Ore Sheep Mod 1.12.2, Wiki

The Ore Sheep Mod is a unique utility and resource-gathering mod for Minecraft. It introduces a new mechanic where sheep can be converted into 'Ore Sheep'—creatures that have traded their appetite for grass for a hunger for stone, gravel, and precious ores. Instead of producing wool, these sheep grow the very blocks they consume on their backs, allowing players to farm minerals, building materials, and even rare blocks like Obsidian or Glowstone through animal husbandry.

Beyond simple resource generation, Ore Sheep act as mobile mining units. As they graze on the terrain, they consume the blocks beneath them, potentially digging deep into the earth if left unchecked. This mod is highly compatible with other mods, allowing sheep to eat and produce modded ores via the Ore Dictionary and extensive configuration files.

Ore Sheep do not spawn naturally in the world. To obtain them, a player must perform a specific ritual to 'teach' a regular sheep to eat rocks.

How to Create an Ore Sheep

1. Weaken the Sheep: Throw a Splash Potion of Weakness at a standard vanilla sheep.
2. Feed the Catalyst: While the sheep is under the weakness effect, feed it a Diamond.
3. Stone Sheep Conversion: The sheep will transform into a Stone Sheep, characterized by a gray, rocky texture. This is the base form of all Ore Sheep.

Once converted, the Stone Sheep will begin looking for stone-related blocks to eat. The first ore block it consumes will determine its specific variety (e.g., eating an Iron Ore block turns it into an Iron Ore Sheep).

There are dozens of possible sheep varieties depending on what the sheep consumes. Each variety has a unique texture corresponding to the block it is currently 'growing.'

Common Ore Sheep Types

Utility & Decorative Varieties

Sheep can also eat non-ore blocks to produce building materials:

• Gravel Sheep: Consumes and produces Gravel.
• Sand Sheep: Consumes and produces Sand.
• Dirt Sheep: Consumes and produces Dirt.
• Clay Sheep: Consumes and produces Clay blocks.
• Netherrack Sheep: Consumes and produces Netherrack.

Ore Sheep function similarly to vanilla sheep but with several key differences in their 'grazing' and 'shearing' cycles.

Eating and Regrowth

Instead of eating grass to regrow wool, Ore Sheep eat the block they are standing on.

• Stone Consumption: To regrow their resource, an Ore Sheep must eat a 'stone-related' block (Stone, Cobblestone, Mossy Cobblestone, Stone Bricks, etc.).
• Block Transformation: When a sheep eats a block of Stone, it may turn into Gravel. If it eats the Gravel, the block is destroyed. This allows sheep to slowly 'mine' through the floor.
• Type Changing: If an Ore Sheep eats a block of a different ore type than its current one, it will transform into that new variety.

Shearing (Mining)

Standard Shears do not work on Ore Sheep. Because their 'wool' is made of solid rock or metal, players must use a Pickaxe.

• How to Harvest: Right-click the sheep with any Pickaxe to 'shear' the ore block from its back.
• Tool Requirements: In later versions, the pickaxe tier must match the ore (e.g., an Iron Pickaxe or better is required to shear a Gold Sheep).
• Creative Mode: In Creative mode, using Bonemeal on a sheared Ore Sheep will instantly regrow its resource.

Ore Sheep cannot be bred with Wheat. Instead, they require minerals to enter 'love mode.'

• Breeding Items: Use any stone-related block (like Cobblestone) or the specific ore block the sheep represents to breed them.
• Offspring: The baby sheep will typically inherit the variety of one of its parents. If two different types are bred (e.g., an Iron Sheep and a Gold Sheep), the baby will be either an Iron or Gold Sheep.
• Growth: Baby Ore Sheep can be fed stone-related blocks to speed up their growth process.

The mod is designed to be extremely flexible, allowing players to define exactly what blocks the sheep can interact with via two main configuration files located in the .minecraft/config/oresheep folder.

OreConfig.txt

This file controls the sheep's transformation and diet. It is divided into two sections:

1. Blocks to Become: Any block ID listed here can be 'grown' by the sheep. If a sheep eats this block, it changes its variety to match.
2. Blocks to Eat: Any block ID listed here can be consumed by the sheep to regrow its current resource, but will not change the sheep's variety (e.g., Stone, Netherrack).

PossibleBlocks.txt

This is a reference file generated by the mod that lists every block ID currently loaded in your game (including those from other mods). Players can copy IDs from this file into OreConfig.txt to enable sheep to grow modded ores, TNT, or even Cake.

Commands

• /ignoreGameRuleMobGriefing <true/false>: This command allows Ore Sheep to continue eating/mining blocks even if the global mobGriefing gamerule is set to false.