Dovecote

Dovecote
Vital statistics
Size	1 x 1
Storage Size	6 x 8
Skill(s) RequiredSpecific needed skills.<br>The default skills every Heartling starts off with, Oral Tradition, Primitive Tools & Wilderness Survival), are ignored.	Animal Husbandry
Object(s) Required	Stone x25, Board x10, Block of Wood x10, Thatching Material x10, Rope x2, Bone Glue x2
Required By	(3) Dove Droppings, Rock Dove Egg, Rock Dove Squab
Can be Lifted	No
Soak Value	None
Go to Objects

Build > Buildings & Construction > Houses & Buildings > Dovecote

After building a Dovecote, wild Rock Doves will begin flocking to it so long as it is filled with fodder and water. If a Rock Dove Egg hatches inside of the Dovecote, it will then hatch into a Domesticated Rock Dove, which you can then place into your Birdhouse and Homestead it. Once the bird is Homesteaded to a Birdhouse, it will always return to said structure once release^*. Doves will not reproduce inside of a Birdhouse.

Doves will be attracted to Dovecotes with a plentiful supply of food, water, and space and will be discouraged from staying in Dovecotes which are overcrowded or often raided for birds and eggs.

Attending to occupied Dovecotes may incur HHP damage in the form of Bird Lung, which incurs a -5AGI/CON penalty and slowly heals over time.

Uses for Homesteaded Doves

Domesticated Doves may be given any single item, allowing a Hearthling to transport an item easily between any location and the Birdhouse which the dove is currently Homesteaded to.

Caring for your Birds

Rock Doves require feeding and watering and Dovecotes have space inside for this. To fill them, have fodder material (seeds, produce, etc -- see Swill for more details) in your inventory, then lift it up with a left-click and right-click on the coop. This will fill the fodder bar a bit. You will not be able to recover any seed or plants used in this manner. Fodder and water each fill up their own meter inside the coop. As the doves eat, the amounts that will be diminished are proportionate to the number of doves contained therein.

Inspecting the Dovecote with Inspect:

Adventure > Inspect

will show a "dove score" that tells you how hospitable your Dovecote is to Rock Doves. As your Dovecote's score drops into the negatives, it will stop attracting birds. Generally, you want to avoid interacting with the Dovecote too often (especially as it can give you Bird Lung), but also keep it tidy. Removing any Dove Droppings, un-incubated Rock Dove Eggs, or stray Rock Dove Feathers will make the Dovecote more attractive and higher scoring. Removing or adding doves, or looking into the Dovecote will make your Dovecote less welcoming, lowering the "dove score".

How to Acquire

A Dovecote can be built, generally on a 1x1 paved area.

Tips

• There is a trick to filling a Dovecote much more quickly than normal. Click to pick up a unit of food, then with it floating on your cursor, hold down the shift key and right click the trough. As long as you keep the shift key held down, another unit of food from your inventory will automatically be placed on your cursor, ready to right click again!
• Warning: Edible forageables, like for example, Candleberry or Bloated Bolete also count as fodder, so be careful when shift-right clicking as you can lose them.

• Water can be taken out of coop with an empty bucket or barrel if it has no swill in it, or if the coop is fully filled with water and the bucket or barrel also (still) contains some water.

Notes

• Domestic rock doves placed in a dovecote do not stay.

• When inspecting the Dovecote, some Rock Doves might fly off. This include potential domestic rock doves. Which, if tracked down, don't fly away when trying to re-captured them.

• (Technical) The dovecote inventory window has an auto close mechanism. (~10min)

Appearance

Game Development

• Tough Jugs (2022-06-05)◎ >"Can now inspect "Dove Cote"s to get an indication of how the doves are doing."

• Homing Dove (2020-09-20)◎ >"Added "Dovecote", building. Local wild Doves may settle for a time in Dovecotes, especially if provided food, water, space, and privacy. The attractiveness of the Dovecote to the local doves will increase with space available, food, and water, and decrease when cluttered, or raided for doves or eggs."