Minecraft Snapshot 25w06a: Chicken Variants, Cactus Flowers, & How to Play

Another set of warm and cold animal variants has been added to the game, but this time with exclusive items only they can lay. So, today, we explore Minecraft Snapshot 25w06a, the chicken variants it brings, and how you too can grow cactus flowers alone or with friends.

Patch Overview

Including all the features of snapshots prior, Minecraft snapshot 25w06a adds two new chicken variants, ambient sounds to enhance the immersion of firefly bushes, and updates to desert and badlands biomes, including cactus flowers and dry grass. That is almost three snapshots in a row that have added a near mountain of updates! Perhaps we will see sheep variants within the coming weeks?

Dry Grass Blocks

• Biomes: Desert & Badlands

Short and tall dry grass blocks now generate as part of desert and badlands biomes, bringing more life to their often barren landscapes. Both the tall and short variants of the dry grass block are one block in height, share a dry yellow coloring, and can be grown and spread to nearby blocks using bonemeal. Dry grass blocks can also be burned in furnaces for a short time.

Cactus Flowers

• Biomes: Desert & Badlands

Cactus flowers now generate on top of some cacti as part of desert and badlands biomes. Additionally, growing cacti now have a chance to grow a cactus flower rather than getting taller. This nifty pink flower can then be gathered and placed elsewhere or turned into pink dye.

Chicken Variants

• Biomes: Warm & Cold Biomes

Two new chicken variants have been added alongside new eggs. The cold chicken has black plumage and an ornamental crest of feathers, drops blue eggs, and spawns in cold biomes, while the warm chicken has golden plumage, drops brown eggs, and spawns in warm biomes. The standard chicken variant, known as a temperate chicken, now only spawns in moderate-temperature biomes.

How to Install Minecraft Snapshot 25w06a

Installing Minecraft Snapshot 25w06a takes place right inside the Minecraft Launcher prior to clicking play. Below, we have detailed every step to get the snapshot installed so that you can get right into the game.

1. First, open the Minecraft Launcher and enable snapshots under the ‘Installations’ tab.
2. Second, click ‘New Installation’ and then ‘Latest Snapshot’ in the drop-down menu.
3. Third, click ‘Create.’

With these three steps complete, a new snapshot installation should be a selectable option before clicking play!

How to make Minecraft Snapshot 25w06a Servers

Throwing eggs at friends has never been better! Minecraft 25w06a servers can be created for free through home hosting, but we recommend paid hosting options for ease of use and performance, especially since snapshots can be buggy! Paid hosting is offered here at BisectHosting and many other places around the web. No less than 4GB of server RAM is recommended.

Minecraft Snapshot 25w06a: Full Patch Notes

New Features

• Added Warm and Cold Chicken variants
• Added Short Dry Grass and Tall Dry Grass
• Added Cactus Flower block which can grow on Cactus blocks

Farm Animal variants

• Warm and cold variants have been added for Chicken
• Existing Chicken variant has been renamed to temperate
• The variant is determined by the biome they spawn in
• Warm and cold biomes are the same for all animals with variants (i.e. Chicken, Pig, Cow)
• Two new Egg items have been added for the warm and cold Chicken variants
  • Blue Egg - The Egg that is laid by and can hatch cold Chicken variant
  • Brown Egg - The Egg that is laid by and can hatch warm Chicken variant
• Already existing Egg is laid by and can hatch temperate Chicken variant

Short and Tall Dry Grass

• Added two new types of grass: Short Dry Grass and Tall Dry Grass
• Both are one block high, which makes Tall Dry Grass differ from Tall Grass which is two blocks high
• Both generate in the Desert and Badlands
• Both can be placed on types of Sand, Terracotta and Dirt blocks like the Dead Bush
• Both can be bone mealed
  • Using Bone Meal on Short Dry Grass grows it into a Tall Dry Grass
  • Using Bone Meal on Tall Dry Grass places a neighbouring Short Dry Grass next to the block if possible
• Both can be used in the Composter
• Sheep can eat both to regrow its wool
• Both can be used as fuel for smelting

