“I should put a bird in it.”
“Bird prison!”
“Is home for birdies.”
“Few of us can see our cages.”
“I WILL IMPRISON THE FLESHLINGS.”
“This will safely contain one avian specimen.”
“Where I try to make birds reform their evil ways.”
“You'll never get me behind bars again.”
“An intricate enclosure for scrutinizing the local wildlife.”
“A höme för my ravens!”
“It's the jail.”
“I need to get a birdy buddy.”
“Suitable lodgings for a feathered beast.”
“No parrot o'mine could bear a cagin'.”
“WILBA WAS'T ENCAGE'D ONCE”
“Needs a friend”
“I know how it feels to be grounded.”
“A place where little birds are penned.”
“Stick bird inside!”
–Wurt
“Now we just need to catch a bird!”
“All it needs now is a little cuckoo bird.”
The Birdcage is a craftable Structure that allows the domestication of Birds (Redbirds, Crows, Snowbirds, Canaries, Parrots, Pirate Parrots, Toucans, Kingfishers, Pigeons, etc.) It requires 6 Gold Nuggets, 2 Papyrus, and 2 Seeds to craft and an Alchemy Engine to prototype.
Use a Bird Trap to catch a bird and imprison it in the cage. There is no functional difference between most types of bird.
Feeding the caged bird Meats makes it produce Eggs. Birds eat all meat Items, including Monster Meat and Crock Pot dishes regardless of their freshness. Birds will not eat Eggs.
Birds sleep at night. To feed a sleeping bird, it can be taken out of the cage and imprisoned again. It can then be fed up to 5 items before it goes back to sleep again.
Imprisoned birds will slowly waste away in the Birdcage, lasting for roughly 20 Days before dying, depending on ambient temperature. Similar to dying in inventory or chest, a bird dying in a Birdcage will be changed into a Morsel, which will be fresh at the moment the bird dies, and will spoil at its normal spoiling rate. Leaving the dead bird in the birdcage will eventually turn it into a skeleton, mucking out which will yield one Rot. Unlike starving in inventory or being killed, a caged bird will never yield its Feather.
Examining the Birdcage when the captured bird is hungry or starving will make the character say different Quotes. The hungry bird will have an additional animation, alerting the player that it needs to be fed. Any item the bird can eat (Seeds, Fruits, Vegetables, or Meat) will restore the bird to full hunger.
Don't Starve[]
In Don't Starve, feeding a caged bird a Farm vegetable/fruit makes it produce one generic seed plus 1-2 crop-specific seeds (of the same type it was fed). Feeding it a seed returns a fresh seed of the same type.
Don't Starve Together[]
In Don't Starve Together, feeding the caged bird a Garden vegetable/fruit makes it produce a seed of the same type of plant. Feeding it a seed makes the bird produce Guano.
Imprisoning a Canary in the Caves for 6-12 minutes when Toadstool is alive causes it to get sick and become volatile.
Misshapen Birds and Moonblind Crows can only produce Rotten Eggs or Rot.
Tips[]
- Spoiling Meats can be saved from turning into Rotor Rotten Eggs by converting them into fresh Eggs.
- The bird can be used to convert meats that are not accepted by the Pig King into Eggs, which are accepted in exchange for Gold Nuggets.
- In Don't Starve, normal spoiling seeds can be given to a caged bird to get fresh seeds in return, making it possible to keep seeds from ever spoiling.
- The Birdcage is good for Winter, when food resources are limited, as the player can feed the bird an easy-to-acquireCooked Monster Meator spoiled meat itemsto get fresh Eggs in return, which can be eaten or further be used in Crock Pot recipes.
- If the player is starving and there's no other food available, then the player can take the bird out of the cage to cook it for a quick morsel.
Trivia[]
Trivia- In older versions of Don't Starve, the Birdcage cost 100 Research Points.
- Initially, only Crows were worth keeping in Birdcages because Redbirds would die in Winter and Snowbirds would die in Summer. This was changed soon after.
