Check out this months review of 8 of the Best Minecraft Mods for Pets, Animals and Wildlife.
Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world today, and it’s no wonder. With its flexible and replayable gameplay, it’s a treasure trove for all sorts of gamers. Whether you like braving the dangerous dark deep in the mine in search for the shiniest ores, or if you spend most of your days relaxing in fields of wheat, you can enjoy Minecraft at your own pace and in your own way.
One of the things that make Minecraft so fun is, inarguably, the vast variety of mobs, animals and creatures in the game. From the small desert bunny to the dangerous ender dragon; from the loyal wolf to the protective iron golem, every mob interacts with the player a little differently and are the pillars supporting Minecraft’s rich, diverse and interactive world.
So, naturally, there are hundreds and hundreds of mods that enhance, change and add to our lovely little pool of creatures in the base Minecraft game. Today, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite mods that affect Minecraft mobs, whether it’s a quality of life update for existing ones, or one that adds in dozens of new mods.
In this article, we also took special care to also include mods that add pets or otherwise tamable monsters. After all, the only things cooler than new mobs… are new mobs that you can actually ride into battle!
Without further ado, let’s get into things!
Creatures and Beasts by rubyr1deer
This mod will add in a ton of animals for you to make your own. You’ll find six new vanilla-style creatures who can be found roaming in all sorts of different biomes: the vast oceans, rolling grasslands, and even in the black void of the mysterious End dimension!
Now, we don’t want to spoil too much about the mod beforehand, but we’ll give you a little preview of some of the critters that this whimsical mod will add to your game. Of the current mobs that’ll get added into the game by this pack, the little grebe definitely takes the cake for being the cutest. This little duck-like bird can be found in the many rivers and lakes of your Minecraft world, where they float about feasting on the different fish that inhabit their domain. If it wasn’t clear enough from the last sentence, these little guys absolutely, positively love fish. Maybe if you feed them some, you might even be able to befriend them!
Lizards will now be running around in your jungles and deserts. These little reptiles can spawn in two variants, normal and sad. If you happen to come across a sad little guy, you will be able to cheer them up with some apples! These are their favorite food and will also cause them to breed. If you happen to have a spare jukebox and CD around, you can even play them some music, they’ll absolutely love it!
The Cindershell, on the other hand, is a beautiful turtle-like creature that can be found in the nether. You will be able to spot them from their volcano-like shell. These guys will Occasionally shards of their shell that can be used in a furnace as fuel. If you are looking to grow how many of them you have, just feed them some warped or crimson fungus in order to breed them.
The overworld sporelings are passive little mushroom creatures that are nice and friendly to a player. But if you come across the nether or warped variants, they won’t be so nice to you. These guys love to remove curses off of your gear, feel free to feed it to them.
The lilytad (no, that’s not spelled wrong) is a cute little swamp creature that spends most of its time hiding in the shadows on water. They typically disguise themselves as a lilypad with a flower on its back. This flower can be sheared and will grow back in about fifthteen minutes.
The last of the creatures added into the game with this mod is the yeti. This strong guy is a beast that spawns in the snowy tundra biome and is mainly neutral to the player. But they will attack if anyone gets too close to their babies. If you are looking to gain its trust, feed them some melon slices and they will love you till the end of time. Feed them berries to reproduce, or use their hide to make some great armor.
Download Creatures and Beasts
Inventory Pets by Purplicious_Cow_
The pets added into this mod are completely different from any pets you’ve ever seen so far — they’re tiny enough to be kept permanently around in your inventory — isn’t that neat!? You’ll never need to worry about losing them in a ditch somewhere, or having them get blown up by a stray creeper.
As the name might suggest, you’ll be able to obtain and keep a selection of adorable little pets in your inventory. These pets will give you different kinds of affect and buffs depending on which pet of the fifty two that you have. Of course, like any pets, you will need to keep them fed in order to gain these buffs, and these picky little guys will typically only eat one kind of food.
Most of these amazing pets give equally amazing effects that will be very beneficial for any player to have. Below are listed some of the amazing ones you’ll be able to get. For our first example, thye cow pet is a pet that will do plenty of things for you. It’ll remove any negative potion effect that the player receives and you can use it to fill an empty bucket with milk. If you want these effects to last, you will need to make sure to have some wheat. Make sure you have a good amount of it, because this little guy will eat around twice a day. This is an awesome Minecraft mod, one that is highly regarded by the Team Visionary team.
