I think it would be cool if you had some kind of rare animals, maybe they glow in the dark? have unusual markings? rainbow colored and super sparkly? I dunno. Theres just so many animal cages strewn around and very rarely does anyone have any need to pick them up. Its just a waste of server memory to be honest. So why not give them some value? Part of what makes the merchant grind so painful for everyone is the games lack of unique merchant items. I think this would be a cool way to take what already exists in the game and just add a neat little twist to it and add some much needed extra merchant goods for people to sell. I think you would find this would cause people to start taking those empty crates aboard more often just in case as well.
You find merchant crates sometimes. Those are basically equivalent to gold hoarder chests, but theres no unique ones that offer the higher rep boost like chests of sorrows and grogs offers. Even when doing forts now you have 2 big ticket merchant items. One gets blown up probably 1/3 of the time but then youre flooded with trinkets & chests which all = more gold hoarders rep.
