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[SixOfSpades]

The wiki doesn't seem to mention this, but I've noticed an automatically self-imposed population cap on my animals. My embark group of 3 dogs + 1 pet dog quickly shot up to a population of around 50 dogs in just a few years . . . and then stopped. Same with my sheep, although those take longer to reproduce. After my sheep-dog population stabilized, I decided to try out this "Nest Box" thing and give my peacock & peahen (both pets, incidentally) a nice, locked paddock in which to raise their young. Mrs. Peacock hasn't budged from her nest in over a year, and she's laid 2 clutches of eggs, but so far, there's nary a peep.

Then I bought mating pair of Grizzly bears. As there was no longer any need to even pretend to be raising War Dogs, I decided to get rid of them. And as soon as my Butcher started striking them down, they began having puppies again. I thought I could kill them gradually, a few every season, culling just the weakest ones from the herd, but now that they're reproducing almost as fast as my Butcher can handle them, I have to go on Full Auto extermination. So, now I have a few bear cubs, the ewes are producing lambs again (I did slaughter a couple of sheep as well) . . . but there are still no peachicks.

So . . . is there an actual population cap on livestock? Might it be based on caps on the different individual species, a different cap on each grazing zone, or total number of animals over the entire map? Has any Science been done on this?

[DrKillPatient]

As far as I know, there is a hardcoded 50-animal limit. You can exceed it a bit in big migrant waves (similar to how migrants will do the same with relation to your population cap), but there doesn't appear to be a way to change it.

[crazysheep]

IIRC the animal population cap is based on the total number of animals over the entire map, including both live and undead animals. Loud Whispers should have some experience with this.

[Reelya]

a tip for culling, only cull the females. This will allow you to get on top of numbers quicker.

The cap is per species, i don't know what's stopping your peahens from breeding, try clearing out the eggs and locking them in for another try, make sure not to set a pasture in there while they're laying. That could maybe be something.

[codyorr]

I think I saw someone say 200 animals somewhere. Then again I still play .31.25

[Quietust]

Here's how it works for non-egglayers: for each race of animal, if there are more than 50 of that animal or there are more than 3 children per adult, then females of that race will not become pregnant.

[Replica]

Make sure that no one is collecting the eggs.

Lock and forbid the room/area the egg layers are in.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

Make sure that no one is collecting the eggs.

Lock and forbid the room/area the egg layers are in.

however he migth need to first remove those eggs wich are in the nestbox from before when the popcap were reached (and i think it is 200 too and 50 per animal but not sure about it neither ...)

[wuphonsreach]

Yeah, I'm curious whether the limit is 50 per species, 50 per gender of each species, or 200 animals in total?

[SixOfSpades]

Update: After another 18 months or so, I finally have my peachicks. My dwarven paradise-to-be is going to be so much cooler with some peacocks strutting around on the lawn . . . the successful incubation occured with the pasture zone on, incidentally, although really I think it was the mass slaughter of the canines that made it possible. (Last count: 83 dog skull totems, and they're not even all dead yet.)

In other news, while I was designating the 2nd half of my necropolis, one of my miners adopted 3 cats. He now has 5 cats and no friends. I find this amusingly representative of DF as a whole.

[wuphonsreach]

Well, I have 583 pets/livestock, and eggs are still hatching (I have every type of domestic bird - peacock, geese, duck, chicken, guinea, turkey).  Plus lots of dogs / war dogs.  The cats are still caged, so they have not multiplied.  The alpaca are slowly multiplying, but that numerous.

So it might be 50/species.