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My sister asked me why the horses in her excessively large pen were all seemingly attracted to one small section of it in the NW. I couldn’t find any useful information on google about horse mechanics post spawning. The pen is too big for the render distance to envelop and it’s not square. Any ideas? This isn’t really a problem so much as a curiosity item now. This is the 360 edition.

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  • Is there more light there? Or grass?
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Dec 2, 2018 at 17:18
  • the pen is in a superflat world and the horses are all spawn egg ones, though I don't think that matters at all. the pen contains no significant geological or topographical changes, and its all open to the sky with no abnormal artificial light sources. a horse that is deliberately moved from the pack will eventually wander back to it. is there something in the code governing random directional trends that breaks down in superflat worlds? I know a while ago slimes used to hop along in the same cardinal direction, even ignoring the players hits and running straight into things. are horses too?
    – Powerwindows83
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 18:31
  • I noticed something similar too. I recently started a superflat, creative server running 13.2 (windows, java edition) and I built a rather large animal pen (part of a larger build). I filled it up with all kinds of animals, stretching the entire length of the pen (~30 block width). After a while, I noticed that one half of then pen was completely empty but the other half was still chock full of animals. I wasnt sure if it was just weird behavior or something to do with chunks. I didnt mind much cause it isnt really an issue, but I am curious to hear what the reason is.
    – Kyle Rone
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 18:31
  • Confirmed, especially for long pens: drive.google.com/file/d/1mej14Ao6OCucOEliYLwVwPGc9Zrq8TiC/…
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 20:56
  • Confirmed also for regular worlds. Only happens in the North direction for me, not west.
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 22:36

3 Answers 3

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This might be a sub-problem of the bug MC-21109. The report says:

Mobs (the creeper) get stuck in northwest corners
This is a combination of things. For one thing, entities begin pathfinding from their northwest corner instead of their center. […]

This might also mean that they prefer the North-West direction, but I'm not sure. To be safe, I created a new bug report: MC-140545
For now, it just says what we figured out here, more testing would be required to find the general cause. But for now, it's reported at least, these tests take a long time.

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I had this happen bcause my horses were attracted to a floating haybale. I placed some dirt under it and that fixed it.

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  • Well, a haybale is a feed for Horses, so I guess it has the same 'attract' effect than just holding hay. So thats why your horses were attracted to it.
    – Fredy31 ♦
    Commented Aug 23, 2021 at 17:06
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If the horses were spawned in that area, it will take a while for them to spread out.

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