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[Azgog]

So I have this problem... My fortress population is steadily climbing towards 100 and things are beginning increasingly difficult to manage, especially as half of the migrants bring pets with them, which are killing my FPS. Adding to this, in the midst of all the chaos, I'm having a hard time spotting all stray kittens and assigning them for butchering, so I also have a massive amount of pet cats running around the halls.

I tried looking up some tips on getting rid of pets from the Wiki, but as my fortress is in a prepetual state of being on the verge of destruction, I don't really have time nor attention to spare for setting up all kinds of intricate bullshit like a spike trap that someone triggers every time a cat happens to be heading its way. I rather need a simple, no-bullshit, hands-on approach solution to this problem. I did try to set up a ballista in the main hall but it requires as much attention as the spike trap thingy and moreover, dwarves tend to get in the way at the same time as pets.

The DF community having tendencies towards insanity, I figure some of the more experienced players might have come up with tricks in getting rid of this organic waste. Any tips?

[M.R. Siegal]

If you are having a hard time finding strays, you can always look them up in the animal screen.  Z, then enter.  Then hit b until everything dies.  I imagine you knew that already, but hey, I'll repeat the obvious.  Got me through grad school.

[mal7690]

You can throw all un-owned animals in a single cage building so they don't pick up owners and aren't pathing anymore.

[Mookie Love]

I train migrants with pets in pumping or just let them socialize so that they're faster than their pets. Then I make them do some work outside, whether it's setting up walls or herbalism or woodcutting, around the time I'm expecting a goblin siege. Then when it shows up, everybody runs away, and the goblins usually focus on the slower pets first. You'll lose at least a few animals that way, if not all of them, and maybe a dwarf or two too.

There's some micromanagement as I get them all set up to be outside, but watching goblins slaughter those piles of kittens and mules personally makes it worthwhile for me.

[Hyndis]

Station the dwarf in a room. When the dwarf goes into there and the animal then follows, make the door be impassable to pets.

Have the dwarf pull the lever to fill the room with DOOM. I prefer spike traps myself.

[Jualin]

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The door just before the lever is impassible to pets. All the traps shown are spiked traps attached to the lever. Restrict the work profile for the lever to the owner of the pet. Queue an activate job on the lever. The dwarf should make it through both doors without his animal. The animal should be on one of the spike traps.

Occasionally the pet might make it through both doors. In this unfortunate circumstance, repeated attempts should eventually reward you with success. Be careful to lock both door when the process begins and for a while after it ends: the design has been known to have a delay between when the lever is pulled and when the spikes go up. This delay could result in a dwarf losing something should they rush through the spike traps to somewhere else.

Be aware that a single spike trap activation is often insufficient for the intended purpose. As such, you may want to set the lever activation on repeat.

[Earth Striker Lurin]

I rather need a simple, no-bullshit, hands-on approach solution to this problem.

You Sir, are no dwarf...

J/k


If I've prepared properly, after the basic bed, farm, still, table,chair set up, I make a death chamber.  sometimes this is as simple as a one tile dig out for about 20 levels.  If you immigrate here with your pet, you get thrown down the pit before you have time to socialize with everyone.  then, we eat your pet.  Yum.

also as a no-BS alternative, edit your init to turn off immigration, start a new fort, and just get population with babies.  That will make sure you don't get unwanted animals.

[qoonpooka]

Killing the owner (suicide mission, etc) is a good way to make the animal stray, then you can easily cage them.  Serves the bastard right for bringing the plague into your fort.

[chewd]

If you are desperate enough to resort to hacks, gibbeds tweak can be used to kill them all in one fell swoop.

[Tokkius]

I always go with the puppy-day-care method.

Magma.

Open floor.

Insert puppy.

Repeat.

[mattie2009]

I'd put all the pets in a non magmasafe cage and dump it into a magma river. Problem solved. The only problem is if the cage doesn't burn. Then you have a cage full of pets sitting in a magma river, and chances are drainage isn't an option.

[3]

No need for that - if you have a magma pipe, you're bound to have a magma flow at the bottom of it. If that is indeed the case, just drop the cage down the pipe. It'll fall through the flow and off the bottom of the map.

[Yagrum Bagarn]

Keep in mind that after you get the pet population under control, it's okay to have a few cats.  Male cats.  4-5 male cats can keep vermin problem way down without being a nuisance.

It never bothers me when immigrants being non-cat pets.  Animals die every so often, and if there's a breeding pair, I occasionally get a nice stack of bones from offspring.  Cows and horses are especially welcome.  For any animal other than cats, as long as you mark all offspring for butchery, your pet population will die out eventually.

If you do opt to keep a few male cats for vermin control, remember to buy replacements from caravans.

[Dorf3000]

So I have this problem...

Are you sure its the pets that are killing your FPS, and not the extra migrants, or the volume of flowing water, or the 50,000 stones you have, or any other number of things that affect FPS and increase with the age of the fort?

Second, if you're too impatient to create a mechanism of dooooom (which, honestly, are not that hard to build) then just use tweak or the dwarf companion utility or something to make all pets have deadly wounds.  Then watch as you get a tantrum spiral from all the suddenly bereaved and unhappy dwarves, haha.

In summary, you're screwed even if you do find a way to get rid of pets.

[chewd]

I've used hacks to kill off pets en-masse a couple times. While it does result in -some- sadness, i think youre okay as long as you dispose of the corpses & dont leave them out to rot.