Animal Weights

Animal Weights

Animals gain weight from good farm conditions. Healthy mobs drop more loot when killed. Mistreated ones get sick and stop breeding.

What it does

Every passive mob (cow, pig, sheep, chicken, rabbit, and any modded animal) tracks a hidden weight value from 1 to 8. By default mobs start at 1 and drop normal loot. As conditions around them change, the weight goes up or down, and so does what they drop on death.

Sick mobs (weight 0) turn green, can't be bred, and float a "Sick" label above their head.

Mobs with weight 2 or higher display their bonus drops above their head: an icon of each loot item with a "+N" next to it, showing exactly how many extra rolls you'll get on death.

How weight changes

Every in-game hour or so, each animal checks four things about its surroundings:

1. Block light level of 14 or higher
2. Water within 4 blocks
3. Grass or moss block within 4 blocks
4. Fewer than 7 same-species mobs in a 5x5 area

The score determines what happens to its weight:

• 4 out of 4: 50% chance to gain a point
• 3 out of 4: no change
• 2 out of 4: 25% chance to lose a point
• 0 or 1 out of 4: 50% chance to lose a point

Hit 0 and the animal is sick. It can't breed and it tints green until conditions improve.

How drops change

Weight multiplies the loot table rolls. A cow at weight 5 will drop the loot table 5 times instead of once. Looting, Luck, and any other enchantments apply normally to every roll, and each roll is independently randomized.

XP works the same way: base XP gets multiplied by weight.

Passive mobs also get a small bonus when killed near water or inside a village (one extra loot roll, +1 XP), regardless of weight. Monsters are unaffected.

Commands

/animalweights while looking at an entity prints its current weight, loot preview, and tracked overlays.

/animalweights set <0-8> sets the weight of the entity you're looking at. Use it for testing or debugging.

/animalweights set <0-8> <entity selector> sets weight on selected entities.

Requires permission level 2 (gamemaster).