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[The Dog Delusion]

Okay, so I've got turkeys. Probably in the range of 50 to 60 turkeys, mostly hens, but with perhaps 5 or 6 gobblers. I've also got a nice nestbox room next to my food stockpiles for when I feel like eating eggs (or I turn eggs off in the stockpiles and the kitchen menu when I feel like I need a new generation of turkeys). But right now, the problem I face is this: all these damn turkeys are just...wandering around.

During the fledgling years of my egg operation, I just let them wander, until one day I realized that while dwarves don't have a problem with a tiny sun-room meeting area, turkeys do. My doctor got mauled by turkeys before I realized the problem, and without hands, he was unable to operate on himself, even to save his own life.

The next stage was to designate my empty pasture areas (I used to have an alpaca milk and wool industry. Don't ask how that went) to hold the turkeys. This was nice, as with a huge, far-flung pasture area, the turkeys were able to roam free without feeling the need to attack dwarves or each other (or, stupidly, my war Grizzlies). Unfortunately, this had the unintended consequence of having my turkeys unable to use the nest boxes, as they were in a separate section of the fort. By periodically turning the pasture off long enough to let the turkeys for lay the eggs, and then turning it back on (about once a season, or whenever I felt like I needed eggs), this solved the problem...except that it was now a manual process.

Now I was planning on simply continuing this way forever - manual egg laying times, no wandering turkeys. But recently, I have 1) re-designated a MUCH larger meeting area for dwarves (and thus, turkeys). I don't know if it's big enough to prevent turkey tantrums, but perhaps we'll see, but also 2) I'm getting back into the alpaca business, and I don't want turkey in my alpaca or alpaca in my turkey - it's just bad form.

So a few selected questions:
- If I put turkeys in a pasture, and nest boxes in the same pasture, will the next boxes get used?
- How many birds do most people have for their egg industries? is 50-60 overkill (fps is, miraculously, not a problem)?
- If I don't want my turkeys caged up, but don't want them "free range," and assuming the pasture nest boxes work, how much pasture area is actually needed for these birds? I suppose I could set the pasture just about anywhere, as they don't actually need grass to eat - I just want to keep them all penned up in the same-ish area so they aren't jamming up the meeting area. I mean...can you imagine getting off from a hard day of mining, you head over to the local tavern with your buddies, and it's so filled with turkeys that you can't hear your own thoughts?
- For others with egg industries, what's your setup?

[Dantrithor]

- Nest boxes must be in the same pasture as turkeys. At least, that's how I set up them, always.

- I usually have 2-5 types of birds, 5-10 egg-layers per type of bird. That makes a maximum of 50 egg-layers. But I usually have at least two full-time cooks, and several thousands lavish meals around.

- 1x1 is fine, if you don't mind they fighting a bit against each other.

- My set up is usually this:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7131/dfgranjas.jpg

I keep each species in a different pasture. 2-3 males, 5-10 females. Food stockpiles are 1 z-level under them, for quick transport of eggs (and prepared meals, and seeds, ...)

[Lectorog]

I shove all of my turkeys in a 5x5 room and let them out every few years.

[Sphalerite]

- If I put turkeys in a pasture, and nest boxes in the same pasture, will the next boxes get used?

Yes.  This is the preferred way to do it, as the turkeys will hang around the nest boxes even when they're not sitting on nest boxes.

- How many birds do most people have for their egg industries? is 50-60 overkill (fps is, miraculously, not a problem)?

I find that 10 turkeys is more than enough for my needs.  50 is the limit at which you won't get any more pregnancies.  I'm not sure if this means you won't get any more eggs, or that you will get eggs, but they'll be infertile.

- For others with egg industries, what's your setup?

I build a room with about a hundred egg boxes.  That's probably overkill, but it ensures that there is always a free nest box.  The boxes are placed every other tile, with no two nest boxes adjacent.  A room with 100 nest boxes placed this way is 19X19 tiles, not too large.  The entire room is designated as a pasture, and all egg-laying creatures are assigned to the pasture.  The birds lay eggs, which promptly get moved to the food stockpile and eventually cooked.