Another cool and very useful pet is the ocelot pet. This cute pet will give the player night vision and even scare away creepers and keep them off of the player. When near water, it will even catch fish when they come close. As expected of ocelots in the game, you will need to feed them cooked fish in order to keep them satiated and they also eat around twice a day.
The last of the fifty two pets we shall cover here is the wither pet. This little pet will give the player twenty five percent life steal, an amazing ability and will help so much when fighting things. But this guy will give you one more amazing effect, that is immunity to the wither effect. In order to use this boi, you will need to keep them fed using soul sand and it will eat around twice a day.
Download Inventory Pets
Not Enough Pets by AstroTibs
Not enough pets is exactly as the name states, it believed there were not enough pets in the game and added more variants of the ones you all know of love. If you are tired of taming the same looking dog or the same looking cat, then this is the mod for you. It adds in multiple variants of dog, cat, and parrot type animals that you can find yourself. You can even obtain an Ocelot as a pet if you can find one!
This mod adds in twenty new types of cats for you to find. Each cat mainly differs from their fur patterns, and generally have the same body styles. You can expect all unique colors and fur patterns and can even find different kinds of breeds like the Persian cat and the Calico cat. Like what was stated above, you will even be able to tame an ocelot. The cats now spawn wild and will not change into their new forms after you tame an ocelot. This means if you do find an ocelot, you will be able to tame it and it will keep that same form.
There will now be twelve different new kinds of dogs for you to find. Each one of the new additions are popular dog breeds that you can find out in the world. Breeds like the Pug for example. This breed has a small flat face and a cream like color compared to the rest of the breeds. Siberian Husky is also one you will be able to get among the twelve new dogs, this cute dog has a black/gray coat with a white underbelly, not to mention its adorable blue eyes.
The last additions into the game by this mod will be the parrots. This part is not only good because of the twelve new types you can find, but it’s also great because if you are playing on a version that does not have this animal, then it will be added into the game. You will be able to find many new colorful variants of the parrot, there is a rainbow, dusky, rosy-faced, black, and white variation among the many other colorful ones. Find out which one you like the most!
Download Not Enough Pets
Animal Crops by KnightMiner
This mod is very different from anything else that is on this list, and it’s for a good reason. With Animal Crops, you will be able to drop your own animals right from your backyard. Animal seeds can be planted on grass blocks to grow different kinds of animals, depending on what you would like to add. There is also an animal lily that can be placed on water blocks to grow passive water animals. To get these seeds, you will need to craft them using their custom recipes, alternatively you can go around your world and look for animal bushes. These bushes will drop random animal seeds/lilies when they are broken, giving you access to the seed to use.
While this mod comes with the default vanilla animals, you can add in any kind of mob that has a spawn egg. This allows for a lot of other mods to be added to the seed list, mods like Twilight Forest, Waddles, or even other mods from this list! There are also plenty of other config options for you to change how the seeds and lilies grow, you can change if they can be right clicked harvested, whether bone meal affects the animal crops, and even the chances of receiving an additional seed drop when the crop is harvested.
Download Animal Crops
Animania by Purplicious_Cow_
Animania describes itself as an immersive mod that replaces and improves the passive animals in Minecraft. Having gotten into it thoroughly in one of my modded playthroughs, I can say that it’s so much more. This mod changes everything — and I mean, everything — about passive mobs, from husbandry to their animations.
Here’s fair warning: it makes everything about farm animals more realistic — not necessarily easier, although effort put into raising the animals certainly pays off in the form of higher quality produce. The animals that it adds and changes are also all passive. If you’re looking for a mod that adds crazy beasts and tons of custom monsters, you might want to move along (to the next item in the list). The Team Visionary team have also put together a How to make a Minecraft Map learning guide that offers great instructions.
To get started in Animania, you’ll want to gather some animals as per normal. However, that’s where the resemblance stops. You’ll notice that there are now varied models and textures for each mob — different species of each animal are good for different things, such as specific species of cows for milk and others for meat.
