Friendly mobs, such as sheep, pigs, cows and chickens can only spawn in groups of 4, no less, no more. Larger numbers only occur if two or more groups spawn in near proximity.
This can be best observed in Superflat Worlds.
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But these 'larger groups' are actually two (or more) smaller groups of four, merged together. Also, the total number of one mob's specimens is always one of 4's multiples (so 8, 12, etc.), providing further evidence it can only be 4 mobs per group.
Note that they're more likely to spawn in the bunch of no more than 4 on Superflat, every group of friendly mobs You'll encounter will (nearly) always count only 4 of them.
It's just there are no groups of just 1, 2 or 3 mobs, it's always got to be 4 or the multiple of it.
There's no variety of numbers.
This is not a bug, but a feature request, and should be posted on the MC forums here.
I think this is intended.
" Larger numbers only occur if two or more groups spawn in near proximity." So actually they spawn sometimes in larger groups am I right?