Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frontestro]

Ok so we all know that a lot of different animals can be used as mounts by goblins in their sieges. For this fort I am currently in they seem to love Jabberers and Elk Birds I butchered the first wave for food and bone then read on the wiki that they can be tamed and trained. I know they will bring more next time or I may find some in the lower caverns but I was wondering. Are jabberers worth the effort? I know they don't have the grazer tag, lay eggs, and are worth 4x profit, they can be used for war and hunting, are large and dangerous, and are worth alot pet wise. However they only lay 1 or 2 per clutch, take a long time to mature, and I havn't checked how much space they need to not get pissed off.

My question is: Should I just butcher them as they show up for their valuable parts and keep to raising sheep and dogs, or take up trying to use these guys as backup war animals, food animals, and trade goods? And if the forum thinks they are worth trying to raise en masse, how large of a female population do I need before I can create a stable working breeding population?

(Sorry being noob)

[Fredd]

Young Urist, make the best of what fate sends you. Turn adversity into profit. Breed them!!!

[Panando]

Beware, if you capture a mount and tame it, then when it's released from it's cage, dwarves will attack it and trigger a loyalty cascade. The tamed mount is considered both an enemy and a friend of the fortress.

I don't know if there's any way around that. You'd almost certainly have to keep them wild, but perhaps you could breed hostile ones, and dispose of the parents, and perhaps the young would be tamable without causing a loyalty cascade. Or it might work if you tame the mounts and release them in quarantine (via the cage linked to a lever) to breed, perhaps the young would be tame and not an enemy. Without trying it it's hard to say what if anything would work.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Breed them, and you'll have an objective that makes you want to keep a fort around for several (in-game) years.

Hint: Females have to be kept for the breeding program, but you only need to keep one (preferably a younger adult) male. The other males can be eaten or assigned to war duty.

Apparently eggs only take 3 months to hatch, regardless of size, but spores are only spread once per season. See: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=106323.0

Creature lifespan: 10-20 years.
Becomes adult after 1 year, full size in 2 years.

Clutch size of 1-2 means that you have the following chances in the first year:
25% one male
25% one female
25% one male and one female
12.5% two females
12.5% two males

Overall, you have a 62.5% chance of getting at least one female child, so it will only take a few years to get a decent inbred herd started.

Ninja: capture wild jabberers, not mounts.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Jabberers are my favorite pets. Their beaks are murder:)

[orfax]

Captured war mounts can be trained, but they will, regardless of training level, remain hostile to your civilization and will, if released from bondage, attack your units without mercy.

That's funny, Toady said that wasn't supposed to happen anymore...

Let's see... finished the jobs from the last log, and messed with how the semi-wild animals lash out. When your dwarf caravan leaves, your civ now picks up a small portion of what you have learned about animal training for future forts. I think that problem where tamed animals with dwarf kills still attack you is fixed, but I have to test it, and I also have to check out animals you receive in trade. Various little tests.

[Trif]

Toady referred to an earlier problem. In the previous versions, when an animal killed a dwarf and got caged afterwards, it could be tamed and it would be treated like a stray animal, but it would still attack dwarfs.
That got fixed, taming invader mounts is a new bug.

[Frontestro]

Either way I'm going to keep a male and female jabberer in cages for now just in case I can't find any more down in the second and third caverns. Right now my main focus is gaining a larger foothold in the first cavern as it has water, moss, and a GCS (found some GCS webs so I know the jerk is down there somewhere). As it is this isn't my first time farming, I raise sheep (as they are a good source of milk, wool, and food) and Dogs (for war, hunting, and meat shields pets) I tried chickens once and was quickly swarmed by chicks (Although it is now good to know about the 3 month rule thank you for that Urist).

The civilization I use The largest of the 7 dwarf civs that inhabit the mountains of the world I use, are "The Joyous Tools" and I read somewhere about taming becoming easier the more you tame the same creature over a civilizations lifetime. Which is why I have taken such an interest in Jabberers. I'm also thinking of raising Giraffes as while they require huge pasture to survive their meat and bones are x5 multiplier and I keep having herds of 3 to 6 of them walking onto my property (along with the additional jaguar, swarms of cavies, and an annoying wombat.)

Getting back on track here. I really have to thank Urist as he has provided me a very good understanding of the jabberer's life cycle and I hope to get a working population up sometime before my fort hits 7 years old. (Currently 4)

[tahujdt]

Elk birds aren't any good because they are grazers AND egg layers, that means that they will stave to death on top of the nest box.

[Frontestro]

Elk birds aren't any good because they are grazers AND egg layers, that means that they will stave to death on top of the nest box.

Yeah I read that, which is why I just keel them.