Genders
Overview
Horses can be born or generated as Male (Stallion) or Female (Female), and Stallions can be gelded to no longer breed.
Genders were added to 1.18.2-1.4.0 / 1.20.1-1.4.0+ and will NOT receive a backport to 1.16.5 (unsupported).
Genders
On birth or spawning all horses will be allocated a random gender of either Stallion (M) or Mare (F). This will apply to untamed horses and foals too.
Mare / Filly
On birth or spawning, there is 50% chance a horse will be a female. A female foal is a Filly and an adult is a Mare.
Mares become fertile on reaching adulthood and are able to gestate and give birth to foals if bred to a stallion. Unlike stallions, mares cannot be made infertile (changed in 1.20.1), however a maximum number of births (breedings) can be specified via configs. Once this has been reached, the horse will no longer be able to breed unless the cap is increased or removed.
Stallion / Colt
On birth or spawning, there is 50% chance a horse will be a male. A male foal is a Colt and an adult is a Stallion.
Stallions become fertile on reaching adulthood and are able to offer covers to a fertile Mare, or they can be made permanently infertile via commands or an Infertility Potion. Additionally, a maximum number of covers (breedings) can be specified via configs. Once this has been reached, the horse will remain a stallion but will no longer be able to breed unless the cap is increased or removed.
Horse Info
Horses do not (and will never) have any Male or Female features - distinguishing info will be icon or GUI based only.
View information about a horse's gender and stats by:
- Right-clicking a horse with a vet bag in hand to display various info, including gender.
- Shift + right-clicking a tamed horse to view the Horse Inventory GUI and gender icon (female / male / gelding).
- Hovering over the GUI gender icon displays both specific gender and breeding information.
- [Optional - Client Config] View gender icons with unique colors for M/F/G when named with a name tag.
Shown: Icons for Stallion (Male), Mare (Female) and Gelding (Neutered Male)
Shown: Information for Gender, Births / Covers / Love Mode (Breeding) status.
Shown: Named horses displaying custom color per-gender icons (Stallion / Mare / Gelding).
Fertility
A horse is considered fertile (ready to breed) once they become an adult. The exceptions to this are:
Gelding
If gelded, a male horse can no longer breed to females.
If made infertile, a mare can no longer become pregnant. (1.20.1-1.4.0)
Pregnancy & Cooldown
A pregnant mare, or mare or stallion that has bred/birthed recently must wait for a cooldown period to become fertile again.
Breeding Cap
Maximum breeding limits (per gender) can be set in configs. Once this cap is reached, horses will no longer be able to activate love mode via breeding items unless the cap is increased or removed.
Gelding
Only the owner, OP player or role with permissions can geld a horse - this is to prevent accidental or unpermitted gelding.
Geldings cannot be born or spawned - they are only obtained using commands or an Infertility Potion on a stallion.
Geldings are permanently infertile and therefore cannot breed with mares. They will accept breeding items like Rose Feed as food, but will not go into 'love mode' to search for a partner. Attempting to use a breeding token on a gelding will be rejected with gray "meh" particles so the item is not wasted.
Mares can be made infertile (1.20.1-1.4.0+) via command commands or an Infertility Potion to prevent accidental or intentional breeding attempts. This is not realistically done for mares, but is added for user convenience or RRP of naturally infertile mares.
/swem horse breeding geld 1.18.2 Make a stallion a gelding.
/swem horse breeding fertile 1.20.1 Make a gelding a stallion, or an infertile mare fertile mare.
/swem horse breeding infertile 1.20.1 Make a stallion a gelding, or a mare an infertile mare.
Changing Genders
Only an OP player or role with permissions can change gender - this is to support realism or special services on MP servers.
Command
1.18 Changing gender via command will alter the male/female state, turning Stallion/Gelding <--> Mare. If changed, geldings will become (fertile) Mares and can be changed back to Stallion in the same way (to reverse the otherwise permanent gelding).
1.20 Changing gender via command will alter the male/female and the fertile State, turning Stallion <--> Mare OR Gelding <--> Infertile Mare. Infertile horses can only be reversed via command.
Changing a horse's gender will not erase their birth/cover stats; a horse that has offered 2 covers as a Stallion will have 2 as a Mare to prevent circumventing the maximum capacity for breeding. However, they will be subject to the configured cap for their current gender, so if they reached maximum as a mare but stallions are permitted more breedings, they would become viable to breed again on gender change. If converting back to the opposite gender, their stats might state above the maximum cap for this reason (ie 5/2 covers).
Changing the gender on a pregnant female will terminate the pregnancy!
/swem horse breeding change Change the gender of a horse.
Known Issues
If you find an issue, please report it to our bugs channel on Discord. We ask that you look to see if your issue was reported first!
- [-] Visual Only: Decreasing the breeding cap will show horses who have exceeded that as over the limit - ie 5/3 Covers.
Changelog
View Changes
This is not a complete list of version changes / fixes. It is a changelog of relevant wiki-related version information.
| MC Version | Release | Notes |
| 1.20.1 |
1.20.1-1.4.0 |
Added infertile status for mares. |
| Removed geld command for fertile/infertile command (either gender). | ||
| 1.18.2 |
1.18.2-1.4.0 | Genders update adding Mares, Stallions and Geldings. |
| Gender commands are not restricted to SWEM keys and have conventional permission nodes, allowing servers to assign custom permissions (ie 'vets' being able to geld horses even if not the owner). |