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[Mr.Pylon]

Ahoy hoy all, I just fended off an invasion of goblins mounted on Giant Cave Swallows, Cave Crocodiles and Giant Rats and I have a couple of those war animals captured in cages. My animal trainers have already worked at them and given them =trained= status, but I was wondering whether I can safely use them as guard beasts or even for breeding?

It would be a nice stroke to have Cave Crocodile eggs for food and a Giant Rat guarding my northern gate but I honestly don't know if they will still be hostile even after training,

[Beast Tamer]

Unfortunately they stay completely hostile to your dwarves, and also gain a tag to avoid your traps. Whatever you do don't let them out of their cages, at this point they're only useful in training your Animal Trainers and getting knowledge about the animals.

[MDFification]

I recently had a tortoise bite off both of one of my hammerdwarves' hands, so I'm going to go with no.

[Bumber]

You can breed them and their offspring will be safe.

[Mr.Pylon]

That's too bad that I can't use them right away but so long as DF spore-based breeding works I can have some draft giant animals soon. Thanks for the responses!

[Bludulukus]

You can breed them and their offspring will be safe.

But wouldn't they fight and possibly kill their offspring the moment they were born?

[Zealord]

You can breed them and their offspring will be safe.

But wouldn't they fight and possibly kill their offspring the moment they were born?

That's what I was thinking.

[fourpotatoes]

But wouldn't they fight and possibly kill their offspring the moment they were born?

If you let them out to breed, then capture them again, they'll give birth in the cages and won't be able to murder their children. Of course, this won't work for egg-layers. Does anyone know if egg-laying prisoners will use nest boxes?

Alternately, you could keep them on chains in large rooms. They'll fight their offspring, but they won't be able to pursue if the young flee; that said, when I built an invader-breeding atrocityfacility in Friendlymurders there was a tendency for the children to gang up on and kill their mothers.

[Bumber]

Does anyone know if egg-laying prisoners will use nest boxes?

They don't, apparently.

At least he can have that giant rat at the northern gate.

[Mr.Pylon]

Damn, I hadn't thought of that. Oh well, Giant Rats everywhere it is then!

[Methadone]

If all else fails, you can always use them for marksdwarf training.

[ruanna]

Don't animals in cages still breed? I remember having a fortress where all my dogs were caged but still kept producing puppies - or had they already bred before I caged them?

[Frostea]

Don't animals in cages still breed? I remember having a fortress where all my dogs were caged but still kept producing puppies - or had they already bred before I caged them?

In those cases, the mother was already pregnant before being caged.

[Baffler]

This thread may have some useful ideas. They've probably got designs there you can use to separate the young from their parents to prevent... issues. You'll probably have to modify them (to make the offspring actually survive, among other things) but the concepts are all there.

Edit: It'll be even simpler, given that you don't need to capture aquatic creatures for your purposes.