Firstly, you’ll need to create troughs and fill them with water and their favorite food. Said food depends on the creature in question, so the chickens love seeds, and the goats (yup, there’s goats!) would love some fresh wheat to munch on. Keeping animals happy and well-fed will result in them eventually breeding with members of the opposite gender, and producing higher quality produce, such as wool, tastier meat and better milk.
Besides all these changes to animal husbandry, the mod also adds a ton of adorable new animals, such as frogs, the aforementioned goats (which act a lot like sheep), peacocks (which act a lot like chickens), and hamsters (!!!) These hamsters can even be put into a hamster ball to run around in, or into a hamster wheel to generate RF, if your modpack has any technology in it.
Animania is a huge mod that adds in plenty of animals for you to tame and befriend. These new animals will be in all of the different biomes you can find in the overworld. These animals will be in biomes that are accurate to their species and breeds. The biomes are also compatible with Biome Dictionary, meaning it is compatible with mods like Biomes O’ Plenty and other mods.
In order for a player to become friends with the different kinds of animals around, you will need to find out what their favorite kind of food is. Simply feeding them this food will make them friendly with you.
There are plenty of other items added into the game, mainly things that allow for you to tame the animals and become friends with them. Items like the Salt & Salt Lick. Thisitem can be placed near certain animals that will heal them when they have less than full health, animals like cows, horses, sheep, pigs, and goats. You will find plenty of other items like nests, mud, and pig slop, all of which can be created and used by the player for different effects.
Like we’ve said above, this mod is massive and adds in many different kinds of animals, and it’s still being actively updated with new items and animals. Plus, the mod is currently separated into multiple different addons. These addons add in tons of extra animals like the ferret, hedgehog, hamsters, peafowl, and different kinds of amphibians. The other add-on is Animania farm, which has plenty of new farm animals and new mechanics for you to explore.
Download Animania Base
Download Animania Extra Animals
Download Animania Farm
Crocoducks by Akrivus
Crocoducks is an amazingly funny mod that is currently only available with minecraft version 1.10. Sadly this mod has not received any updates for quite a bit of time, but that should not stop you from at least trying out this mod once. But what are Crocoducks? Crocoducks are bloodthirsty pack hunters who will kill and eat anything they can get their jaws on, and that means they will attack everyone and everything.
You will be able to tame these hungry beasts, and train them to fight for you, rather than fight YOU. If you train them well enough, they will go out and hunt any warm blooded animal that has red meat, but they will not attack chickens. If captering them and training them proves too hard for you and your fingers, you can always go the safer route, which is snatching and hatching a crocoduck egg.
Once you get this egg, you will need to feed your crocoduckling raw meat in order to gain its trust and love. Once you get its love, it will follow you forever and you will be able to use them for your own advantage. Be careful to keep a close eye on them though, they will attack anything and everything other than you and chickens. If you are not keeping a tight hold on its leash, it might just kill all of your animals.
This mod is incredibly funny and fun at the same time, these little guys are terrifying yet cute once you are able to tame them. You can not only use them to hunt and do other things for you, but you are also able to make plenty of entertainment by mixing them in with some chickens!
Download Crocoducks
Even more Creatures Mod by rolik1997
Even more Creatures is a mod that is currently updated to the game version 1.12.2. If you are looking to play this mod for any newer update, you will not be able to. This mod adds in plenty of more creatures into your minecraft world, to be exact, it adds in around twenty three new mobs. We will cover the passive creatures that will be added in.
The turtle is a new passive mob added into the game, this mob can be ridden and has male and female genders. This creature has three growth stages and starts off as a baby, then teen, then adult. Once the creature is fully grown, the turtle has one hundred and fifty health and will allow for two players to ride on it.
Pingu the Penguin is a mob that has about ten health and is breedable with fish. Once you get them friendly with you, they will follow a player holding snowballs or fish. This little guy really has no use to a player, other than being just a cute little guy that will follow you around.
Just like how this mod adds in passive mobs, this mod also adds in plenty of aggressive ones for you to fight against. Mobs like the Fire Imp which will protect the nether from players who invade it. The Demonic Ender Eye will try to push players into the void when they enter the end. Cave Spider Tribesman will spawn in the jungles and forests and attack players when they are near. The Great Hunger will eat doors, villagers, animals, and crops. All of these monsters added into the game will be a challenge to fight but they will also change how you play the game, adding in unique challenges for the player to overcome.
