Turkey eggs no longer hatch

[Stealknight]

When the game first came out I had baby Turkeys without end. Those forts are now gone and lately any new fort I start turkey eggs wont hatch. Did they patch and mess something up? my current fort is 3yrs old with the same set up as my older forts and no babys the hens just sit their after awhile no eggs even get produced

[Lodelicus]

There is a population cap that prevents your fortress from going over population. Wiether its dwarfs/guests/children/pets/etc.

You can change this in the settings under "game" look for "population cap" / "strict population cap" / "baby+child cap" / "vistor cap." For more information check the wiki on what each of these functions do.

[graalGGTV]

Are you sure the eggs aren't just being taken by dwarves when you aren't looking?

[graalGGTV]

Originally posted by 椋x:

There is a population cap that prevents your fortress from going over population. Wiether its dwarfs/guests/children/pets/etc.

You can change this in the settings under "game" look for "population cap" / "strict population cap" / "baby+child cap" / "vistor cap." For more information check the wiki on what each of these functions do.

I'm fairly certain animals aren't included in the population cap, otherwise catsplosions would never have been a problem

[Stealknight]

Originally posted by graalGGTV:

Are you sure the eggs aren't just being taken by dwarves when you aren't looking?

No I have my food stockpile set to not take eggs and no eggs used in cooking. My Hens havent left their nest boxes for years they just sit their now. Sucks because it seems the only reliable way to start up leather industry as everything else birthed so slow. well ive had maybe 2 good fortresses since this game started and all the other ones where lost to bugs. In fact it seems the real challenge to your fortress is not dragons or goblins but bugs. Like when all my dwarves went out to gather apples and such and got froze in place thats always fun

[Nikitian]

I think sometimes the eggs just aren't fertilised or don't hatch for some simulated reason.

I've also had this issue many years and several versions ago, so it's by no means new; IIRC, the solution is to deconstruct the next box, then the hen will be forced to leave the eggs (and reproduce normally again) and you can take away this bad batch.

I'm sorry for your chicks.

P.S. You have brought a gobbler, right? The eggs wouldn't be fertilised without a male turkey somewhere in the fort.

[Andy Mil]

I think mine still hatch but it like 2 years or something. I cant tell the time

[Stealknight]

Originally posted by Nikitian:

I think sometimes the eggs just aren't fertilised or don't hatch for some simulated reason.

I've also had this issue many years and several versions ago, so it's by no means new; IIRC, the solution is to deconstruct the next box, then the hen will be forced to leave the eggs (and reproduce normally again) and you can take away this bad batch.

I'm sorry for your chicks.

P.S. You have brought a gobbler, right? The eggs wouldn't be fertilised without a male turkey somewhere in the fort.

Yes I have 6 hens and 3 gobblers. The same loadout i had in my previous fortresses. When the game came out a couple weeks ago I would have massive amounts of chicks in no time allowing me to quickly start up a leather industry. Since the last patch nothing so im thinking it was the patch

[Urchin]

the same problem here. it was no issue before but now they are no hatching for about 2 years. i have two separate rooms with closed door. with about 20 chicks and 5 gobbler in each and nothing happens for about 2 years... they are just sitting on the nest and that's it

[pezenwever]

Yeah. Rebuild the nesting boxes and lock the door.

[Helgor]

still no hatch. I agree...

[Morkonan]

See here: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Nest_box

Can the male reach them or vice/versa?

Are the conditions provided similar to this:

Incubation Chamber

A simple way to make sure that eggs can hatch without having dwarves try to make omelettes out of them is to build incubation chambers for your female birds.

Build 1×1 rooms, with lockable doors.
Put one nest box in each room.
Create a 1×1 pasture zone on top of the nest box, and assign one female egg-layer to it. She should claim the nest box when she is ready to lay eggs.
Pasture or chain at least one male of the species somewhere that females can reach them. It needn't be close to the nest box.
When you want the eggs to remain undisturbed, lock the door to the room.

If the eggs are fertile, you should eventually get a message about eggs having hatched. When you do, go to the nest box and unlock the door so the crowded chicks can get out (crowded animals will fight, and if they do, you may lose a chick or two in the melee; luckily they are always much smaller than their mother and unlikely to hurt her.)

It's a good idea to keep a cage nearby to assign newly hatched chicks to, so they won't get in the way and lower your FPS. When they are grown, they can be reassigned to pastures for breeding or egg-laying, or butchered.

[Diarmuhnd]

Originally posted by Helgor:

still no hatch. I agree...

If your doing everything right to get eggs to hatch, like forbidding them and having a fertile male, it could be your game settings.

If you have too many animals then that may be the reason your still not getting any births. Go into game settings and increase your animal caps.

[harlequin_corps]

Make more nest boxes. Nest boxes store eggs, but when there's eggs in them they want to sit in the nest box and not congregate i/e get fertilized. But they will only sit on the eggs long enough to hatch them, so if they are on the nest box, they are first laying eggs, then doing the 'have to sit on egg for a certain amount of time" behavior. Make more nest boxes that are empty to re-trigger the "lay fresh eggs" behavior.

[harlequin_corps]

I was going to say that the dorfs don't take eggs from a nest box that is claimed by an egg layer but then I realized I have no actual proof that that's a real thing. What I do know is that the fertilization/hatching thing really only happens with empty nest boxes, not nest boxes with eggs in them so having the dorfs take the eggs to empty the nest box is actually part of the hatching process. So the guaranteed method of getting hatchlings is to make new nest boxes, forbid the eggs from being taken, and let them congregate with the males.

[fabulousfreep]

Originally posted by Stealknight:

When the game first came out I had baby Turkeys without end. Those forts are now gone and lately any new fort I start turkey eggs wont hatch. Did they patch and mess something up? my current fort is 3yrs old with the same set up as my older forts and no babys the hens just sit their after awhile no eggs even get produced

Put your egg layers in a room / pasture with nest boxes and lock the door. You will have a massive population explosion in short order.

The dwarves are taking the eggs before they can be flagged at hatching. Birds don't need grass they don't starve.