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[Viking]

I have a situation here and could use some advice... A syndrome seems to be spreading ever so slowly through my fort.
I call it the bloody bloated feet syndrome. Essentially a forgotten beast came by a little while ago, actually years ago, and took a good long nap, or rest, or whatever in a cavern lake and after dispatching a few FBs I saw fit to kill this one too just to be safe. I learned that marksdwarves could shoot it with bolts (I made a thread about it in this forumn in fact) so I carved out some fortifications etc, misjudged some things, and it got in my fort and I had to send the militia after it. I noticed two of them had received injuries and their legs were swelling. Foolishly I didn't think this would spread but I was wrong and I think they may now be dead but their affliction lives on.

Bloody bloated feet syndrome essentially makes the lower extremities swell then rot. Eventually the afflicted creature is immobile and passes out unconscience.
It has affected a few dwarves so far, some kids, including an unfortunate one year old and some random animals, including my prized tame wolf, one cat and a bunch of black bears and dogs.  Luckily some of them are in cages already and I presume they will eventually succumb to the syndrome alas. I assume they fell into traps. My prized sheep and llama herds are untouched. My real concern is the animals running around with the affliction. 

I am not sure what the best way to deal with this may be but I expect to endure casualties.  I'm not really sure how it spreads and if it has an incubation period before showing symptoms. I could kill or isolate everything showing symptoms but if its already spread out further it may just be getting rid of the unfixable cases. My whole fort may already be infected. Speaking of which, I've seen some of these afflicted dwarves released from the hospital with the swelling so I'm doubtful the doctor can cure it.

I'm thinking to wall off the hospital when the doctor isn't there, and wall off all the knocked out dwarves and let them starve :S
As for the animals I think I'll either put them either into separate pens or put them down through application of my military.

Does anyone have any suggestions or similar experiences?

Incidentally, I notice a lot of my bears and dogs have injuries on their paws. Do they get into little scuffs occasionally? Is this normal?

[WealthyRadish]

If the syndrome is caused by its blood, and things get really bad, I'd isolate whoever you can who isn't infected, and flood the fort. In the meantime, you can try to contain it by producing soap, putting up an atom smasher at your well, and trying to get some washing stations up, if possible.

If it's not caused by its blood, and it was just some random spittle thing, it'll die with the last of the infected. If the afflicted have forgotten beast blood coverings in their inventory, then they'll spread it.

[Niyazov]

Paw injuries on animals are indicative of fb syndromes. Animals will randomly lash out at one another when there are too many in a small area but they will inflict injuries all over the body, not just the paws.

[Garath]

be happy dwarfs put on socks and boots now, this has been the death of many a naked dwarf fortress

[Viking]

Thanks for the responses!
Are some syndromes generally incurable?

[i2amroy]

Thanks for the responses!
Are some syndromes generally incurable?

Most of them are incurable actually. The dwarven method of syndrome removal tends to be more of handling the effects of the syndromes and working on keeping the dwarf alive until the poison works its way through their bodies and reaches its END time, rather then using some type of antivenom. This works against most non-fatal venoms, but against some FB's or other randomly generated syndromes it does nothing since the syndromes never wear off.

[Niyazov]

Thanks for the responses!
Are some syndromes generally incurable?

Most of them are incurable actually. The dwarven method of syndrome removal tends to be more of handling the effects of the syndromes and working on keeping the dwarf alive until the poison works its way through their bodies and reaches its END time, rather then using some type of antivenom. This works against most non-fatal venoms, but against some FB's or other randomly generated syndromes it does nothing since the syndromes never wear off.

Also cave spider (not GCS) venom has a dizziness effect that never wears off. Fortunately the effect is extremely mild.

[Viking]

I see :\ Well... we will see how this goes down at my fort. I just found out you can't force your military to target pets. I REALLY wish you could look at details of pets and animals in the butchery list. I'd certainly butcher all the infected ones.

[Garath]

if you could have targeted tame animals:

loyalty cascade, currently only from attacking your caravan or the bugged migrants

[Viking]

I have had a major breakthrough in that I just learned that you can select a tamed creature for slaughter through the v menu (quickly becoming one of my favourite functions!) All these sick animals will soon be feeding my fort, which may SERIOUSLY backfire. I guess we'll see how advanced the internal DF notion of germ theory is.

[Garath]

since you can butcher and eat FB with deadly blood, I wouldn't worry too much

[Viking]

I have not been able to play very much but just as an update I've managed to butcher most of the infected animals now and am just trying to figure out how to deal with the infected dwarves. When I've been locking them in their rooms till they starve but their families don't like this at all and I'm having a few tantrums going on.

[Poindexterity]

I have not been able to play very much but just as an update I've managed to butcher most of the infected animals now and am just trying to figure out how to deal with the infected dwarves. When I've been locking them in their rooms till they starve but their families don't like this at all and I'm having a few tantrums going on.

posting to watch

[Viking]

Well Poindexterity, I hope this isn't dull lol.

I have to report that the syndrome seems mostly contained, although not completely eliminated. I just need to wait for some lingering infected pets to die off that are still clinging to life. For animals I put them in different pens, even among the same species to limit intermingling. I butchered the stray ones and have separated the named ones.

For dwarves, I am struggling to find anymore infected ones though I'm keeping my eye out for it. A strange thing happened with one infected child I followed who was sitting in a hospital bed waiting to be diagnosed. When the pump operator diagnoser came a message came up saying the diagnosis was cancelled since the kid was not at rest and after her symptoms were gone.  :\

I've lost maybe a few dozen animals and about 8 or so dwarves so far. Recently a child starved him or herself from melancholy. I was getting message spam that a mother of nine could not get to her child and it turns out she was in jail and nearly starved/dehydrated. I suspect she broke the handle that kept a bridge up with a bunch of goblinite which was preventing dwarves from refilling the food stock pile next to her.

I have residual unhappiness but things seem to be holding together. Maybe I can start focusing on my magma forge project soon.

[Viking]

I spoke too soon. Two more dwarves are infected. :S

Edit: In other news, sending 17 fairly seasoned military dwarves to kick the snot out of some goblins can be pretty damn satisfying
Edit2: Alas one managed to survive, but not without a bunch of body parts cut open or dented. Maybe he'll tell his compatriots not to mess with my dwarves. I doubt it but its possible right? I sadly look like I will lose a ninety year old soldier.