So, I've playing around with Elk Birds and trying to breed them. As some of you may know, or have gleaned from the thread topic, Elk Birds lay eggs and graze, and while nesting, they will not move from the nest box their eggs are in, and will eventually starve themselves to death. Grazing requires unrestricted movement in order work. So i did a bit of amature science to see if i could fix it.
I modded my game to include Elk Birds a species dwarves can embark with. and got to testing methods of keeping the birds fed, and i discovered something interesting. I'll post my first few tests below. Which centered around removing the nest boxes from the Nest Box tiles from the Pasture activity zone after fertile eggs had been laid.
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Experiment fort 1: A1) One Set of Elk birds that stayed on the nest box the entire time [control]; B1) one set that had the Pasture zone over the fertilized eggs removed, by removing portions of the activity zone, but keeping them in the same pasture they laid eggs in.
Results: both sets of eggs hatched. A1) i noted that sometimes due to the fact that the removal of the activity zone was done haphazardly, it caused some of the grazing elk birds to move over the top of the nest box. But otherwise did not sit on the nest box for a full season or more. B1) Elk birds, predictably almost starved to death.
Experiment Fort 2: A2) One set of elk birds that were moved to a different pasture after fertilized eggs were laid; B2) One Set with the row of the activity zone over the nest boxes was removed similar to experiment 1.
Results: no eggs hatched after the expected 3 seasons of incubation. Noted that pastures were larger than previous experiment, in addition to interruptions due to wildlife getting into enclosures, that birds were often further away from nest boxes than in Experiment 1.
Experiment Fort 3: A3) One set of elk birds with Nest boxes in the middle of pasture set in a way in order to get from one side of the pasture to another, the elk birds would have to pass over the top of the nest boxes. Then removing the nest boxes from the pasture activity zone after fertilization. B3)One set of elk birds with a row of activity zone removed similar to experiment 1, but smaller to ensure greater proximity to nest boxes.
Results: Eggs from both sets hatched, sooner than expected in a season less than other experiments. Might be due to climate, unsure. Quirk noticed from set A3, every time the elk birds would step over a nest box, a haul animal job was generated to move the elk bird back into the pasture, despite the fact they were still in the pasture.
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Personal conclusion, I think so long as mother birds are in decently close proximity to the fertilized eggs in nest boxes(roughly 4-5 tiles), It will count as nesting. Its a small test size, personally but the incubation time was prohibitive for extensive testing. and this was a day's work.
So i'm hoping to get some feed back from you guys to see if this can be replicated, or if i'm blowing smoke. Do you know of any ways to get egg laying grazers to not starve while laying fertilized eggs?
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Topic: Egg Laying Grazers (ex. Elk Birds) starving to death nesting. (Read 2828 times)