Reproduction

Overview

SWEM horses have a basic vanilla breeding system in place for V1, including custom SWEM foals.

Genders are not a feature prior to 1.18.2-1.4.0. This update will not be backported to 1.16.5. 1.20.1 Coming Soon!

Breeding (Love Mode)

Only the owner or OP player can initiate love mode - this is to prevent accidental or unpermitted breeding on MP servers.

Rose Feed will is food only if breeding tokens are enabled via config. Breeding tokens are unobtainable unless configured.

Right-clicking each parent with an open bag of Rose Feed or a breeding token to enable 'love mode'. Horses must satisfy the following criteria:

Must be an adult
Must be fertile male / female - not a gelding OR have reached the maximum number of births / covers.
Must not be on cooldown or pregnant - readiness is indicated by a small green pixel next to the gender icon.
Must have or locate a suitable partner that meets the same criteria - opposite gender OR any horse prior to 1.18.2-1.4.0.
Must be close enough (small search radius) or able to path to a partner that meets the above criteria.

From 1.4.0+ love mode can be set via config per gender to a set duration OR enable permanent love mode. The latter means horses remain ready to breed for as long as it takes to find a suitable partner (as above) - after which they will go into cooldown. This setting is advised with caution; it decreases the risk of wasted breeding items (ie tokens) but it also introduces a need for careful separation of stallions or fertile mares to avoid possible accidental breeding.

View a horse's love mode status by hovering over their gender icon in the GUI, or using a vet bag.

Gestation 1.18.2-1.4.0+

Gestation is the period of delay between breeding and birth (pregnancy). By default, this is 1800 seconds (30 minutes) but can be increased or decreased via config to extend or shorten the gestation period. These changes will only affect new pregnancies.

Following a successful breeding, mares will immediately become pregnant. On reaching 25% of their total pregnancy duration, a gestation timer appear under the gender icon (GUI). It will increase gradually in increments of 25% until the timer reaches 100%. When full, birth is imminent and a foal will soon appear near the mare, dropping a small amount of XP. There is a very small (configurable) chance that mares will birth twin foals, by default only 1/1000 births will result in twins.

Shown: Gestation timer progressing from 0-25, 25-50, 50-75 and 75-100%.

Cooldown

Both Mares and Stallions experience a configurable breeding cooldown, during which they cannot enable 'love mode' until time has passed or it is removed via commands.

Mares: The default cooldown is 1800 seconds (30 minutes) and occurs after birth.
Stallions: The default cooldown is 900 seconds (15 minutes) and occurs after offering a cover (breeding).

The cooldown status can be seen by the red or green indicator next to the Inventory GUI gender icon.

Red - Cooldown / Pregnant	Green - No Cooldown	Gelding - Infertile

Foals

Appearance
Foals have a smaller build with skinny foal-like proportions; long legs and slim bodies. They are born with one of a limited number of base coats that are selected from based on the general color tags of the parents. On becoming an adult, the foals 'roll' again from all adult coats that correspond to their foal color - excluding any secret coats.

Behavior
Foals display a small number of idle animations (ie shake) and will follow a random nearby adult horse if one is nearby. They will not wander away unless find or path to an adult horse. They can be led using a lead, and hitched to fences and hitching posts as normal.

Growth
Foals do not physically grow and remain the same size until they become an adult. By default, foals take 30 minutes to age up; the growth time can be configured. Sweet feed can be given to speed up the ageing process unless breeding tokens are enabled.

Needs
Foals will not miss meals or drinks if food is unavailable, but will seek to obtain food and drink points like tamed horses. They will not sleep, pee or poop and cannot be ridden or tacked (including halters).

Lineage 1.18.2-1.4.0+

This information only displays in the vet bag, it does not update in the lineage tab of the tack box.

There is a simple data-based lineage system; foals receive no exact genetics or skills from their parents.
Right-clicking a horse with a vet bag in hand will display the name(s) of the direct parents (SWEM Horse if unnamed). A newly spawned horse with no lineage data would state 'Unknown'. Any advanced tracking of further breeding lines would need to be logged by the player, obtained manually by checking the progressive ancestry of each generation, or via the horsedata.json file. Access to the horse data file would require a player to be the owner of a SP world, or have console access on a MP server.

Shown: Vet bag information displaying gender and simple lineage (parent names).

Secret Coats

Secret coats do not produce secret coat foals if bred. The offspring of secret coats will chosen randomly from all foal coat colors and the foal color will influence adult coat selection as normal.

Future Features

These features are future plans and are not currently in game!

For V2, a comprehensive system with in-depth genetics is planned, including:

Coat genetics (base coats and coat-influencing genetics, markings etc)
Genetic inheritance of skills and affinities
Traceable lineage via Tack-boxes
Foal interactions

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!

[~] Horses in love mode can get stuck trying to path from either side of walls/fences.
[~] Foals can suffocate in walls on growing up. This occurs most in small stall spaces where they might be pushed into a wall by another horse. It is less likely to occur in larger stalls, and pastures. Fixed in 1.18.2-1.3.0-15
[~] Foals cannot be led or name-tagged in multiplayer unless the player holds an enhanced key. Fixed in 1.18.2-1.4.0.
[~] Ownership of foals is hard to distinguish for MP servers as they cannot be tamed. Fixed in 1.18.2-1.4.0.

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	Genders Update (1.20+): GUI update to represent breeding cooldown and gestation timer clearly. Config for whether gender change reverses fertility if gelded. Gender and breeding status is displayed via the tack box. Foals can no longer eat grass and feed items.
1.18.2	1.18.2-1.4.0	Genders Update (1.18): Breeding requires a stallion and mare to breed (requires breeding item). Breeding has a gestation period (pregnancy / delay) before a foal is born. Breeding has a config for cooldown between breeding / births. Simple lineage dispayed via the Vet Bag. Foals are default owned by the dam's (mother) owner. [Bug Fix] Foals can be lead in Multiplayer by owner.
	1.18.2-1.3.0-15	[Bug Fix] Horses (and foals) can no longer suffocate in blocks.
	1.18.2-1.3.0	Foals can eat to satisfy food points but cannot miss meals or drinks.
	1.18.2-1.2.3	SWEM Horses are now bred with Rose Feed instead. Sweet feed is a requirement in the feed system (for fully fed) - prevents constantly in love mode if handfed.
	1.18.2-1.2.3	[Bug Fix] Foals and horses no longer kick on feeding and hurt one another.