- When Reign of Giants was released, caged birds needed to be fed to keep them alive just like if they were kept in the inventory. Because there was no "fuel" system to keep the birds fed for a few days, players had to manually feed them every day or return to an empty cage. Rather than add a feed tube, Klei removed the feeding requirement for caged birds.
- The image of a bird in a gilded cage as a metaphor for being trapped in a luxury prison was first popularised in the song "A Bird in a Gilded Cage", published in 1900.
- Even though the Guano spawned by feeding Seeds in Don't Starve Together is much smaller than the usual one, the icon is still the same. However, the size returns to normal when the server is restarted. Laying a piece of the small Guano into a Chest will not change the size, but stacking small ones with big ones will.
- Imprisoning a Parrot Pirate will result in a normal parrot. This means that Pirate Parrots are impossible to keep around for Sanity.
Bugs[]
Bugs- If the player removes the bird from the cage but has no available slots, rather than the character holding onto it and remarking that there is no more space, the bird will either disappear or be freed.
- In a vanilla or Reign of Giants world without being compatible with Shipwrecked or Hamlet DLC, an imprisoned bird of any type may appear to be wearing a small pirate hat despite not being a Parrot Pirate.
Gallery[]
Gallery
Burnt Birdcage
Redbird imprisoned in Birdcage.
Crow imprisoned in a Birdcage.
Snowbird imprisoned in a Birdcage.
"Imprison" option when holding a bird over an empty Birdcage.
Giving a Redbird Seeds.
A sleeping Snowbird in a Birdcage.
A Crow with several eggs.
An easter egg in vanilla Don't Starve where placing a bird in a birdcage may result in it having a small pirate hat.
A recently deceased Crow in Don't Starve Together.
The skeleton of an unknown bird in Don't Starve Together.
"Muck Out Birdcage" option when holding a mouse over a Birdcage with a deceased bird inside in Don't Starve Together.
Birdcage as seen in the poster for the Naughty and Nice update.
DS
RoG
SW
Ham
DST
| Don't Starve Craftable Items | |
 Tools |                 |
 Light |       |
 Survival |                 |
 Food |       |
 Science |         |
 Fight |             |
 Structures |                 |
 Refine |         |
 Magic |                    |
 Dress |               |
 Ancient |               |
 Books |      |
 Tinkering |         |
| Don't Starve: Reign of Giants Craftable Items | |
| Tools | |
| Light |    |
| Survival |    |
| Food |  |
| Science |  |
| Fight |      |
| Structures |   |
| Refine | |
| Magic |  |
| Dress |          |
| Ancient | |
| Books | |
| Tinkering | |
| Don't Starve: Shipwrecked Craftable Items | |
| Tools |   |
| Light |        |
 Nautical |                            |
| Survival |          |
| Food |    |
| Science |    |
| Fight |          |
| Structures |           |
| Refine |       |
| Magic |   |
| Dress |           |
 Volcanic |         |
| Books |  |
| Tinkering | |
| Don't Starve Together Craftable Items | |
 Survivor Items |
|
 Tools |                         |
 Light Sources |         |
 Prototypers & Stations |              |
 Refined Materials |        |
 Weapons |             |
 Armour |        |
 Clothing |               |
 Healing |          |
 Shadow Magic |           |
 Decorations |                                                                 |
 Structures |                |
 Storage Solutions |    |
 Cooking |     |
 Food & Gardening |        |
 Fishing |                   |
 Seafaring |                    |
 Beefalo Riding | |
 Winter Items |  |
 Summer Items |  |
 Rain Gear | |
 Special Event | |
 Ancient Pseudoscience |     |
 Cartography |  |
 Critters |         |
 Celestial |           |
 Brightsmithy |            |
 Shadowcrafting |      |
 Bottle Exchange |      |
 Sculptures |                                      |
 Seasonings |     |
 Offerings |
|
 Cawnival Creation |           |
 Trinket Trove |                   |
 Mad Science |       |
 Winter's Feast Cooking |                  |