Download Even more Creatures Mod
Custom Pets by Purplicious_Cow_
Customs Pets is a mod by the same creator as Inventory Pets. This mod allows you to create your own custom inventory pets, rather than use the ones that are in the other mod. When creating your own pets, you will need to receive an ability card from something. Once you do receive it, you will be able to select what they do depending on the color of the card you got. Green cards will be passive effects like damage boosts, fire resistance, haste, etc.
Red Cards will give different active effects like absorb water, bonemeal, bonus health, etc. Purple cards will give effects that activate on attacks, effects like blindness, fire, knockback, etc. Grey cards will give AOE effects like AOE damage and AOE fire. The last card you will be able to get it a blue ability card, this will give you different effects that will affect the world. Some of these can be Bonus Mining Drops, Flight, Attract Animals, and plenty more.
The second thing you will need to do it select what kind of food the pet will be eating and what sound they will be making. This will depend on what they do, so it can be costly if you want something great. Next you will need to select what shape the pet will have and its color! You will be able to pick most if not all colors, so pick what you like best!
Just know that this is an old mod, it is currently only updated to minecraft version 1.7.10. Though it is an old mod, it’s a very fun mod and I would encourage someone to try playing it one time, it’s very fun and changes the gameplay completely.
Download Custom Pets
Anime Pets by D4ark001
Anime Pets is a simple mod that adds in come pets from popular anime that you might have watched before. These anime are Dragon Ball, Fairy Tail, Konosuba, Mob Psycho 100, Naruto, Nanatsu no Taizai, and Pokemon.
There is a long list of pets that you will be able to get, like Charmander from Pokemon, Chomusuke from Konosuba, Akamaru from Naruto, Dimple from Mob Psycho 100, and many others for you to make your own. In total there are now fifthteen new pets across seven different animes, if you want to find and capture all of them, feel free to download this mod and do so!
It’s a pretty small and simple mod at the moment, but if you watch any of the shows above and want to have your own little companion from your favorite anime, then this lightweight mod is perfect for it!
Download Anime Pets
Ice and Fire: Dragons
Now, hamsters and frogs are fantastic and all, but are you looking for a mod that adds creatures to fear ? Behold — Ice and Fire: Dragons is the perfect mod, not just because of its nuanced details and great models, but also because who doesn’t want to fight, tame and ride some dragons?
Ice and Fire: Dragons adds two kinds of dragons to the game: Ice and, well, Fire! The type of dragon largely influences the color of the dragon, and their main form of attack. It also adds a ton of mythical, fantasy creatures such as hippogryphs, death worms, cockatrices, sirens and cyclops… all of which have their own mechanics, but mainly, the dragons take the cake in this mod.
These dragons spawn with treasure hordes and an assigned gender, and a level between 1-5. All dragons drop loot when killed, but only level 5 female dragons drop dragon eggs — the only way you can tame a dragon of your own. Once the conditions are met for the egg to hatch, you’ll have your very own, ravenous, baby dragon! And if you manage to keep it alive and healthy till it grows up, you too will be able to soar the skies in a blaze of inferno or glacial fury.
In all, this is a fantastically detailed and coherent mod that any thrillseeker looking to add a mythical element to their gameplay. It fits great in almost any modpack, or as a standalone, with its set of own armor, weapons and items.
Do note that Ice and Fire: Dragons is a large mod that we can’t fully cover in this short blurb, so if you’re interested, do check out their modpage below!
Download Ice and Fire: Dragons
Conclusion
Part of why Minecraft is so incredibly appealing is its nostalgic quality, the familiarity that you can load into your new world and know exactly how everything works, know exactly what you want to do. However, sometimes, what makes Minecraft so appealing is that it is what the player makes it, that it’s so receptive to player creativity. And nothing demonstrates player creativity like player-made mods!
Whether you’re a seasoned monster hunter or just looking for something to enhance your farm, we hope that there was something that caught your eye on our Best Minecraft Pet / Animal Mods guide.
