Herd Hysteria – Herd Animal Fear Mechanism
Hurt one member of the herd and watch the whole flock lose it — now with Farm Fear™ intensity settings.
In vanilla Minecraft, livestock couldn't care less when their neighbor gets bonked. That cow three blocks away? Totally unbothered. Herd Hysteria fixes that by giving your animals a healthy collective fear response — because nothing says "survival instinct" like fleeing in a group.
Introducing Farm Fear™
We took that banyard panic and gave it a firmware update. Farm Fear™ is our proprietary* intensity engine, letting you tune how spooked your livestock get — from a mild moo of concern to full stampede-grade bedlam. Dial it in per world with a config file or a server command.
*Not actually proprietary. It's a config file. But it sounded cool.
How It Works
When any tagged herd animal takes damage, every nearby tagged food animal within the current Farm Fear™ spread radius panics and runs from the attacker (20 blocks on most tiers; 32 blocks on absurd). Repeated hits in a short window can stack panic duration on higher tiers — same animal or neighbors pulled in by the spread.
No new AI goals, no performance-heavy pathfinding rework — just a clean mixin that tells the herd who hurt them so their existing flee behavior kicks in, with Farm Fear™ extending how long that panic lasts.
Farm Fear™ Settings
Default intensity is medium. On first run the mod writes config/herd_hysteria.json:
{"panicIntensity":"medium"}
| Setting | Panic base (stack 1) | Max stacks | Max panic (full stack) | Spread radius |
|---|---|---|---|---|
low |
5 seconds | 1 | 5 seconds | 20 blocks |
medium |
7.5 seconds | 3 | ~22.5 seconds | 20 blocks |
high |
10 seconds | 5 | 50 seconds | 20 blocks |
absurd |
45 seconds | 10 | ~7.5 minutes | 32 blocks |
A note on absurd: it's opt-in chaos — longer panics, wider spread, and more fleeing mobs pathfinding at once. Fine for small pens and pranks; on huge animal farms or weak hosts you may see lag before you see enlightenment. Default stays medium so upgrades are seamless.
Each additional qualifying hit in the same episode multiplies the base duration by the current stack (up to the tier cap).
Commands (permission level 2 / gamemaster):
/herdhysteria intensity— show current setting/herdhysteria intensity <low|medium|high|absurd>— change and save
Mod Menu (optional, client-only): Mod Menu and Cloth Config API are optional, but required together for the in-game Configure UI — install both, matching your Minecraft version. Mod Menu alone lists the mod without a working Configure button; Cloth alone does nothing for this mod. Neither is needed for /herdhysteria intensity or config/herd_hysteria.json. Open the mods list → Herd Hysteria → Configure to pick panic intensity (single-player / local config). Do not put Mod Menu or Cloth Config on dedicated servers; use the command or server config file there.
The Herd
Herd Hysteria applies to the herd_hysteria:food_animals entity tag, which includes:
- Cow
- Mooshroom
- Pig
- Sheep
- Chicken
- Rabbit
The tag is data-driven, so pack authors can add or remove entity types with a datapack.
Supported Versions
Herd Hysteria is a Fabric-only mod. Separate JARs are provided for each supported version:
| Release | Versions |
|---|---|
| 1.21.x | 1.21, 1.21.1, 1.21.4, 1.21.5, 1.21.6, 1.21.7, 1.21.8, 1.21.9, 1.21.10, 1.21.11 |
| 26.x | 26.1, 26.1.2, 26.2 |
Setup
- Install Fabric Loader and Fabric API for your Minecraft version.
- Download the Herd Hysteria JAR that matches your version.
- Drop it into your
mods/folder. - Launch the game — Farm Fear™ defaults to medium, or tune it in
config/herd_hysteria.jsonor via/herdhysteria intensity.
Compatibility
- Fabric API is required.
- Server-side only — works on dedicated servers and in singleplayer. Clients connecting to a server with Herd Hysteria do not need it installed.
- No known conflicts with other mods. Uses mixins on
actuallyHurt/hurtServerandPanicGoal; does not replace vanilla AI goals.
Dependencies
Requires Fabric API and Fabric Loader.
A LOREal Mod — Powered by Farm Fear™
