Don't Starve Wiki
Don't Starve Wiki

Webber Portrait.png
It's the jail.


The Birdcage is a craftable Structure that allows the domestication of Birds (Redbirds, Crows, Snowbirds, Canaries, Parrots, Pirate Parrots, Toucans, Kingfishers, Pigeons, et cetera). It requires 6 Gold Nuggets, 2 Papyrus, and 2 Seeds to craft and an Alchemy Engine to prototype.

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 four types of birds, other than the aesthetic appeal (with exception to Canaries in the caves when Toadstool is alive). 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.

Don't Starve Together icon.png Don't Starve Together[]

In Don't Starve Together, feeding Seeds to the bird will no longer yield fresh Seeds but has a 33% chance to drop Guano instead.

Since the Reap What You Sow update, feeding a vegetable to the bird now yields one item of its corresponding crop seed. Additionally, the Birdcage now accepts Monster Meat but no longer accepts Cooked Eggs.



Icon Tools.png 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 (Note that in Don't Starve Together giving a fruit only yields one of the corresponding seed item). 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 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. Misshapen Birds and Moonblind Crows can only produce Rotten Eggs or Rots.

Prototype.png Tips[]

  • Spoiling Eggs can be cooked and given to the bird in return for fresh eggs. 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.  

Placeholder.png Trivia[]

  • 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.
  • 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.

Mosquito.png Bugs[]

  • 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.

Blueprint.png Gallery[]