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[Mantonio]

I know that at the moment some animals just can't feed themselves (Elephants) and some animals quickly eat all the grass in their pastures (like Cows, Yaks, Water Buffalo etc) but what about the others? What's the minimum needed to sustain a Pig indefinitely? Or a Sheep? Or a Donkey? Has the research been done?

[MarcAFK]

i seem to recall that sometime ago Someone was doing something somewhere with somebody
edit:

I did some science, too, with the more reasonably-maintainable goats and sheeps (GRAZER:1200).  I pastured one each in a 2x2, 2x3, and 3x3 pasture area.  The grass was all dense when it started.  At the end of about 3 months of game time, the 2x2 pasture was almost entirely bare; the 2x3 was slightly more robust; and the 3x3 was still hanging in there.  It appears that grass growth is triggered by the presence of high-density grass, so your field will settle into one of two stable equilibria: stripped bare, or sustained growth. 

Small pastures are a hassle because of the tug-of-war problem, so for now I'm using very large pastures in soil layers, with a farmer's workshop set up in the field.  I like to set the entrance to the pasture area as a Restricted Traffic area, and designate a High Traffic area as a bypass, so that my dorfs don't trample the grass. 

I also did an experiment to see if muddying the grass had any impact on its growth, but I could not detect any difference.

[Lemunde]

It should probably be noted that with the grazer tag it appears the lower the number the more they eat. Water buff are at 60, horses and such are between 100 and 200, sheep and goats are around 1200 and rabbits are at 120000.

This is just a guess but I think the number represents the number of frames it takes them to decide to eat. This would mean larger animals need to eat roughly once every second. It's probably balances itself out since it takes them a little while to eat but as soon as they're done they move immediately on to another patch of grass. So for larger animals it really comes down to how fast they can eat which is anyone's guess.

Edit: By my calculations based on the above information and the quoted text by Jurph, it would take a 14x14 pasture to sustain a single water buffalo and a 7x8 pasture to sustain a donkey.

[Urist Da Vinci]

The number that was used for the grazer tag is related to the inverse of the creature's body size. In the raws, the grazer tag is stated to be the "amount of hunger removed per bite", not the time between bites. Larger animals need to eat more. In fact, tame elephants cannot survive in 31.19 since they cannot eat fast enough.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Pasture

[Krelos]

It'd be easy enough to see what the relation between body size and graze tag number is. Simply make cows and horses bodysize 100,000,000 and give the horses grazer 1,000,000 while leaving the cows at 100.
If the cows instantly starve but the horses are fine, then the tag decides how much food it takes to make them full, with the larger number meaning less food AND it means that a larger bodysize causes them to get hungry faster. But, if neither starve, then it means that bodysize is irrelevant to hunger.

The third possibility is that their massive size will cause them to strip grass at the rate of flooding water... but that seems unlikely.

[Girlinhat]

As OP asked: It's actually not entirely possible.  Grass growth is influenced by rainfall and temperature, so the pasture required per creature varies from one biome to another.

[Urist Da Vinci]

It'd be easy enough to see what the relation between body size and graze tag number is. Simply make cows and horses bodysize 100,000,000 and give the horses grazer 1,000,000 while leaving the cows at 100.
If the cows instantly starve but the horses are fine, then the tag decides how much food it takes to make them full, with the larger number meaning less food AND it means that a larger bodysize causes them to get hungry faster. But, if neither starve, then it means that bodysize is irrelevant to hunger.

The third possibility is that their massive size will cause them to strip grass at the rate of flooding water... but that seems unlikely.

AFAIK body size is irrelevant to hunger, except that Toady didn't choose random numbers for the grazer tags. He chose numbers based on the body size.

Also goats do give the best butchering returns for the amount of grass that they require. Smaller creatures don't give enough meat, and larger creatures may find it hard to not starve.

[Nirreln]

Rhinos sadly fall into the catigory of not being able to eat fast enough. Also thier horns(also the horns aren't considered ivory)and skulls creat ALOT of clutter in a workshop so it takes too long to make anything with them.