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[Mahdarah]

Can you breed animals to be fatter/produce more meat? If so, what is the limit to how fat they can be?

[Bumber]

It's not really feasible. There's supposedly some genetic inheritance, but the random component is just too high. Even if you had two super pigs, the children could still end up with mediocre stats. If those were then to breed, you're back to getting skinny pigs again.

Also, the returns probably aren't that significant. You get most of the meat just from proper feeding and age.

[Lozzymandias]

There is some genetic inheritance, and bizarrely enough, it seems to be largely Lamarckian genetics at play (i.e if you put your animals on an exercise regime, their children with inherit their mad gains) as Bumber says theres a random element to it. If you're starting with a small seed population I would definitely make the first few very strong (which progresses like attribute growth in adventure mode but for animals) and it does make the meat yields for animals bigger, if nothing else.

I have some science that I did on an earlier version for how to make animals buffer, it largely involved making the animals war trainable and then locking the war cow or alpaca in with some undead hair or a skin (gotta have a necromancer of an undead biome) and let them duke it out for a few months, as neither can do any harm to the other.

[Mahdarah]

Ah, thanks for the answers everyone.

[Immortal-D]

I feel inclined to mention this gem of !SCIENCE! ; http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113638.0

[Lozzymandias]

I feel inclined to mention this gem of !SCIENCE! ; http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113638.0

Important to remember to include the fortress assembled for educative purposes. I had a nightmare of a necromancer in that his faction wasn't opposed to many folk at all, so it took a great deal to get him in combat mode.

[Mahdarah]

I have walled in my fortress, and plan to conduct experiments on peafowl. I will update this post with my research.

[OmahaMH]

Is there an ideal ratio of males to females to optimize breeding production?  Right now I keep one male of a species and a bunch of females, which is to say I let all the females reach maturity and join the breeding program while all of the males are allowed to mature and then sent to visit the butcher.  Does it make sense to add males as the number of females grows?  (I do also cap the total number, so at some point females will be getting processed too.)

[Saiko Kila]

One breeding male is enough. I keep the best one, usually the strongest or biggest. The rest are in the cage, or in case of grazers in another pasture or just gelded. Sometimes when I cannot decide I keep two, one strongest, one biggest.

When the animal is born I inspect it to see how big and strong it is in comparison to the average of its species (taking mental note if the newborns of this species are more like 10% or 20% of adult), and when I buy or catch animal I do the same, except a comparison is more direct. Of course a check of preferences is also needed. Fortunately males which only like females are good for breeding, unlike in case of dwarves.

[OmahaMH]

Ok, so multiple males don't increase fertility at all?  My plan is, for non-grazers (i.e. the pigs in my current fortress) to put the male in a cage in the center of a 9x9 pasture where the females are milling around it.  (I will NOT ask for the specifics on how males are able to mate while in cages, but I know that it works.)

If doubling up on studs was more productive, I'd adjust it to a 5x3 love nest with two males caged off center and a parade of ladies along the outside.

This is getting rude, fast.

[Saiko Kila]

Really it works? Well, that's new to me. However, I haven't checked it recently, because it would be tedious to do - the cage is best keep outside of the pasture  (otherwise if you order the caged animals to be pastured the dwarves think it is already pastured), and male and female must be in touch to get the female pregnant, so they should be in the same pasture.

Double males do nothing - the female can't be impregnated once already pregnant. And they animals are rather quick when the appropriate mate is around.

[OmahaMH]

Well, let me correct.  I have heard that it works if the male is in the cage, but that it WILL NOT work if the female is the cage.  Next time I play I'll try it.  I can only play for a little bit at a time but I'll be derned if those pigs don't get pregnant every time.  I'll report back if I notice it not working once the boar is penned up.

Naturally this is a pointless exercise because the pasture is tiny anyway and they clearly have no trouble getting pregnant as-is, more of a "stupid trick" I suppose.

[anewaname]

I keep two males around, in case one dies accidentally (falling down stairs, kicked in the head by an upset dwarf, old age).

[Ertosi]

Dwarf Therapist is a huge help for keeping an eye on your creature stats. By slaughtering the weaklings and keeping the better ones as breeders, its pretty easy to build up a beefy population in just a few generations.