If I want to actually breed more birds, I have a series of small rooms with lockable doors containing one nest box each.  I assign a female bird to the room, then once they're in there I lock the door.  The bird lays eggs and sits on them.  Once the eggs hatch, I unlock the door, return the hen to the general laying room, and assign all the hatchlings to a cage, to be butchered or sent to the laying room when they're mature.

[Eoganachta]

big enough to prevent turkey tantrums

Sorry to derail, but I couldnt stop laughing after reading this. Also, I've got to hand it to you after I heard about your doctor.

Normally for eggs I just lock all my birds in a room (using pastures) with nest boxes and open it a few times a year to collect the eggs.

[simonthedwarf]

I embarked my on my 8th attempt at fortress mode with around 20 hens and 2 roosters. Made a pastry zone above ground, surrounded by trees and brush and whatnot.  Assigned hens + roosters all to that (it was around 8x8). I built about 5 nest boxes.

At once point I noticed I had like 300 eggs (my fortress grows plump helmets as well).

I then disabled every other food than eggs for my lavish meal labour in the kitchen.. I now have an abundance (like 900?) of lavish meals made from eggs.

 I haven't noticed any new hens though, I haven't seen a single chiks. Do hens and roosters not produce new chickens if they are on "egg duty"?

[NecroRebel]

The way egg-layers work is this: a female lays a clutch of eggs in a nest box. If there is an adult male of that species on the map, there's a chance that that stack of eggs is fertilized (which may be dependent on how many adult males there are). If a fertilized clutch stays in the nest box for long enough, the eggs will hatch and a number of young equal to the number of eggs will be born. If the eggs are removed from the box, they will never be born. To have chicks born, in other words, you need to prevent eggs from being taken to a stockpile, either by forbidding the eggs themselves, cutting off access to them, or disabling eggs from all of your food stockpiles.

[CriticallyAshamed]

Coming from someone who likes eggs (my last fortress accidentally over turkeyed and I had 1000 of them in cages... it took an INCREDIBLE amount of dwarfpower to cage the sods), yes 50 Turkey Hens is a lot. Mainly because 50 turkeys* ~10 eggs per clutch = 500 poults. If you're not careful you can easily end up having stupid amounts of turkeys as I did.

As far as I can tell however, my turkeys still all lay eggs. Even with huge amounts of them already hatched. After my first group of eggs hatched (probably around ~300?) they continued to hatch as well, however I'm not sure if that was because they'd already been fertilised. For the record, the wiki is also incorrect when it states that the turkey hen must stay on the eggs to hatch them. I attempted to pen all the hens away from their eggs to stop the over-turkifying but the eggs still hatched.

[The Dog Delusion]

As far as I can tell however, my turkeys still all lay eggs. Even with huge amounts of them already hatched.

This is most definitely true. I think that is is because birds are able to lay eggs regardless of population, and whether the eggs hatch or are eaten is dependent upon whether they get removed from the box or if a male is in the area. Unlike animals that have live births, birds basically work around the pop check mechanism by virtue of the fact that the game doesn't know whether an egg is going to hatch unless it hatches.

[tivec]

- Nest boxes must be in the same pasture as turkeys. At least, that's how I set up them, always.

- I usually have 2-5 types of birds, 5-10 egg-layers per type of bird. That makes a maximum of 50 egg-layers. But I usually have at least two full-time cooks, and several thousands lavish meals around.

- 1x1 is fine, if you don't mind they fighting a bit against each other.

- My set up is usually this:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7131/dfgranjas.jpg

I keep each species in a different pasture. 2-3 males, 5-10 females. Food stockpiles are 1 z-level under them, for quick transport of eggs (and prepared meals, and seeds, ...)

Sorry to derail this topic a little bit, but kudos to you for playing Civilization at the same time as DF Multitasking is great!

As for the egg industry, do you need to have the poultry on grass or do they get by even on muddy ground?

[Sphalerite]

As for the egg industry, do you need to have the poultry on grass or do they get by even on muddy ground?

I keep mine indoors, on rough stone floors.  They don't need to graze.

[kotekzot]

Because they aren't grazers.

[tivec]

As for the egg industry, do you need to have the poultry on grass or do they get by even on muddy ground?

I keep mine indoors, on rough stone floors.  They don't need to graze.

Because they aren't grazers.

Thank you guys, that's good to know!