Butchery | Realistic Mob Harvesting Mod

Turn Every Mob Kill Into a Real Harvest

Killing a cow with a sword and watching a leather scrap pop out always felt a little flat. Butchery replaces that one-click loot drop with a full butchering workflow that rewards preparation. Land the final blow with a Butcher's Knife and the animal leaves behind a carcass you can hang, drain, skin, and cut into real cuts of meat, hides, and bones.

The mod keeps vanilla mechanics intact, so you can still farm mobs the old way when you are in a hurry. It just hands you a deeper, more hands-on option for the times you want every scrap of value out of your livestock.

The Core Loop, Knife to Table

At the heart of the mod is a short, repeatable routine that turns a live animal into processed resources.

• Drop the carcass. Finish a compatible mob with the Butcher's Knife and it falls as a corpse instead of scattered loot. Sheep are the one exception, since they still drop their wool alongside the body.
• Hang it up. Place iron hooks on chains or an overhang, then right-click with the corpse in hand to suspend it.
• Drain the blood. Strike the hanging corpse with a knife to bleed it out. Drop a Blood Grate underneath and the runoff gets collected instead of pooling on the floor.
• Skin and cut. Take the drained carcass to the Butcher's Table and work it with the knife to harvest meat, leather, bones, and feathers.

What the Toolkit Gives You

The mod ships a focused set of tools and blocks, each with a clear job in the chain.

• Butcher's Knife: Crafted from iron and sticks. Landing the killing blow with it is what triggers a carcass drop.
• Skinning Knife: Used on a hung carcass to strip the hide before butchering.
• Iron Hooks: Small iron Nugget craftables that hold a suspended body for draining.
• Butcher's Table: The workbench where carcasses get broken down into meat, leather, and bones.
• Blood Grates: Floor blocks placed under a hook to catch and store dripping blood.
• Sponges: Wipe blood off the table, your tools, or the ground to keep the workspace clean.

A Few Bonus Mechanics

A handful of extras push the mod past simple meat farming. You can craft a Wishbone from chicken parts and infuse it with a Nether Star for a small shot at a wish. Knives from other mods like Farmer's Delight can step in for the blood-draining and butchering steps, so you are not locked into one tool. And the included datapack lets you tag additional mobs so they drop carcasses too.

How to Install Butchery

Installing the mod takes only a minute once your loader is set up.

1. Install Forge or NeoForge, depending on which branch of the mod matches your setup. If you have never done this, our Minecraft Forge guide walks through it.
2. Download the matching Butchery JAR file.
3. Drop the JAR into your game's mods folder.
4. Launch the game and confirm the mod appears in the mods list.

If you are new to modding in general, the how to install Minecraft mods overview covers the fundamentals before you get specific. Note that there is no Fabric build of Butchery, so a Fabric setup will not run this one.

Walking Through a Full Butcher

Once the tools are crafted, the workflow goes quickly. Here is the full sequence from a live animal to processed goods.

Craft a Butcher's Knife from two iron ingots and three sticks.

Kill a compatible animal with the knife to make its corpse drop.

Craft iron hooks from nuggets and hang them on chains or an overhang.

Right-click a hook with the corpse in hand to suspend it.

Strike the hanging corpse with a knife to bleed it out, and set a Blood Grate below to catch the runoff.

Skip the grate and things get messy fast.

Skin the carcass with the Skinning Knife.

Take the skinned body off the hook and set it on the Butcher's Table.

Use the Butcher's Knife on the table to carve the carcass into meat, leather, bones, and feathers.

Wipe down tools and surfaces with a Sponge.

Run that loop a few times and your livestock operation turns into a proper processing line, with every animal giving up its full value instead of a single random drop.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which animals can I butcher? Out of the box the mod works on cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats. Sheep still drop their wool normally, plus the carcass. You can tag additional mobs to drop carcasses through the included datapack, and addons add support for creatures from other mods.

Does it play well with other mods? Yes. Knives from mods like Farmer's Delight can handle the draining and butchering steps. There is also a Vampirism integration that turns collected blood into blood bottles and has villagers drop human hearts, plus an Alex's Mobs addon.

What happens if I just kill a mob normally? Vanilla behavior is untouched. Kill a mob with any normal weapon and you get the standard drops. The carcass only appears when the Butcher's Knife lands the final blow.

Is the mod still being maintained? The most recent release dropped in mid-2026, so the project is actively updated. Check the project page for the latest version and current status before you build a modpack around it.

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