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[Nameless Archon]

Edit #1: Question on breeding stock answered in posts 2->4.
Edit #1: New question posted in Reply #5.
Edit #2: Question on prepared meals and barrels answered in posts 6->end. Thanks for the assistance, folks!

Now, maybe I've missed something somewhere, but it feels like there's a really rough edge in the handling of animals. I have a cage in my butchering area. I have ropes in a 'breeding chamber' I have secured to keep pairs of animals safe from everything else.

I want to be certain that:
1) Reproduction never ceases, and is constant, hence having a constantly uncaged breeding pair.
2) I don't accidentally butcher my last breeding pair (hence the separate facilities).
3) I have those breeding animals indefinitely (more or less).

But when designating animals for slaughter through the Z-animals menu:
1) I can't seem to tell which animals are my "non-slaughter" roped pair, and which are occupying the Quantum Storage Aging Cage.
2) I can't seem to figure out how to best designate the "gigantic and muscular" animals for my breeding room, as I'm not seeing how to tell them apart in the cage/rope assignment menu, which means I butcher the good ones and breed the worse ones!

How can I achieve the laudable goal of building the best damn dwarven dairy, war animal production and meat packing plant if I can't properly control my breeding stock? How can I fix this, for my next fort (on 31.16, once the tilesets and utils upgrade)?

[Urist Imiknorris]

Make your breeders available as pets.

[Urist McMick]

Edit: Oops.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Actually it's the (v)iew units screen, under (p)references.

[Sphalerite]

There does not appear to be any way to view the specific characteristics of an individual animal from the Z-animal menu, so you will have to let an animal out of its cage in order to view it for its characteristics.  This is annoying.

The strategy I use is to keep all my female animals in a cage next to the farmer's workshop, and one or two male animals on chains nearby.  Female animals are removed from the cage for milking, during which time they have a chance to get pregnant.  Female baby animals are put straight into the cage.  Male baby animals are inspected and slaughtered if they don't have promising physical characteristics, or put into the cage until they mature if they do.  I only ever designate an animal for slaughtering with the (v)iew units, (p)references page so that I am sure I am not slaughtering desirable breeding stock.  This does mean I have to let an animal out of its cage before I can decide if I want to slaughter it.

[Nameless Archon]

Actually it's the (v)iew units screen, under (p)references.

Can you? That's probably my play, then. This way I can view each of my stud animals against the male calves that grow up, keep the best, milk/butcher the rest. Tedious, but I want a good facility, not a mediocre one.

The strategy I use is to keep all my female animals in a cage next to the farmer's workshop, and one or two male animals on chains nearby.  Female animals are removed from the cage for milking, during which time they have a chance to get pregnant.

Since spores have infinite range, the males don't need to be kept in the same area as the cage. This lends itself to creating a locked room that's only opened to swap out breeding stock.

This does mean I have to let an animal out of its cage before I can decide if I want to slaughter it.

...and this is annoying, I agree!

--

On an unrelated note, I often find that I have made a too-expansive food production apparatus (typically too large a farm, not the dairy plant), leading to a very wide abundance of prepared foodstuffs stashed in barrels outside my meeting halls. (Prepared food and drinks, right next to the tables is good, IMO.) I'd like to sell the meals to caravans, but also keep the barrels. Losing barrels in order to cut back on my stock glut FLOOD of prepared meals is counterproductive!

Is there a way to get the meals out of the barrels once stored this way?

[Sphalerite]

Don't store the meals in barrels to begin with?  Create stockpiles that only accept prepared food and have maximum barrels set to zero.  Go to you other stockpiles and disable prepared food.  I don't know if they'll actually move food out of barrels into the zero-barrel prepared food stockpile if you do this, but at least any new food produced won't take up barrels.

This is by the way the main problem with managing to build a successful meat and dairy farm:  you will very soon be producing far more food than your dwarves need.  It's even worse if you're also farming plants for food.

[Nameless Archon]

Don't store the meals in barrels to begin with?

I can certainly do this, but I like having adequate food supplies for a LONG time, stored in a minimal space. It fits with my stereotype of dwarves as hoarders of material items - prepared roasts are just one more. Thus, I like the idea of a larder full of barrels containing the most lavish meals I can produce, but trimming away the fat means losing barrels, which is bad.

Judging by your reply, however, I'll have to content myself with prepared food stockpiles that don't have barrels, which is silly-sounding, no matter that it accomplishes the goal. Is there really no way in the current game build to differentiate the contents of barrels in the same way as bins?

If I store drinks and prepared food in the same stockpile, can I still disallow barrels, or do the drink barrels count for this purpose nd require a second stockpile?

This is by the way the main problem with managing to build a successful meat and dairy farm:  you will very soon be producing far more food than your dwarves need.  It's even worse if you're also farming plants for food.

I am, and I've already had this issue with farms (1000+ prepared meals, 1000+ plants remaining to brew/process/cook!). I could (with a relatively efficient farm design) probably make food my primary export for years to come, and still buy out any caravan that so much as looked in my direction.

[Sphalerite]

Judging by your reply, however, I'll have to content myself with prepared food stockpiles that don't have barrels, which is silly-sounding, no matter that it accomplishes the goal. Is there really no way in the current game build to differentiate the contents of barrels in the same way as bins?

There doesn't seem to be.  As far as I can tell, when you take a barrel to the trade depot you can't select the contents like you can with a bin.  You either sell it with the barrel, or store and sell it without a barrel.

If I store drinks and prepared food in the same stockpile, can I still disallow barrels, or do the drink barrels count for this purpose nd require a second stockpile?

If you disallow barrels, no drinks will be stored in the stockpile, because drinks will only be stored in barrels.  You'll need two stockpiles.

[WrathNail]

Eventually, when your planters/cooks become experienced enough, the stacks of roast will become so large/compact they won't even fit in barrels anymore. Automatically solves your problem.