Minecraft Reveals More Mob Variants Coming to the Game

Summary

• Minecraft Java Snapshot and Bedrock Preview update adds two chicken variants, cactus flowers, and dry grass.
• Testing new features with the community before release helps spot and fix issues in Minecraft updates.
• New Chicken variants, Cactus Flower, and Dry Grass provide more variety to the game’s biomes.

The latest Minecraft Java Snapshot and Bedrock Preview update includes two chicken variants, cactus flowers, and dry grass. Mojang continues to add to Minecraft, which is significantly different from the game Notch originally released, making it easier for fans to spend hundreds of hours playing it.

The Minecraft Java Snapshot and Bedrock Preview have long been a method that players could utilize to see what’s coming to the game. Although players can’t access big builds or rail lines that they’ve created in their primary Minecraft Seeds on the Snapshot and Preview, it provides multiple benefits that make it worth dipping into. Beyond enabling these players to see future content ahead of time, it also allows Mojang to test new features with the community before releasing them to the public. This ensures that any issues regarding new mobs, resources, items, and more can be spotted and fixed ahead of a main client update. The latest Java Snapshot and Bedrock Preview builds have been patched to include a few adjustments, including two mob variants, a significant change to cactuses, and more.

Minecraft recently confirmed that the Snapshot and Preview have been updated to include two new Chicken variants, the Cactus Flower, and Dry Grass. While the Minecraft test servers were updated last week to include unique Cow Variants and Firefly Bushes, this week’s additions show that Mojang is hard at work on the next big content patch for the main client. According to the patch notes, the two chicken variants are called cold and warm respectively, with the cold one being dark gray and blue with three tufts of feathers protruding from the back of their heads, and the warm one identical to the existing chickens, but with a gold color. Based on a screenshot, these variants seemingly hatch from eggs that match their color scheme.

Not to be confused with Dead Bushes, which can be found in Minecraft‘s Badlands and Desert Biomes, the Dry Grass is an entirely new object that will appear in the Preview and Snapshot. The Dry Grass comes in two heights: short and tall. Players can use Bone Meal on short Dry Grass to make it taller, and the object can be found in the same areas as Dead Bushes. The Cactus Flower will now sprout from the top of cactuses, even those relocated to the player’s builds, and their nectar attracts bees. Once broken, the Cactus Flower can be crafted into dye, presumably the existing Pink Dye. A screenshot shows that not all cactuses will flower, just like in the real world, but the ones that do provide more variety to the Desert biome.

As Mojang continues to update the Minecraft Preview and Snapshot, more small adjustments will likely be added before they’re released to the live client. Although the Minecraft mob vote was canceled in 2024, the Chicken, Cow, and Pig variants in the test servers may bode well for existing and future mobs.

Minecraft Snapshot 25w06a – Patch Notes

New Features

• Added Warm and Cold Chicken variants
• Added Short Dry Grass and Tall Dry Grass
• Added Cactus Flower block which can grow on Cactus blocks

Farm Animal variants

• Warm and cold variants have been added for Chicken
• Existing Chicken variant has been renamed to temperate
• The variant is determined by the biome they spawn in
• Warm and cold biomes are the same for all animals with variants (i.e. Chicken, Pig, Cow)
• Two new Egg items have been added for the warm and cold Chicken variants
  • Blue Egg – The Egg that is laid by and can hatch cold Chicken variant
  • Brown Egg – The Egg that is laid by and can hatch warm Chicken variant
• Already existing Egg is laid by and can hatch temperate Chicken variant

Short and Tall Dry Grass

• Added two new types of grass: Short Dry Grass and Tall Dry Grass
• Both are one block high, which makes Tall Dry Grass differ from Tall Grass which is two blocks high
• Both generate in the Desert and Badlands
• Both can be placed on types of Sand, Terracotta and Dirt blocks like the Dead Bush
• Both can be bone mealed
  • Using Bone Meal on Short Dry Grass grows it into a Tall Dry Grass
  • Using Bone Meal on Tall Dry Grass places a neighbouring Short Dry Grass next to the block if possible
• Both can be used in the Composter
• Sheep can eat both to regrow its wool
• Both can be used as fuel for smelting

