v0.31 Talk:Animal caretaker

Implemented yet?

Has anyone seen this in action? I doubt this is implemented. unsigned on 14:20, 7 May 2010 by Old Ancient

I didn't witness it first hand, but have some secondhand evidence that it works. I had overcrowded a pasture full of turkeys, and they fought amongst themselves. I was notified when one of them took red injury to the lungs and began suffocating. This happened as I was getting a migrant wave, and one of my migrants was a Proficient Animal Caretaker. I disabled all her other labors, and got on with other stuff. When I looked back a few minutes of play later, all of the animals in that pen were down to brown. I did not actually see the Animal Caretaker interact with them, but there's some anecdotal evidence for you. --Romeofalling 10:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

As usually, anecdotal "evidence" is completely useless, healing rate is not changed by animal caretakers Kogut 08:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Caging large animals

I have not seen caretakers heal animals. I have noticed that only dwarfs with Animal caretaker (or animal trainer?) enabled will shuffle animals between cages. Does anybody know which skill it is? It would be useful to put on this page and the cage page.--Kwieland 16:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's Animal Trainer. Any 3rd opinion? Speed112 17:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

In 40d, only Animal Trainers would haul dangerous creatures between cages (for example, cramming all of your goblin prisoners into a single cage) - if the animal is tame, then anybody would do the job, even nobles. I wouldn't be surprised if the current version behaves the same way, though it would still be wise to check. --Quietust 18:03, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation. You are correct, I was referring to dangerous creatures. I think the mishap came on a (corrupted?) 40d game where I had tamed and bred several Giant Cave Swallows. But, several of them showed "Tame" in their title, but would attack anyone who tried to deal with them. So has anyone figured out how to trade away creatures without letting them out of their cages, or is that still buggy?--Kwieland 01:01, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

animal cleaning

I never saw them do it, but I have seen a few with this enabled standing next to animals with a bucket nearby, and a puddle of water on the ground with pages worth of blood and substances. This happens next to one milker at the farmer's workshop. Also, a ranger laid up in the hospital for years who is always surrounded by animals, pets and strays, always has a puddle of bloody water by his bed, and if I run dfclean and look away for a minute, there'll be another. Uzu Bash 20:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Whenever a creature (dwarf, animal, invader, whatever) walks through a square with numeric water in it, even if it's only 1/7 deep, it gets washed, ending up with a couple pages of "water covering (body part)" and dropping any blood on the floor. If it's raining, the same happens the instant the creature steps outdoors - it doesn't actually have to get hit by those blue droplets. I'd bet that the milker wasn't actually cleaning the animal, but was actually gearing up to milk the animal, and the presence of the puddle and its cleaning effect coincidental. Similarly, I doubt the ranger had anything to do with his animals getting clean - if they're "resting" in the hospital, they're JUST resting. --DeMatt 01:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If a farmer performing milking chooses a bucket that already contains water, they will dump it out first, leaving a non-numeric pool of water in the upper left corner of the workshop. As with "numeric" water, anything walking through this square will end up being washed and leaving residues. I have been cleaning up puddles of poisonous (but non-fatal) forgotten beast blood for a few game years, and besides the waterfalls I have to keep a close eye on the milking workshops. --Neil 16:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Feeding livestock?

I've noticed that my stray sheep tend to starve, even when I've got several dwarves with "Animal Caretaking" turned on. How do animals get fed? I kind of assumed either they'd feed themselves (you know, being sheep), or else they'd be fed by animal-caretaking dwarves.

Of course, maybe they're too dumb to find the grass by themselves. I should try putting them in a pen outdoors. 68.6.47.27 04:01, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Grazing animals need to be assigned to a pasture, that is probably your issue --RadGH 08:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)