims the extra size by about a third), big.global_scale, one scale per species in big.species (1.0 is vanilla size), big.baby_floor, big.scale_water_animals, big.scale_bats, big.spawn_space_check, big.door_safe_mode (caps every size below the one-block door limit), big.stat_scaling, big.step_height_scale, big.drops_scale, big.stuck_teleport_seconds.
• Bonding: bond.treat_only (default on; turn it off to let breeding food bond too), bond.max_bonded_per_player, bond.follow_distance, bond.teleport_distance.
• Riding: ride.enabled, ride.requires_bond, ride.water_breathing, ride.axolotl_leave_water, ride.glide.max_seconds, ride.glide.cooldown_seconds, and a seat height per species in ride.seat.
• Saddlebag: bag.enabled and the slots per species in bag.size.
• Companions: companion.friendly_fire_protection, companion.teleport_with_owner, companion.recall_range.
• Perks: perks.enabled, perks.cooldown_scale, and an enabled switch for each animal.
• Tiny Companions: coexist.mode (auto or off).

Config files are created in the config folder on the first launch: animalx_big.json.

FAQ

Does it change how animals spawn?

No. Spawn places, rates and groups are vanilla; the animals are only bigger. Where there is not enough room, an animal spawns smaller instead of getting stuck.

Does it change breeding?

No. Breeding food works as in vanilla. Only the Giant Treat bonds an animal. If you want food to bond too, set bond.treat_only to false.

Can I use it together with AnimalX: New Tiny Companions?

Yes. When both are installed, each animal is either tiny or big and the other mod never touches it, so sizes never stack. The choice per species lives in config/animalx-shared.json5 (tiny, big, mix or vanilla; the default is mix, so each animal gets one side at random). The Giant Treat bonds big animals and the Tiny Treat bonds tiny ones. Set coexist.mode to off to turn this off.

Does it work in multiplayer?

Yes. Install it on the server and on every client. Each companion has one owner: nobody else can bond it, command it, saddle it, ride it or open its bag, and perks only help the owner. The server sends its ride settings to each player when they join.

Who can ride my animal?

Only you. Another player who climbs on, by any route, is put off and cannot steer it.

Can I add it to an existing world?

Yes. Animals that are already there grow when they load. Nothing is lost.

Can I take it out of a world?

Yes. Set big.enabled to false first and load the world once so the animals go back to their normal size, then remove the mod. Empty every Saddlebag before that: bags and Big Saddles are gone with the mod.

Does it work with other mods that change mob size?

It adds its own named size change to the vanilla scale attribute and removes only that one. Mods that also set animal size may stack with it or fight over the result, and we have not tested any of them. If sizes look wrong, set big.enabled to false or use the per-species scales.

Forge? Quilt? Other versions?

Fabric and NeoForge on Minecraft 26.3 and 1.21.1 (Fabric needs Fabric API); the NeoForge 26.3 and 1.21.1 builds and the Fabric 1.21.1 build are ports. No Forge. Quilt can usually load the Fabric file, but we only test Fabric and NeoForge.

Can I use it in a modpack?

Yes, in modpacks on Modrinth or CurseForge that download it from the official page.

Can I make videos with it?

Yes, videos, streams and reviews are welcome anywhere.

License

All Rights Reserved, with two permissions:

• Allowed: Use in modpacks distributed through Modrinth or CurseForge that link to the official download.
• Allowed: Videos, reviews, streams and showcases anywhere.
• No reuploads and no reuse of code, art, textures, models or sounds.