Cactus Flower

• Cactus Flower is a new type of flower which has a chance of generating on cactuses in Deserts and Badlands
• Cactus Flower can be placed on Cactus blocks or any block which has center support at the top of the block
• Cactus Flowers have a chance of growing on Cactus blocks
  • If a Cactus is one or two blocks high the Cactus Flower has a 10% chance to grow instead of the Cactus getting higher
  • If a Cactus is three blocks or higher the Cactus Flower has a 25% chance to grow
  • Cactus Flowers will only grow if they have space on all four sides
• Cactus Flowers can be used in the Composter
• A Cactus Flower can be used to craft 1 Pink Dye

Changes

• Any block in the simulation distance of a player or loaded by another source of chunk loading (such as Ender Pearls) may now receive random ticks, instead of just 8 chunks around players
  • For example: if a chunk is loaded by an Ender Pearl or is in the spawn chunks, crops are able to grow, Ice can melt, Snow can fall, and a Cauldron can be filled by rain
  • Mob spawning, Lava spreading fire, and Lightning strikes still occur in the previous radius of 8 chunks around players
• Fire will no longer burn or spread if no player is within 8 chunks
• Tooltips for Fireworks and Crossbows now show a compact form of multiple repeated stars or projectiles that are identical

Firefly Bush Conditions for The Firefly Bush playing ambient sounds have changed. It now plays when all of the following conditions are met:

• it's night
• Firefly Bush not blocked from above by any collidable block (except Leaves)

Technical Changes

• The Data Pack version is now 66
• The Resource Pack version is now 51

Data Pack Version 66

• Added new allowFireTicksAwayFromPlayer Game Rule

Game Rule allowFireTicksAwayFromPlayer

• When true, Fire and Lava ticks can occur ouside of an 8 chunk range of a player
• Default value: false

Block Tags

• #dead_bush_may_place_on has been renamed to #dry_vegetation_may_place_on
• Added #edible_for_sheep - blocks that can be eaten by Sheep to regrow their Wool

Item Tags

• Added #eggs - all variants of the Egg item

Entity Data

• The armor and off-hand equipment of Players is now also stored in the equipment field (although items written into the Inventory using armor and off-hand slot numbers still work)

Chicken Variants

• Chicken variants can be data-driven by adding entries to data/<namespace>/chicken_variant/<id>.json
• This feature is experimental
• Fields in file:
  • model - one of: normal, cold
  • asset_id - namespaced id for this variant asset, resolves to assets/<namespace>/textures/<path>.png
  • spawn_conditions - field described in uniform variant selection above

Resource Pack Version 51

• New and updated Chicken textures
• Added textures for new Blue Egg and Brown Egg items
• Added textures for new Cactus Flower block
• Added textures for new Short Dry Grass and Tall Dry Grass blocks

New and updated Chicken textures

• Added new textures for Chicken variants:
  • cold_chicken
  • warm_chicken
• Texture chicken has been renamed to temperate_chicken
• The temperate_chicken texture has been moved to a new folder:
  • entity/chicken.png -> entity/chicken/temperate_chicken.png

Fixed bugs in 25w06a

• MC-157196- Tamed animals cannot be added to a team
• MC-186241- World border faces are rendered incorrectly with "Fabulous!" graphics
• MC-279205- Leaf litter map color is incorrect
• MC-279207- Leaf Litter can only be placed on dirt-like blocks
• MC-279223- Country Lode Take Me Home Advancement can be completed in the overworld but is still listed as a Nether advancement
• MC-279235- Certain farm animals are not spawned as their cold variant in some cold biomes due to an incomplete tag
• MC-279242- Kelp, twisting vines, weeping vines, and cave vines can no longer be stacked above or below one another by placing
• MC-279261- Making a mob its own owner causes persistent crashes
• MC-279279- Dismounting places player in same space as mount
• MC-279292- Pigs spawn as temperate in desert villages
• MC-279309- Wildflowers item has a misplaced transparent pixel
• MC-279464- Fire placed with /setblock doesn't tick/burn out
• MC-279719- Tooltip description for saddle attribute modifier slot is not translated
• MC-279912- You can use bone meal on bushes in situations where nothing grows
• MC-279914- The hitboxes of bushes don't reach the ground and are too wide compared to other similar blocks
• MC-279924- Bushes cannot be replaced by trees or mushrooms
• MC-279933- Firefly bushes cannot be replaced by trees or mushrooms
• MC-279950- Modifying command data storage throws an error
• MC-279972 - Using /setblock & /fill with fluids of levels at a non-full-block no longer updates the fluid