Instinct — Husbandry Overhaul

Worth raising.

Also on CurseForge and GitHub Releases. Visit the website for the full feature list, config reference, and command guide.

Instinct is a husbandry overhaul for Minecraft 1.21.1 (Fabric) — the animals you tame, breed, herd, and keep. Vanilla animals are disposable: pets sprint into lava, breeding is click-spam, and the optimal farm is 500 cows in a one-block pit. Instinct makes animals act like they want to live and makes time spent tending them pay — on the animals already in your world, vanilla or modded.

In development. The design and full behavioral spec are committed and features are being built against them; this page describes the first release.

At a glance

• Minecraft 1.21.1, Fabric loader (0.16.10+), Fabric API required.
• Install on the server and every client.
• Every feature independently tunable through config/instinct.json — hot-reload with /instinct reload.
• MIT licensed.

Features

• Pets that look before they leap — tamed wolves, cats, and parrots path around lava and cacti, keep a 4-block berth from ignited creepers, and refuse to teleport to you while you're falling or swimming in lava.
• Veteran pets — pets gain a rank at 10/30/60 days survived: +1 heart and +1 attack damage each, up to +3/+3. Crouch-look reads any pet's days.
• Quality genetics — well-fed, uncrowded breeding raises bloodlines (ordinary → sturdy → prime). A prime cow drops +2 beef and +1 leather; overcrowded pits degrade. Three tended generations beat three hundred crammed ones.
• Flocking & herding — held food gathers a flock 15% faster with 2-block spacing. Herding, not shoving.
• The feeding trough — one wooden block that feeds and breeds the herd while you're away, with a population cap so the farm never becomes a lag machine.
• The command whistle — copper and bone; one press toggles every pet within 20 blocks between Stay and Follow, right-click sends the pack after a target.
• Downed, not dead — lethal damage downs a pet instead of killing it; revive with a golden apple or a Vet Kit at the cost of one veterancy rank. Fire, lava, and the void remain final.
• Modded animals welcome — tameable/breedable modded animals are covered automatically; mods and packs deepen support with one-file tags and data.

Part of Concord

Part of Concord — a modular collection of system overhauls. Install any, combine all.

Enhanced by (all optional, never required): Mercantile — butchers sell Vet Kits and Pedigree Treats at high reputation · Tribulation — veterancy accrues double at difficulty tier 3+ · Prosperity — Vet Kits and Pedigree Treats in far-tier chests · Cultivation — farm produce feeds the trough · Distillation — a brewed remedy revives downed pets · Respite — swift nights age pets on the same clock.