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Tom's Livestock Overhaul

Sheep, Cows, Pigs, Chickens, and Wolves now inherit real genetic coat traits through breeding, spawn according to the climate they live in, and react like actual animals — panicking together when attacked
German Shepard and French Bulldog.jpg

German Shepard and French Bulldog.jpg

He takes after his father.jpg

He takes after his father.jpg

Heard of Dairy Cows.jpg

Heard of Dairy Cows.jpg

Stinky Cows.jpg

Stinky Cows.jpg

Description

Tom's Livestock Overhaul

Ever felt like your farm was a little too... simple? Tom's Livestock Overhaul brings real genetics and natural behavior to Minecraft's farm animals. Sheep, Cows, Pigs, and Chickens now carry inheritable genetic traits that determine their appearance, spawn according to the climate they live in, need actual space to graze, and look out for each other when danger's nearby.

Genetic Traits & Breeding

An Animals Genes can be passed down to their offspring

Every Sheep, Cow, Pig, Chicken, and Wolf spawns with a genuine two-allele genotype under the hood — one allele from each "parent" — following real Punnett-square inheritance. The trait that's actually visible is whichever allele has the higher dominance weight; breed two animals with different traits and the offspring's appearance depends on which alleles they inherit and how those alleles rank against each other.

Each species has its own set of hand-painted trait skins, plus a "Default" trait that keeps the vanilla look:

  • Sheep — Patched, Rocky, Fuzzy, Vanila
  • Chicken — Stormy, Bronzed, Gold Crested, Midnight, Skewbald, Duck, Amber, Vanila
  • Cow — Wooly, Pinto, Dairy, Sunset, Ashen, Cookie, Umbra, Vanila
  • Pig — Spotted, Mottled, Piebald, Pink-footed, Sooty, Vanila
  • Wolf — Ashen, Basenji, Black, Chestnut, French Bulldog, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Husky, Jupiter, Rusty, Snowy, Spotted, Striped, White Terrier, Woods, Vanila

Wild animals that spawn together as a group all share the same trait, just like real herds and flocks — no mismatched litters showing up out of nowhere. Every trait's dominance weight is fully configurable, so you can rebalance which genes win out without touching a single line of code.

Climate-Based Wild Spawning

A Family of Ducks in a Swamp

Where an animal spawns now actually matters. Each trait is tied to the biome-temperature category it naturally belongs to — Cold, Temperate, or Hot — based on the real temperature of the biome it's spawning in. Wooly Cows and Snowy Wolves turn up in cold biomes, Sunset Cows and Amber Chickens favor the heat, and plenty of traits are equally at home in temperate biomes in between.

Breeding is completely unaffected by this — offspring can inherit any trait their parents carry no matter what biome they're born in. Climate only shapes what shows up in the wild. Every trait's allowed climates, and the temperature thresholds that define Cold/Temperate/Hot, are configurable.

Crowding

Crowded Animals

Real animals need space. Pack too many Pigs, Cows, Sheep, and Chickens into a tight space and they'll start showing visible distress — a light shower of particles rising off them, with periodic damage the longer they're packed in. All four species count toward the same limit together, so a mixed pen is just as risky as a same-species one.

The crowd radius, how many animals it takes to trigger it, the damage amount, and how often it ticks are all configurable — so whether you want a gentle nudge toward more humane pens or a hard limit on mega-farms, it's tunable to taste.

Panic Spreading

Attack one animal, and its herd-mates notice. Nearby Pigs, Cows, Sheep, and Chickens will now scatter in fright when one of their own is struck, fleeing the attacker just like the animal that was actually hit — no more standing around calmly grazing three feet from where their friend just got hit by an arrow.

Future Plans

The mod is far from finished. With more features and compatibilites already in the works. Including but not limited to the following:

  • Gendered Animals - Each mob will be assigned a gender at birth. Gender will have slight visual changes to aid when breeding
  • Compatibility - Some noticable compatibility issues with Simple Clouds. Will be addressed
  • Genetic Pros and Cons

All features are individually configurable via the mod's config file — dominance weights, spawn climates, crowding thresholds, and panic behavior can all be tuned.

The Tom's Livestock Overhaul Team

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