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[mordrax]

I don't seem to remember (from the last few times I played) that birthing rates were so high. In the last two years, I've had several births a month. Normally, it would be ~5 a year perhaps? But I had about 10 babies born within a season or two! Overall, there's 33 out of a pop of ~120, but they are coming out faster than my migration waves now... is this normal? Or is it because of soundsense, i'm noticing it more... can't be because it pauses and centers on the baby each time, so I should have noticed it before too...

[Mlamlah]

I have a solution to your problem.

[Sutremaine]

Ready, Urist McIke?

[Catsup]

i dont have a link, but i've seen various baby grinders in the past before. I still remember how it works, you just need a central area where your dwarves travel a lot to be a cistern with 2-4 level of flowing water. Dwarves drop their babies in the water if the water is high enough, like 3-4 or so i think and the flowing water then carries the babies out of sight and into a child-smasher bridge.

another way is to mod the birth rates in the init files to be reduced, i have mine capped at 20% of the adult population. vanilla has no child cap. You might also want to make dwarves take a smaller amount of time to mature by modding their raws.

a third way is to wait until the babies become children and build a child-smasher room with constructed walls. If all your adults are busy, the children will go to deconstruct the wall inside. Then all you need to do is forbid the door behind them, deselect the wall for deconstruct and pull the bridge's lever. This method is usually easier than the first one.

both the first and 3rd methods need slabs or ghost kids start showing up; if you manage to make them disappear and slab them so no ghost appears then there is no bad thoughts.

[0cu]

They make fabulous smelter operators.

[moki]

It's quite normal... I always set a child cap at 20% to keep the babies at bay and also make children grow up at 6 years old, so they become useful before I abandon all hope and the fort. Without these modifications, I got forts with 220 inhabitants, of which 120 were babies or children. Dwarf Kindergarten is not the game I wanted to play

[krenshala]

Its still a matter of the more free time your dwarves have, the more children they have a chance to make.  Work the dwarves more (few, if any, that are idle) and you should get less children.  Of course, the higher your population the harder this becomes.

Also, being near starved/dehydrated will cause miscarriages (had a fort almost die because I forgot farms, and had three during the second year and no live births until after the farms were finally working properly in the third).

[Gigaz]

I think that it hardly matters if your dwarfs are busy. My dwarfs never find time to make friends or form relationships but they make babies like nobodies business.

[chevil]

You probably had a bunch of children who had similar birth days grow up almost simultaneously and allowing more babies to be made. If you play this fort for 12 years you will get another baby spam season but getting so many children in so short time span is rare.
Unless you have a "accident" killing most of your child population.

[mordrax]

child-smasher

,

baby grinders

*shudders*, i got what the first two youtube videos were all about after reading a bit into the third reply.
whilst i'm sure this is all in good taste, I can't help but shudder at the graphical thought of those methods (esp since my wife is full term and expecting any day now! )

last night, i think another 5-10 was born in 2 seasons. i hardly ever actually have the game running since i'm either nitpicking the best dwarf for a role in therapist or delegating/digging or doing something with dfhack or toying with input/output placements of industries. but i remember everytime i unpaused it, a baby would get born!!!

i will try editing their age and cap

[Sutremaine]

Congrats on the upcoming baby.

Unfortunately, the child caps in DF are all or nothing -- there's no option to reduce the rate at which a fortress under its cap produces babies. If you're willing to alter the game with modding, perhaps you could use DT's cheaty options to make children do a little work? They already remove constructions and harvest crops, and letting them take on no-quality tasks such as spinning and threshing is something I'd find acceptable (but I hate the dwarven kiddie conga line, so I edit the child cap unless I end up with a no-migrant fortress). Letting them loose on the fields as proper farmers is another matter, but fertiliser is particularly useful with multiple low-skill planters.

whilst i'm sure this is all in good taste

Nope! I am infrequently tasteless, but when I am I like to make it count.

[wierd]

There's also the option of "excessive" danger room training with poking stick machines and coinstars for expectant mothers.

The added consequences of induced miscarriages from blunt trauma is about the only method of birth control that can reduce the "rate" of births. Just be sure to keep mommy dearest happy so she doesn't tantrum.  Getting her used to tradgedy this way makes it easier to deploy her against goblins with baby meatshield in place, without her going bonkers when said baby takes a few crosbow bolts for the team.

IIRC, repeated dropping with a pressure plate drop chute repeater can also induce miscarriages.

(*note: ALL female dwarves that are married are "expectant mothers". They get married, they go in the machine.)

Coupled with "dwarven childcare", you should be able to weed out the undesirables while still keeping the pop cap and child cap open. Just be wary of migrant brats showing up.