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[Eric Blank]

Sounds FUN as well, watching all the kids bumrush an attacker.

[AceSV]

A playable prone-to-rage race could be fun. No more civilians that run away.

Actually, if you have an average or higher gait, running away is a more useful tactic than it is for dwarves.  Raging civilians tend to get themselves killed or maimed, even the lion people. 

[Pedonymous]

This is terrible. YOU are terrible.

[AceSV]

I've never seen either of the egg laying races actually hatch a child.  I've currently got a fortress with at least 4 married couples but they haven't gotten lucky so far.  I turned off all their labors and I'm waiting for results, but I feel like if it was going to happen, it should have by now.  Any ideas? 

This is terrible. YOU are terrible.

Nah, if I were going to be terrible, I'd draw a reindeer's naked butt. 

[Eric Blank]

Have you ensured they have nest boxes available and the eggs aren't accepted into any food stockpiles? And that the mothers have food and water directly adjacent to the nest box so they're never away from the eggs for more than a couple minutes

[Graknorke]

If the mother leaves the nest box at all then they won't hatch. I don't know how you'd get around that.

[AceSV]

Actually, I'm not even seeing any civ eggs get fertilized.  But if it's a matter of leaving the nest, I wonder if I could make the mommies bring flasks and backpacks to the nestboxes...

[Eric Blank]

If they're in a squad, they should, yeah. They wouldn't be able to hold enough to keep them for three whole months, though.
[edit]; there is a counter_trigger value under syndromes called "egg_spent" which gives a numerical value counting time before the creature can lay eggs again. If you use a syndrome associated with the female's blood that only she can contract, that is triggered when the counter value is between three months and a week (so right after they legs to right before they hatch), you can define the syndrome to add the noeat/drink/sleep tags or whatever else is needed for a period of one week at a time. That should prevent them trying to wander off to do anything. Hopefully.

With unfertilized eggs, it may be you need to force the couple to live together in a (very) small room for a while before giving them access to the nest box, to ensure conception.

It may also be a bug, not sure how to test it properly.

[Dirst]

I recall someone sciencing out that the mom doesn't need to be on the nestbox continuously, but does need to be there a lot.  The "Urist cancels sparring: seeking infant" task is a lot more urgent if Mom is halfway across the map when an egg hatches.

You need to make sure no food stockpiles accept the eggs, or Mom is liable to haul her own eggs there.  Taking the egg out of the nestbox even momentarily will prevent them from hatching.

[ArKFallen]

I recall someone sciencing out that the mom doesn't need to be on the nestbox continuously, but does need to be there a lot.  The "Urist cancels sparring: seeking infant" task is a lot more urgent if Mom is halfway across the map when an egg hatches.

Probably this

I've actually done it before, for my custom dragonman race and they don't actually need to sit on the egg 24/7 from my experience.  But they also seem to stop laying fertile eggs after a few goes.

There's other issues too though.

Only married civ members will lay fertile eggs, but all female members will try to claim a nest box requiring personal rooms, and a lot of micromanaging. 
     *Set nest box to be built in a married couple's room
     *Wait for a worker to deliver the nest box to the room
     *Suspend construction of the nest box once the worker starts construction
     *Wait for the female to enter the room, lock the door
     *Unsuspend construction of the nest box
     *Once the box is complete since the room female is the only one that can reach it she will claim it automatically.

Eggs will be heartlessly carried to the food stockpile after laying almost immediately, sometimes by the mother.  They will no longer hatch if this happens, turn off all stockpiling of your race's eggs.

The original owner will usually reclaim the nest box once it becomes available again, but it's not guaranteed.

The mother immediately drops everything she is doing to go pick up the baby the instant it hatches, but if your fort has a lot of dangerous drops, she might not get there in time.

The mother will work normally but will spend idle time on the nest box instead of in meeting halls or partying.

As stated above the mothers will randomly become infertile, but I think that's something inherent to egg layers in general, not just civ egglayers.

As for what science I determined I have little except what I already mentioned.  I know 100% that they don't need to be on the nest all the time, in fact that's how I know the mothers will drop everything they are doing to go pick up the baby, I've seen them hatch with the mother elsewhere.  But I don't know exactly how much time must be spent on the nest,  I've seen military moms crap out an egg and never come back and the egg successfully hatch, I've seen dedicated nurse moms that have no labors never leave their nest except to eat drink and sleep produce duds.

Be aware that this is quite some time before animals needed to be next to each other to breed and who knows if that extends to fertilizing eggs.

[Dirst]

Yes, that was it.  It's a testament to the game's flexibility that egg-laying civs can function at all, given that it looks like Toady has never directly addressed this possibility.

[AceSV]

I actually tried to mod out egg-laying so that they'd have a few mammal births to up the population, but they're not fertilizing each other either.  There might be more going on. 

On an unrelated note, there's a fairly large Anato civilization out there, but no migrants have shown up, except the hardcoded waves.  The civ has failed to domesticate any pack animals, so it might be that pack animals are required for migrants to appear.