When do animals spawn?

[tinyoverflow]

Hello,

I've understood that animals can spawn based on some conditions, like the climate, block types (eg. tall grass). As far as I understood, as a player I cannot do anything about the climate. In the area where I play in survival, there are nearly no animals in a few houndred blocks of radius. Very rarely, like twice a year, a hare spawns about 50 blocks of my house. My area does not contain any bushes and only a very few trees.

In the entities file for chicken and hares, for example, I found the options "minShrubs" and "minForestOrShrubs", though those are not extensively explained in the wiki. What exactly does this mean? Is this related to the worldgen, or is it enough if I plant my own forest? Will they then spawn there more regularly? My character menu says that I have a very high occurance of rain, in case that helps.

Thank you very much!

Edited December 26, 2025 by tinyoverflow
added rain information

[MKMoose]

Welcome to the forums! You're correct in assuming that a lot of the climate information is created on world generation and cannot be modified normally. This includes rainfall, shrubs, forestation, average temperature, and a few other factors which are less important for animal spawning. With the exception of temperature, those values stay within the [0, 1] interval. If you find yourself wanting to exactly verify whether something can spawn somewhere, you can access these values for your current location using the command /wgen pos climate.

For example, the spawn conditions related to climate defined for chickens are:

minTemp: -2,
minRain: 0.32,
minShrubs: 0.5,

which means that chickens will only spawn in areas that have:

• at least -2 C average yearly temperature (temperate climate or warmer),
• at least 0.32 average rainfall (some "uncommon" areas, all "common" or higher areas),
• at least 0.5 shrub coverage (pretty common shrubs).

The Y level in spawn conditions appears in the [0, 2] range, which then gets interpreted as height in blocks. If I recall correctly, Y level of 0 is the bottom of the world, 1 refers to the sea level (Y = 110, in blocks), and 2 means the world height (256 blocks). For example the valais goat spawns in the Y range of [1.1, 1.5], which in block height would be the range between 125 and 183. If you wish to exactly verify whether you're at the correct height, you can find your current Y coordinate using the coordinate overlay, by default toggled with Shift + V.

 

1 hour ago, tinyoverflow said:

My area does not contain any bushes and only a very few trees.

As a general rule, dry areas with limited vegetation have few animals, besides some exceptions like goats in elevated areas or hyenas in hot climates, and unfortunately you can't get more to spawn by planting trees.

 

I will also mention that animals don't despawn randomly, and they have maximum quantities that can exist within a certain area. This might sometimes mean that you're not getting anything to spawn because it has already spawned a couple chunks away and is blocking other animals of its species from appearing nearby. It's unlikely to really matter, but it could potentially be the culprit in some odd cases.

[tinyoverflow]

Hello @MKMoose,

thank you very much for that detailed explanation!

So, if I understand you correctly, I can't build more forests or let bushes grow to get the game to spawn more animals in my area. Is this correct?
I've tried the /wgen pos climate command you posted and it seems that I'm just very unlucky, as I'm at 0% forest and 0% shrubs :

 

What exactly does it mean when you said: "With the exception of temperature, those values stay within the [0, 1] interval"?
Is it for absolute temperatures or is this also a scale, like for the Y level?

 

Regarding the animal despawning, just to clarify as I'm coming from Minecraft: So, even if I go away like 100 blocks, the animals won't despawn as they would do in Minecraft and just continue to be there, counting towards the limit, whether they're active or not? I've found the "/entity countg" command and it, for example, shows, that there are 33 hares and 29 chickens (as of right now):

 

 

So, to sum it up: Is there anything I can do to get more animals to spawn? As far as I understood, no. In result, I would have to either travel to places with better conditions for the animals I want to get them, or even relocate to those locations to have them around me (as I quite like that )? Would those locations be more in the north or towards the south?

Edited December 27, 2025 by tinyoverflow
added final question

[MKMoose]

4 minutes ago, tinyoverflow said:

So, if I understand you correctly, I can't build more forests or let bushes grow to get the game to spawn more animals in my area. Is this correct?

Correct.

 

58 minutes ago, tinyoverflow said:

What exactly does it mean when you said: "With the exception of temperature, those values stay within the [0, 1] interval"?
Is it for absolute temperatures or is this also a scale, like for the Y level?

Average rainfall, shrub coverage and forest coverage as well as a few of the less important parameters are within the [0, 1] interval. That is, they are always at least 0 and not higher than 1, which can also be converted into a percentage by multiplying it by 100% to get the result you see when using the command. A value of zero means the lowest possible rainfall/shrubs/forestation, and a value of 1 means the maximum, and the game uses these values during world generation in various ways.

Temperature is defined in degrees Celsius, with no additional conversions, so the minimum temperature of -2 as in the chicken example means that many degrees Celsius (and it refers to average yearly temperature).

 

20 minutes ago, tinyoverflow said:

Regarding the animal despawning, just to clarify as I'm coming from Minecraft: So, even if I go away like 100 blocks, the animals won't despawn as they would do in Minecraft and just continue to be there, counting towards the limit, whether they're active or not? I've found the "/entity countg" command and it, for example, shows, that there are 33 hares and 29 chickens (as of right now):

 

I think Minecraft uses a very similar system. No matter how far you go, animals are saved even when not active and rendered, so that everything remains the same once you get back. Prevents animals from disappearing after you put them in an enclosure or whatnot.

Regarding the spawn limits, I don't know how large an area this concerns and I'd have to find it somewhere in the code to check. Chickens, for example, have a maximum quantity of just 4, so they can only spawn if there are fewer chickens than 4 in a given area. I'd have to check how large that area is, though it is small enough that it's probably not a significant consideration if your goal is to find a specific animal. The default area of the /entity countg command seems to be your entire rendered area, but you can also choose a lower range using something like /entity countg e[range=64]. The scenario of new spawns getting blocked by some hidden animals is very unlikely, though.

[tinyoverflow]

Ah, I understand now. Thank you very much for explanaining the machanics to me! 

The code you mentioned, is it actually the vsessentialsmod or vssurvivalmod repository on GitHub?
Both are way smaller than expected when looking at the massive amount of content in this game, so I wasn't really sure what exactly is in there (haven't dug around in it, yet).

[CastIronFabric]

4 hours ago, tinyoverflow said:

Ah, I understand now. Thank you very much for explanaining the machanics to me! 

The code you mentioned, is it actually the vsessentialsmod or vssurvivalmod repository on GitHub?
Both are way smaller than expected when looking at the massive amount of content in this game, so I wasn't really sure what exactly is in there (haven't dug around in it, yet).

to note, I have not experienced an increase in animal spawns due to planting my own forest. 

I think wild vegetation has different coded attributes than planted or replaced ones. Additionally if you plant a tree or several trees the terrian does not change to 'forest floor' I would assume 'forest floor' would affect animal type spawns. I am not sure but something to consider

Edited December 28, 2025 by CastIronFabric