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[sambojin]

Nest boxes seem to be the easiest military training scheme short of danger rooms. Set boxes, wait with squad, butcher whatever comes up to lay eggs. Repeat.

It's like catnip, but for alligators. Yummy training alligators.

[darkflagrance]

Even if you play an intelligent civ with eggs, your fort members will use the nest boxes to lay eggs. As will the traders! Presumably, if kobold traders existed in DF, they'd lay eggs when visiting you. Bigass, tasty eggs.

I've made a thread specifically for testing various properties of eggs, if anyone is interested.

I modded dwarves to lay eggs.

There is a dwarven macewoman who came with the caravan now squatting over a pile of 14 dwarf eggs in my hatchery.

[Aoi]

If the kobolds in DF are the same as the D&D kobolds, I believe they're reptilian, very distantly related to dragons, omnivorous and VERY prolific breeders [as far as humanoids go].

[G-Flex]

If the kobolds in DF are the same as the D&D kobolds

They're not, although I forget what else Toady has said about them.

[Quarterblue]

Kobolds lay eggs.

Do you realise how fucking awesome it could be? You could trap kobolds thieves with a nest, then watch them lay eggs, let them hatch and raise the newborn kobolds as your own army.

[blue emu]

Can you hatch eggs? How?

[agatharchides]

In my understanding you have to keep them in the nest, which usually means forbidding them

[Marshall Burns]

Or just disabling "eggs" on your food stockpiles.

[GuudeSpelur]

So... if a dragon shows up, and it sees a nestbox on the way in...

[G-Flex]

What if you forbid the nest box itself? Will the dwarves still take eggs from it?

I'm thinking if forbidding the nest box means dwarves ignore the contents, then you can safely designate some of the nest boxes as "breeding" boxes and never have to worry about forbidding the eggs.

[Neowulf]

What if you forbid the nest box itself? Will the dwarves still take eggs from it?

I'm thinking if forbidding the nest box means dwarves ignore the contents, then you can safely designate some of the nest boxes as "breeding" boxes and never have to worry about forbidding the eggs.

Nope, they still take from the nest.

[Jurph]

I'm working with a "nest attractor" setup where I create a 3x1 nook in the wall with a nest box and cage trap.  An animal trying to claim the nest box is captured in the trap, tamed (I am using the Lazy Newb Pack's "no exotics" mod) and then either butchered or allowed to sit its clutch.  If I can figure out what the mother chooses to eat, I can guarantee her a food supply behind a forbidden door so she can sit her clutch in peace until I see a hatching notification.  Any hints on how to keep a peahen fed?  ...a crundle?  ...a kobold?

[PopeRichardCorey]

I believe that at the moment Peahens, Crundles, and Kobolds all do not need to eat.  I might be wrong about Crundles.

[Flaede]

The only non-sentient things that eat have grazing tags in the raws. I wont get into animal-men food requirements, but the grazers right now only eat growing grass. So far as I know you can't store it.

[Jurph]

The only non-sentient things that eat have grazing tags in the raws. I wont get into animal-men food requirements, but the grazers right now only eat growing grass. So far as I know you can't store it.

So if I wanted to capture egg-laying grazers, I could (for example) build a series of 1-tile-wide ramp-and-tunnels down into a soil layer, clear out a 2x2 or 3x3 pasture in a soil layer, and then in the entry chute I could have

• Surface entrance
• Cage trap
• Door
• Nest Box
• 2x2 or 3x3 pasture area (as required by local creatures)

If the cage trap catches a creature going for the box, I train the creature and then release it again ASAP.  It should path back to its nest box, since claiming is remote and appears semi-permanent.  Once the creature sits a clutch, I can forbid the door, secure in the knowledge that the creature and its chicks will have grazing space until I need to retrieve them.  I could even rig up underground access to the pasture, provided I installed another forbidden door there and wasn't worried about thieves. 

Of course, a thief that tries to sneak in via a henhouse will be spotted by the mother creature, who occupies a 1x1 tile directly in the thief's path... much in the way we have used kittens in the past! 

Is this a solid plan, or what?