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This may seem like an odd question, but yes, this is what I wanted to know: do the baby cows jump occasionally, without specific reason?

Rationale:

I've built an automatic cow butchery. I have a manual "mercy switch" that lets me save baby cows and return them to the herd - but I failed to use it once, and a baby cow fell into the "lava blade" trap. And... it fit in the 1-block area right under the lava blade, on top of the hoppers. That means, it would get butchered and drop fried steaks as soon as it matures - if it lives that long. Although, the only way it can die now before reaching adulthood is by jumping up, into the lava. I'd have to sit and observe it for nearly 20 minutes to be sure that doesn't happen (and then I still wouldn't be sure if it wasn't just a non-jumpy calf). If they don't jump, I could just scratch the mercy switch and its ramp, and just let the calves await the cruel death coming with adulthood.

(and for a fact, I know adult pigs do jump without good reason. One of them blundered onto my farmland and kept jumping in place until a block converted to soil.)

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  • 7
    This is Arqade. "Odd questions" is what we're known for.
    – Michael Madsen
    Commented Jul 3, 2013 at 10:35
  • Farmland is not exactly "no reason", as it is not a complete block, and that's at least a possible reason to glitch. Calves do jump to navigate terrain, but I do not believe I've seen any mob jump near a 2-meter wall it has no chance of climbing.
    – Orc JMR
    Commented Jul 3, 2013 at 13:01
  • @OrcJMR I'm pretty sure I've seen zombies do that, but that was a while ago and it may have been fixed in an update.
    – Batophobia
    Commented Jul 3, 2013 at 14:26
  • If you let them go through they'll just fill up the blade area and prevent adults from being "processed", backing up your whole grinder. Keep your mercy switch, or add a tunnel past the blade that calves can wander off down for "rehabilitation."
    – SevenSidedDie
    Commented Jul 3, 2013 at 17:53
  • @OrcJMR: Today a horse standing on the sand (the desert) started to continuously jump in place, and there were no half-blocks or anything like that around. I guess that's just one of pre-programmed random behaviors.
    – SF.
    Commented Jul 5, 2013 at 8:08

1 Answer 1

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Calves will only jump when certain things are in front of them and they're trying to get across/through, including:

  • One-block high jumps
  • Fences (and they fail)
  • Half Slabs
  • Blocks that are slightly less than one block in height, including soulsand and farmland (1/16 shorter than a normal block)
  • Water (jump continuously as they swim)
  • holes (jump continuously to attempt to get out).

Not sure if there are any others. If I find any I will edit my answer.

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