Birdcage

The Birdcage is a craftable Structure that allows the imprisonment of Birds (Redbirds, Crows, and Snowbirds). It requires 6 Gold Nuggets, 2 Papyrus, and 2 Seeds to craft and an Alchemy Engine to prototype. Birds can be captured by using the Bird Trap.

A Birdcage can only house one bird; however, it can be easily swapped with another at any time. As of yet, there is no functional difference between the three types of birds, other than the aesthetic appeal. Birds go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning or when offered an item. If offered an item, once the bird is done reacting to it (eating or refusing), it will go back to sleep.

Usage
Feeding a bird in a Birdcage a raw Fruit or Vegetable (except Berries, Mushrooms, Lichen, Cave Banana, Banana, Seaweed, and Mandrake) will make it drop 1–2 Crop Seeds of the same type, as well as having a 50% chance to drop an additional regular Seed. These specialized seeds can be planted on a Farm plot, enabling selective crops. The player can also feed the bird regular Seeds to get fresh Seeds in return.

If fed any kind of Meats (excluding uncooked Monster Meat and raw Eggs) or meat-based food in any state of spoilage, the bird will produce a fresh Egg. Eggs can be eaten raw or cooked, as well as used in Crock Pot recipes such as Bacon and Eggs and Pierogi. Eggs can also be offered to the Pig King in exchange for Gold Nuggets.

Shipwrecked icon.png Shipwrecked
In the Shipwrecked DLC, the three regular birds (Crow, Redbird, and Snowbird) are replaced with Toucans, Parrots, and Seagulls. There are also rare Parrot Pirate birds. Any of those four types of birds can be placed in a Birdcage. Additionally, the new item Eyeshot can be used to stun and capture birds.

Don't Starve Together icon.png Don't Starve Together
In Don't Starve Together, feeding Seeds to the bird has a 33% chance to spawn Guano, and will not yield Seeds. Therefore, it can no longer be used for freshening stale Seeds without some loss of Seeds.

Additionally, birds will slowly starve in the Birdcage, lasting approximately 15 Days before dying. Once the bird has died, the cage must be mucked out before a new bird is caged. Mucking out a dead bird will give the player one Rot. Examining the Birdcage when the captured bird is hungry or starving will make the character say different quotes, and the hungry bird will have an additional animation, allowing the player to know when the bird needs to be fed. Any item the bird can eat (Seeds, Fruits, Vegetables, or Meat) will restore full hunger value to the bird.

Tips

 * Spoiling Meats can be saved from turning into Rot or 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.
 * 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. Spoiling eggs can be cooked and given to the bird in return for fresh eggs.
 * The Birdcage is good for Winter, when food resources are limited, as the player can feed the bird an easy-to-acquire Cooked Monster Meat or other Monster Meat-based items to get fresh Eggs in return, which can be eaten or further be used in Crock Pot recipes.

Trivia

 * The option to "Give" items other than accepted Food can appear when the player mouses over the Birdcage, though the bird will not eat it.
 * In older versions of Don't Starve, the Birdcage had cost 100 Research Points.
 * Initially, only Crows were interesting to keep in Birdcages because Redbirds would die in Winter and Snowbirds would die in Summer. This was changed soon enough because it made only caged Crows worth the effort.
 * When Reign of Giants was just 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.
 * When Maxwell examines an empty Birdcage, he says, "You'll never get me behind bars again", referring to his imprisonment at the hands of his mysterious captors.
 * The fact of using gold to make the structure could to be a reference to the song: although the golden cage is no longer prison.
 * Even though the Guano spawned by feeding Seeds in Don't Starve Together is much smaller than the usual one, the icon is the same. However, the size goes back to normal when you restart the server. Laying a piece of the small Guano into a Chest will not change the size, but stacking small ones with big ones will.

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.
 * Sometimes when using a cooked mandrake, a bird that is flying away or landing will have the "flop around" animation as if it had been freed from the player's inventory instead of being put to sleep. They can be picked up if the player is quick enough, but they often glitch and leave the player's inventory.

Gallery
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