Cactus Flower

• Cactus Flower is a new type of flower which has a chance of generating on cactuses in Deserts and Badlands
• Cactus Flower can be placed on Cactus blocks or any block which has center support at the top of the block
• Cactus Flowers have a chance of growing on Cactus blocks
  • If a Cactus is one or two blocks high the Cactus Flower has a 10% chance to grow instead of the Cactus getting higher
  • If a Cactus is three blocks or higher the Cactus Flower has a 25% chance to grow
  • Cactus Flowers will only grow if they have space on all four sides
• Cactus Flowers can be used in the Composter
• A Cactus Flower can be used to craft 1 Pink Dye

Changes

• Any block in the simulation distance of a player or loaded by another source of chunk loading (such as Ender Pearls) may now receive random ticks, instead of just 8 chunks around players
  • For example: if a chunk is loaded by an Ender Pearl or is in the spawn chunks, crops are able to grow, Ice can melt, Snow can fall, and a Cauldron can be filled by rain
  • Mob spawning, Lava spreading fire, and Lightning strikes still occur in the previous radius of 8 chunks around players
• Fire will no longer burn or spread if no player is within 8 chunks
• Tooltips for Fireworks and Crossbows now show a compact form of multiple repeated stars or projectiles that are identical

Firefly Bush

Conditions for The Firefly Bush playing ambient sounds have changed. It now plays when all of the following conditions are met:

• it’s night
• Firefly Bush not blocked from above by any collidable block (except Leaves)

Technical Changes

• The Data Pack version is now 66
• The Resource Pack version is now 51

Data Pack Version 66

• Added new allowFireTicksAwayFromPlayer Game Rule

Game Rule

allowFireTicksAwayFromPlayer

• When true, Fire and Lava ticks can occur ouside of an 8 chunk range of a player
• Default value: false

Block Tags

• #dead_bush_may_place_on has been renamed to #dry_vegetation_may_place_on
• Added #edible_for_sheep – blocks that can be eaten by Sheep to regrow their Wool

Item Tags

• Added #eggs – all variants of the Egg item

Entity Data

• The armor and off-hand equipment of Players is now also stored in the equipment field (although items written into the Inventory using armor and off-hand slot numbers still work)

Chicken Variants

• Chicken variants can be data-driven by adding entries to data//chicken_variant/.json
  
• This feature is experimental
• Fields in file:
  • model – one of: normal, cold
  • asset_id – namespaced id for this variant asset, resolves to assets//textures/.png
  • spawn_conditions – field described in uniform variant selection above

Resource Pack Version 51

• New and updated Chicken textures
• Added textures for new Blue Egg and Brown Egg items
• Added textures for new Cactus Flower block
• Added textures for new Short Dry Grass and Tall Dry Grass blocks

New and updated Chicken textures

• Added new textures for Chicken variants:
  • cold_chicken
  • warm_chicken
• Texture chicken has been renamed to temperate_chicken
• The temperate_chicken texture has been moved to a new folder:
  • entity/chicken.png -> entity/chicken/temperate_chicken.png

Fixed bugs in 25w06a

• MC-157196 – Tamed animals cannot be added to a team
• MC-186241 – World border faces are rendered incorrectly with “Fabulous!” graphics
• MC-279205 – Leaf litter map color is incorrect
• MC-279207 – Leaf Litter can only be placed on dirt-like blocks
• MC-279223 – Country Lode Take Me Home Advancement can be completed in the overworld but is still listed as a Nether advancement
• MC-279235 – Certain farm animals are not spawned as their cold variant in some cold biomes due to an incomplete tag
• MC-279242 – Kelp, twisting vines, weeping vines, and cave vines can no longer be stacked above or below one another by placing
• MC-279261 – Making a mob its own owner causes persistent crashes
• MC-279279 – Dismounting places player in same space as mount
• MC-279292 – Pigs spawn as temperate in desert villages
• MC-279309 – Wildflowers item has a misplaced transparent pixel
• MC-279464 – Fire placed with /setblock doesn’t tick/burn out
• MC-279719 – Tooltip description for saddle attribute modifier slot is not translated
• MC-279912 – You can use bone meal on bushes in situations where nothing grows
• MC-279914 – The hitboxes of bushes don’t reach the ground and are too wide compared to other similar blocks
• MC-279924 – Bushes cannot be replaced by trees or mushrooms
• MC-279933 – Firefly bushes cannot be replaced by trees or mushrooms
• MC-279950 – Modifying command data storage throws an error
• MC-279972 – Using /setblock & /fill with fluids of levels at a non-full-block no longer updates the fluid