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[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

I use a special pit that allows animal retrieval. the problem with just putting animal somewhere is that they still path through doors and such, while if you pit them you can't easily retrieve them so I came up with this idea.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Lv 1  "=" = Pit you drop animals in "░" = floor or whatever as long as "=" is accessible
░░░
░=░
░░░
Lv 2 "▓" = wall "H" = hatch cover where the animals land. It is hooked up to a lever. one of the walls will need to be mined away and replaced to do this.
▓▓▓
▓H▓
▓▓▓
whatever is under the 2nd level will be where the animals will drop down to. because its walls on all sides animals will be unable to path to anywhere yet be in outside so they breed. also if you put war animals in it you can position it over your entrance way as a animal trap.

That's my way of doing it so what ideas have you all come up with for breeding animals. also any one that would like to contribute a good way to breed fish and other such water breathers(mermaids) your design will be greatly appreciated.

[zchris13]

I guess everything comes back to killing mermaids, doesn't it?

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

I guess everything comes back to killing mermaids, doesn't it?

no everything comes back to magma, it just happens to count as a way of killing them to.

[Itnetlolor]

For the hell of it, put a GCS in there. You have an auto-cannon for your front door. 

[Albedo]

(The "mermaids" thread is where you'll find the all the answers to that question. Tho' someone also had a thread about taming and breeding carp.)

I make stalls 1-tile big, with a door that is not-pet-passable. Then I restrain the animal there - that's only to get them into the room.  The door shuts, they have no path to take.  Breed just fine.

If they do somehow manage to block the door open, it will shut and lock first time they move.

(Edit - afterthought - I suppose if metal were scarce and you had no rope and needed to reclaim the chains, you could make the stall 3 tiles total, and entrance/exit 2 doors deep.  A dwarf goes in, unassigns the animal in its stall and leaves - maybe the animal gets to the first door, but not the second.  It moves and both lock again.  Then you reclaim the chain - done deal.)

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

animals still path through doors even is locked so with enough animals you would still take a hit to your FPS. that's why I do the whole pit thing.

[Martin]

animals still path through doors even is locked so with enough animals you would still take a hit to your FPS. that's why I do the whole pit thing.

No, that's not true. If the door is locked, they don't path. Trust me, I've got 500 horses, mountain goats, and macaques in a pen in my hunting arena. With the door locked, full FPS. As soon as I unlock it, I shoot down to a frame per second or less.

[Albedo]

That's how I had witnessed it working.

But you have them in a larger pen? How big? I thought that even if it was 1x2, they'd consider pathing to that other tile and that would cripple fps. (Haven't done exhaustive tests, obviously.)

[Wahad]

Don't breed, for the sole reason that I have not yet acquired any breed-worthy animals (I'm talking bears here, maybe Giant Eagles) to breed yet.

[Neruz]

I'm breeding hippos!

I've also made them trainable for the hell of it, so my fortress shall soon be filled with War Hippos, considering a single normal Hippo single-handedly dispatched an entire Orcish siege i fully expect them to be unbelievably lethal.


As for breeding; i just let them wander around. They're Hippos so they're in almost no danger (and appear to be quite friendly with the local wildlife; two of my tame Hippos spend most of their time chilling in the river with half a dozen un-tame ones and some carp.) and my compy is sufficiently strong that i havn't run into any FPS issues yet.

[P-Luke]

I always breed: it's an infinite supply of bones, meat, fat and skulls.
It's also quite profitable to sell some animals as pets to caravans (once tame, of course).

At the moment i'm breeding bactrians and dromedarisses in my egyptian piramid fortress.
I wish the elves would bring me a male and female croc some time, I can't wait to make my crocodile pit for goblins, kobolds and (once I have my crocs) elven spies.

[Mount]

I like to make a laaaarge circular "zoo" with paired ropes and a big pit in the middle.  Dwarfs can come be entertained by the animals, maybe learn some breeding tips..  and the inevitable result of breeding gets kicked down the pit for later butcheration.

[Martin]

That's how I had witnessed it working.

But you have them in a larger pen? How big? I thought that even if it was 1x2, they'd consider pathing to that other tile and that would cripple fps. (Haven't done exhaustive tests, obviously.)

They're in a 48x48 pen, so even with about 500 animals, there's plenty of space to move about. Now, they want to path to the edge of the map, which they can't, so they don't path at all, effectively. But that's true with tame animals as well - they want to path to a meeting area, which if it is outside the pen will prevent them from pathing.

[Greiger]

I'm not sure I understand the original design properly.  You drop the animals onto the hatch, then pull the lever to drop them into the storage room below correct?  But how do you retrieve them when you want to butcher some?

All I can think of is some retracting bridges in various positions in the storage pit and pulling the lever for the bridge the one you want is standing on.  But that seems unreliable to me. 

[Skorpion]

How: I chain breeding pairs up in the dining hall, and cage anything else.

Why: Food. Soap. Bone bolts and crafts. Skull totems.

Why I never use them: Goblins supply trade goods through their clothing, their bones, and their skulls. I use hunting in the hope that someone useless tries to wrestle the friendly neighbourhood cougar to death and gets nommed on.