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[DrMorbly]

I searched the forums, development list, and bug list for this bug and it wasn't listed.  However, I know it is known by some because it was listed as a point to remember in the wiki.

When I cage my livestock in wooden cages they stop breeding.  I have tried from multiple points.  I have tried to put them all in one cage immediately.  I have tried waiting a couple years and separating them by animal type.  They always stop breeding though.  Even when I release them, they will never breed again.  Even if I don't even touch a kitten or dog, I will never get puppies or kittens again.

EDIT:

Nevermind.  They have started breeding again but not until long after I removed them from their cages.  Does some hidden breeding timer reset when I put them in cages?  Would they begin to breed again if I left them in the cages long enough?

[ September 07, 2007: Message edited by: DrMorbly ]

[Ravendas]

Old well known bug. Also happens when you tie things up. I like to use wardogs tied up around my fortress as a 'natural' defense, but they always seem to stop breeding. Right now I've got so many tied up it's not really feasible to untie them all and retie them all every year.

[ktrey]

I remember someone once saying that ordering animals from the Caravan can jumpstart breeding.

[BurnedToast]

Even with every single animal in the fortress caged, they still breed for me. I am 100% sure I've had puppies pop out of the cage my only 2 dogs were in.

So it's not JUST caging them that causes the bug, there must be something else involved too.

[Ravendas]

I heard that getting new animals fixes it as well, so I've been trying that in my fort. 3 years of 2 dogs per year coming in, didn't do anything. I release them from their cages, they run around... nothing. After a year I train them to be wardogs, still no change.

I never caged any of my dogs, just tied them up. For awhile I had a bunch tied up and they were still procreating, but after awhile they just stopped.

[Toady One]

There is a cap on animal populations of each type, and you may be bumping into this.  Or there could be a bug.  The cap is 50 and having less than three times as many young as adults (and you need one male animal, wherever he is).

[DrMorbly]

Well, I am having this problem in the first years of my fortress.  I have 4 dogs.  They breed for a little while until I setup the cages and send them all inside one cage.  Then they stop.  Same goes with the horses.

Edit:

If an animal is pregnant before they are caged, they will give birth in the cage but otherwise they don't begin breeding again for me.

[ September 09, 2007: Message edited by: DrMorbly ]

[Ravendas]

I should have less than 50 dogs, because I know I have lost a few over the past few game years from various antman attacks and such, but I'm not positive right now. Haven't had my dogs give birth in years, all the other animals are fine. Never chained/locked any others up.

[Toady One]

As much as I've heard about this bug, I've never been able to duplicate this problem and can't locate it in the code.  Once the new version comes up, I'll probably need a save (from the new version) with the behavior to fix it.

[martinuzz]

I have not yet encountered this problem.
I remember some post saying that MOVING cages with animals in them causes them to be sterilized. So I will do some experiments with my elephants.
In any case, capturing an elephant with a cage trap, taming it and then building (moving) the cage with the elephant yields no problems, they breed fine. Next I will try to cage an already tamed elephant and then unbuilding and rebuilding the cage. But first I will have to slaughter enough of them to keep this experiment overseeable (probably not the correct English word or is it?  Stupid Dutch me..)
If this doesn't sterilize them I will cage an elephant born in captivity, same procedure.
If that fails I will try the same with dogs as in the original post but I'm sure I've read threads before of people having the same problem with different animals.
I'm not a coder but if empiric experiments can help I'm glad to assist   Will update the progress of my cruel experiments...