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[KylonOrina]

Ok so I bought some cages from the hippies that I thought were empty.
Turns out one has a Tame Bat and one has a Tame Cardinal. Can I do anything with these animals?
I also can't seem to release them from their cages. I'd kinda like to use those cages for my traps.

[Albedo]

~IF~ (rare, but it happens) you have a dorf who likes those vermin (check in their preferences, <v, p, z, enter, or something sim), they will create happy thoughts if you put the cage in their room or where they can see it, like a private zoo. 

As I understand it, you can also get them to adopt vermin as pets, but that's not always recommended with flying vermin, as they tend to, well, fly away.

[KylonOrina]

Oh cardinals count as vermin?

Can I get rid of them somehow without losing the cage?

[Malicus]

I've heard that you can designate them for dumping (as in, the vermin in the cage, not the cage itself), and then they'll just teleport around like normal vermin.  You shouldn't do this with hateable vermin, though, since there's now nothing you can DO about them, I would think.

[Albedo]

I'm not sure if there is any vermin which is not "hateable" - maybe, not sure.  Some certainly seem to be more commonly hated - flies, spiders and so forth, but many show up on occasion.  You should read the wiki on this subject for a more complete understanding.

There are... hmmm... maybe 3 classes of creatures - 1) intelligent/weapon using ones, like gobbos or dorfs, b) "creatures" - which include megacreatures, and are your typical "monsters", and iii) vermin, which include anything on the map represented by a dot/period, a " . ", and do not enter into combat.   

Vermin "spawn", appearing randomly and without explanation.  They are tied to the biome (natural surroundings), so you won't get a firesnake without magma nor a turtle without water, etc. 

Not all vermin are a real threat to food stocks, nor do all bother most dwarfs.  Many vermin are "fishy-type" things you can catch - trout, cave lobster, turtles and so forth.  These are significantly different from aquatic "creatures" which are a real threat - vermin don't attack. (Firesnakes have a danger factor to them, but that's a diff discussion.)  Vermin are treated diff from creatures re food and capturing.

[Fredd]

For vermin, just build a glass terrarium. since they cannot gnaw their way out from them, they are pretty well contained. That will enable you to use their cage, and if you make them available for adoption, every dorf kid in your fortress will be ecstatic, lols.

[pushy]

I'm not sure if there is any vermin which is not "hateable"

I don't think any birds have the [VERMIN_HATEABLE] tag, and the same for fish. It's mostly insecty vermin (spiders, flies and stuff) that are hateable, and a few others like bats and fire snakes.

[assimilateur]

since they cannot gnaw their way out from them, they are pretty well contained

I'm pretty sure they can't gnaw their way out of a wooden cage either, so what the hell is your point?


On this subject, I had a couple of tame vermin brought by the elves in my last game. There was some kind of bird, a toad, a turtle and a hedgehog. What I did was I designated my meeting area in the dining room as a dump zone, thinking the vermin would stay there if I dumped them out of their cages. No such luck however, as they ran/flew away, not even showing up in the 'u' menu, much less being possible to localize.

[Albedo]

Vermin are not "tame" in the same sense as creatures, so they don't respond the same way to meeting zone designations.  Private cages are the best bet, I believe.

For vermin, just build a glass terrarium. since they cannot gnaw their way out from them, they are pretty well contained.

Well, assim beat me to my usual pithy remark, so... yeah, what he said.

With rare exceptions, all material in DF is as strong as any other material, and that's 100% resistant to "breakage".  A soap wall or bridge or door is as strong as an adamantine one, and a charcoal trade depot as durable as one of glass, wood, or granite.

(The exceptions are "quality" combat modifiers for weapons/armor, "fire-safe" and "magma-safe" materials, and rope vs chain "restraints" for berserk dwarfs.  Also "Building destroyer" creatures - see the wiki for more info on all those.)

 

That will enable you to use their cage, and if you make them available for adoption, every dorf kid in your fortress will be ecstatic, lols.

The game is not intuitive, Fredd - don't be guessing, or (better) don't present a guess as a gospel answer.  (I've made that mistake, most have, or seen the reaction and avoided it.)

Only the dwarfs that enjoy that vermin/animal will get a good thought - dwarfs that dislike that animal/vermin will get a worse thought.  You'd have to go through your dwarves' profiles to see who likes what to know what's safe and what's not.  Private cages in bedrooms or work areas would be safe if the negative dwarves don't go there.

(Might be an obscure use for burrows, to split the population into two and have two zoos with selected negative vermin, hmmm.)

[assimilateur]

Regarding adoption: does a dwarf have to specifically like a given species to adopt a critter as a pet? I'm almost willing to bet that's the case, because I've seen stray cougars and the like, or any vermin for that matter, go unadopted indefinitely.

Strays of the so-called domestic species (horses and cows, for example) have been getting adopted almost instantly whenever I tried setting them as available. This leads me to either of two potential conclusions:
a. the average dwarf is more likely to have a preference for something like a cow than for a toad or deer
b. domestic animals are sort of universally liked, ergo someone doesn't require a specific preference for one to treat it as a viable pet.

[Albedo]

Yes, there is a mechanical, in-game distinction between "domestic animals" and others.  And yes, for those "others", a dwarf needs a specific preference to adopt.

Dogs, cats, and the various draft animals that one can start with - which might include camels, not sure, but certainly horses/mules/donkeys/oxen.

[SwiftAusterity]

Just make a gigantic zoo!

I've almost got every single vermin and creature in civ forge in my zoo now. Tons of unhappy thoughts, but its mitigated by a giant dang waterfall in the middle of it most of the time.

[Scarpa]

If you want to recover the cage, make an animal trap, build the cage using b->j then unassign the animal. A dwarf will come put it into the trap and the cage is now available (though you'll have to deconstruct it).

I'm not sure if you can pit small animals, that might work too.

[Albedo]

I've almost got every single vermin and creature in civ forge in my zoo now. Tons of unhappy thoughts, but its mitigated by a giant dang waterfall in the middle of it most of the time.

"Come along children - we're going to see the waterfall!"

<all begin to cry>

[buzz killington]

Regarding adoption: does a dwarf have to specifically like a given species to adopt a critter as a pet? I'm almost willing to bet that's the case, because I've seen stray cougars and the like, or any vermin for that matter, go unadopted indefinitely.

Strays of the so-called domestic species (horses and cows, for example) have been getting adopted almost instantly whenever I tried setting them as available. This leads me to either of two potential conclusions:
a. the average dwarf is more likely to have a preference for something like a cow than for a toad or deer
b. domestic animals are sort of universally liked, ergo someone doesn't require a specific preference for one to treat it as a viable pet.

A lot of my dwarves have preferences like "cows for their haunting moos" or "mules for their stubborness"  They seem to get adopted fast.  My zoo of freaks like the bat an elf put in a cage, not so much.