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[Melting Sky]

From what I can remember, I've read stories of dwarves getting stuck in the caverns and surviving on their own by drinking from underground pools and foraging for the edible plants that grow down there.

My question is can a dwarf really forage on their own when starving or were the stories I read embellished a little bit for the purposes of making it a better read. I figure you could do something like designate a food stock pile down in the cavern near the stranded dwarf and then turn on herb collecting as one of their labors and this would allow them to feed themselves normally but I am curious if they will do these sorts of things on their own.

For instance will a stranded, starving dwarf who is sitting next to a wild edible plant harvest and eat the plant on his own without the player's input?

Can a starving dwarf pick up eggs in a nest box and feed themselves directly or does it need to be hauled to a food stockpile first?

[bluephoenix]

No they wont do it themselves (yet?). The only thing they will do if they are starving is hunt vermin which will give them a bad thought.
Harvesting wild plants is a job that has to be assigned by the player.

[CaptainArchmage]

Well you’d have to control the foraging process yourself - designate plants to be harvested, designate a food stockpile, maybe designate a burrow to keep things in good order, which is quite a bit of micromanagement. However, it is do-able.

Your dwarf will be stuck drinking water unless there’s an accessible axe, in which case it should be possible to cut the wood to build a still, carpentry workshop, make some barrels, and then brew drinks. Of course in this case, your dwarf can also build themselves a fortification if there is enough wood available.

[Arcvasti]

From what I remember, one unskilled dwarf with herbalism enabled can gather enough plants to feed a LOT of dwarves. Just himself should be no problem. He won't do it on his own though. But he can do it. You just need to help.

[Eric Blank]

He won't die, so long as you don't forget to tell him to feed himself. And pray the wildlife doesn't get him.

[krenshala]

What I would do is have him make a small (1x2 or 1x3) farm using seeds from whatever he gathered and then ate.  You should be able to have him plant the seeds and then pick and replant automatically (set the farm to grow just that one plant year round).  All this assumes nothing interrupts him, of course.

[Duuvian]

I once had a Reclaim dwarf hiding in a small recess who was taking care of the only other surviving dwarf from that poorly fated reclaim, who was wounded. It was pretty cool, he'd go out to gather plants or collect supplies I'd unforbid for him, bring his buddy water and feed him while avoiding loitering goblins (though due to a bug they initially are not hostile, it seemed right to me.) Early on when dwarves were still waiting to be recovered he had found an ax to cut down a few nearby trees and make some beds; unfortunately only one was made in time to save anyone.

Eventually the poor fellow died after I got cocky and ordered him to attack a melee goblin who was 'guarding' some of the randomly scattered stuff after he had successfully slain a different goblin who must have been weaker or ranged, can't remember.