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[Hypcso]

I've noticed, that if a female dwarf with a baby has the butchery job and goes to haul an animal to the butcher shop, she'll drop her baby while she does it, normally causing it to wander around until it falls into a pond/off a cliff ( and subsequently dies), or she realizes it's missing and comes to pick it up.. followed by dropping it again and hauling another animal. It's kind of funny and useful if you don't want children in your fortress ( But I do, i've got way more food/drink than 200 dwarves could consume in 2 years anyway )

[Toady One]

Yeah, it's probably too aggressive about severing ride/leader-led relationships with other creatures when they grab the animal.

[ February 04, 2008: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Dwaref]

Sorry for necroing this, but about orphaned babies suiciding.
I recently(40d) had a baby whose mother died in a battle, crawl into a 7/7 lake and after a long amount of time died of thirst.
I had a modded race with innate swimming. They can still drown, when placed somewhere with a roof above the 7/7 square(i had assumed swimming underwater for two squares to get to the stair out of the well wouldn't kill anyone).

Shouldn't creatures who want to kill themselves be able to drown, even if they're able to swim?
The melancholic and baby-states both seem to have this tendency of finding ways to kill themselves by, and at least the babies seem to rather swim, than to drown.

[Deon]

It's a bit stupid... Babies do not WANT to kill themselves, they just don't know about world's dangers.
So if they have INNATE ability to swim, they shouldn't drown.

[Dwaref]

Coming to think of it, all my melancholic guys who've went for the lakes have also died of thirst/hunger.
I think babies and melancholics share the same AI pattern until Toady says otherwise.

[Derakon]

It's possible that the baby's mother's death sent the baby melancholic, thereby encouraging it to go find somewhere dangerous to hang out. I don't think babies otherwise are inherently suicidal.

[Dwaref]

It's hard to make research on this, since mothers are kind of attached to their babies.
Does anyone have an experience of this sort? That of a baby lying unattended for an extended period of time, without the mother having died beforehand?

[Neonivek]

That of a baby lying unattended for an extended period of time, without the mother having died beforehand?

Human babies have been known to spontaniously die if unloved even if physical care is provided.

I have no idea if it is still a medical mystery.

[Sowelu]

Human babies have been known to spontaniously die if unloved even if physical care is provided. for no reason at all, and it's very sad.

Doesn't seem like the sort of research that would get okayed...

[Derakon]

Depends on how you define "research". Certainly nobody's going to okay a study that says "We're going to take 100 babies and meet their physical needs in a clinical environment, but make certain they aren't loved, and see what happens." But you can research what has happened to babies whose mothers were killed in accidents and who couldn't get adopted out, for example. All you're doing is looking at records and collating data there.

[Sowelu]

Okay, okay, true, but I can't help thinking it's a funny mental image.

I'm actually on break at work, setting up the forms that human research studies (including purely data-analysis ones) have to go through before they're okayed right now, so I'm getting a huge kick out of...