Pig

Pigs are passive mobs that are the source of porkchops, and are a renewable source of food. They are 0.875 blocks tall, 0.650 blocks wide and 1.3 blocks long.

Appearance
A pig has pink skin, ears, and a nose. Their eyes are one black and one white pixel which creates a wall-eyed effect. They have a short, stubbed tail and their snouts protrude from their face.

Usage
Each pig will drop 1 - 3 raw porkchops upon death. Pigs that die while on fire will drop 1 - 3 cooked porkchops instead. Pigs can also be used as a method of uncontrolled transportation. Of course, while riding, you can select wheat to stop moving a pig at any time.

Behavior
Pigs typically roam the Overworld in groups of 3 - 4, but much larger groups can sometimes be found if multiple groups come together. When they encounter obstacles, pigs will often try to surmount them by hopping up and down. They make no attempt to stay out of water, bobbing up and down to stay afloat. Pigs' pathfinding is similar to other passive mobs; they avoid harmful falls and attempt to go around obstructions. When led with wheat, pigs seem to "forget" their pathfinding skills: they will often become stuck on the opposite side of a block rather than walking around it, and will blindly walk off of ledges or into fire.

By right-clicking on a pig while holding a saddle, a player can ride it. However, the movement of the pig cannot be controlled by the player. Riding a pig off a cliff is one of the more unusual and challenging achievements. It would be easy to do this by going onto multiplayer and spawning a pig on a floating block, putting a saddle on it, hopping in and then getting another player to destroy the block you're on. (Make sure the block is a few blocks high so the pig takes fall damage thus getting the achievement)

Pigs tend to move more often, but in smaller strides, towards the North-East, without any other variables coming into play. Pigs can be pushed into minecarts to be transported across long distances. Pigs cannot be placed/pushed into boats.

When struck by lightning, pigs turn into zombie pigmen. This is a very rare event as there are not many thunderstorms and pigs are a small target for lightning to strike. Baby pigs that get hit by lightning also turn into zombie pigmen. Ridden pigs also turn into zombie pigmen upon being struck by lightning. The player will receive 2 and a half hearts damage and be knocked off the mob.

Breeding
Pigs can be bred using wheat. It takes about 5 minutes before the parents can have another baby. The same applies for all farm animals. It takes one full Minecraft day or 20 minutes for baby piglets to become fully mature pigs. The appearance of a baby pig is roughly similar to a mature pig, having the same sized heads but noticeably smaller bodies. Baby pigs generally stay around their parents until they mature, although the parents cannot protect their piglet(s) from harm.

History


Creepers were originally a failed attempt to make a quadrupedal model for pigs, which Notch found amusing enough to make into a unique mob.

Bugs

 * If you save and quit while riding a pig the "Saving Chunks" bar will not fill up properly and can stop filling up and appear to be frozen before it suddenly opens the main menu (without the bar filling up any more).
 * Saddled pigs will not drop their saddle upon death. (Not really a bug, but very annoying considering how hard it is to get a saddle)
 * While riding a pig, the characters' legs come out of his armor in the inventory view.
 * If a pig is in a minecart and gets stuck in a block, it will slowly take damage and die.
 * If you ride a pig in a minecart, the cart will act like a car as if inverted mousing is on. Notch soon noticed this and decided to let this stay for a while.
 * On the newest version, pigs may glitch through a pen, turning black, until you approach them.

Trivia



 * Before 12w06a, all mob spawner found in SMP have pigs inside them instead of whatever creature they actually spawn, with the singular exception of the Cave Spider. This bug has been fixed as of 12w06a.
 * By default, any spawner placed by the player will be a pig spawner.
 * Pigs have a separate "armor" file (for use with the saddle).
 * Saddled pigs in minecarts behave strangely:
 * If the player rides the pig, the speed of the minecart will be boosted.
 * The minecart, ridden or not, will not come to a stop unless it hits a block. Other entities and unpowered gold rails will only slow it to a minimum speed.
 * Although the player's eye level is not changed, the player can still sneak while riding a pig.
 * One of the splashes which shows up on the title screen reads "Ride the pig!".
 * It is possible to control a saddled pig by throwing snowballs or eggs at them, they will run the opposite direction the snowball/egg hit them. However, this method is very hard because the pig is likely to run around in circles.
 * If a saddled pig with a player on it goes through a 1x1x1 hole, the player will start suffocating.
 * Pigs seem to spawn more often in swampland than in other biomes.

Texture
(Notice the separated snout from the head prior of the 1.8)