Non-intrusive Natural Plant Regrowth: Grass and Fern Sprouts

When sheep (or other future grass-eating mobs) eat grass or ferns, the grass plant simply vanishes, leaving bare dirt or a plain grass block, up to a huge area.

Proposal: When a mob eats a fern or a grass plant, instead of disappearing, it turns into their "sprouts".

Appearance:

Grass Sprouts: very short, pale green and white texture (like nether sprouts)

Fern Sprouts: lime-green very short fern texture.

Behavior: Grass Sprouts are a transitional block state of a grass plant, they form only when a 1 block tall grass plant is eaten (2 blocks tall grass should go to 1 block tall instead).

The grass should have a block state to control regrowth, for example, be able to regrow to 1 or 2 blocks tall grass (also, 2 blocks only in open areas, although in certain biomes this doesn't need to be true, like jungles).

Sheep can't eat Sprouts - they are too short to consume (I'm aware of grass blocks being shorter, but the idea here is to add a simple ecosystem dynamic). This automatically enforces a "cooldown" on grazing on that specific block.

Players can interact with sprouts using bone meal to make it grow and shears (to harvest or prevent regrow).

Benefits:

The environment can automatically restore non-player changes.

Visual cues for animals in the area.

Adds new decorative blocks with unique textures (grass and fern sprouts).

A Unique way to farm these blocks.

It is non-Intrusive, as it does not change the gameplay for players who wants more control; it simply adds depth for those who seek it.