40d:Cage

A cage is a holding device. Cages cannot be made of stone, but can be made of wood, metal and glass (terrarium). Cages can hold an unlimited number of animals and captured vermin at once. Placing animals in a cage can reduce lag and traffic in your hallways. Both empty and occupied cages can - and will - be stored only in an animal stockpile.

The cage can be used in a few ways:

• If made of metal, as a jail, where you designate its location to be used for justice, and a sheriff will detain any unruly dwarves.
• As animal restraining device, where you simply plant it and allocate any animals (except pets) you want in it. Particularly handy for keeping track of mating animals. It is unsure if animals in a cage will mate, but animals can bear children when caged.
  • This is also how you go about making a makeshift zoo for trapped animals.
  • A glass cage (Terrarium) can be designated an aquarium for holding captured fish.
• A cage trap needs a cage as one of its components.

If you buy your first animals via the traders, you may be unsure how to extract them. To remove an animal from a cage, it first needs to be placed via the Build menu (b-j). Once it's placed, use q to examine it, a to assign, and then use Enter to toggle the animal(s) currently inside. A dwarf will come along and let the animal out of the cage, after which it can be butchered, moved, et cetera.

You can find a list of imaginative ideas to do with captured creatures here.

How to disarm hostiles in cages

You can find the items carried by caged goblins, kobolds, etc. in the stocks menu and designate them for dumping, then dwarves will come to the cage and take them off. You can verify that you are targeting the right items by using the zoom function; it should point you to the cage.

Arena

If you link a lever to a (built) cage with trapped hostiles, you can release them by pulling the lever and let animals or your soldiers have fun with them. Make sure you have disarmed them first. The design of this "arena" is really up to you but a somewhat contained area or room is advisable. This is also a creative way to get rid of unwanted pets, if you can manage to trap them in the arena. Make sure your dwarves won't tantrum from unhappy thoughts!

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