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[GreatWyrmGold]

I remember there being a table somewhere about how big a pasture needs to be to support so many of this kind of animal.

Where is it? Or, failing that, how do you determine how much pasture you need?

[EmperorJon]

There is a table?

I NEED IT. Bumpbumpbump. I didn't know this.

[melomel]

Seconded.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Great, anyone know where it is?

[Starver]

What I've done in my current (.21) fortress is set up a whole lot (erm... 24.. Yes, around that number) of pastures, each 10x10, one per species that I'm farming, except for the one that is assigned to hold every single bird.  Now, some of those species don't graze (like the birds), or don't graze much (goats seem not to, although they may not at all), some of them graze an awful lot.  I first of all I maintain a minimum population (no more than one adult male, sometimes not even him if I have a better male still in juvinility, at a maximum the two best females, again less than that depending on offspring), and I also keep an eye on the various grasses (a dozen of the fields are aboveground, the other dozen are exact subterranean).

If it looks like a pasture is getting defoliated (or if I miss that, but get messages about calves attacking mothers, or vice-versa/equivalent), I pick and choose one that isn't (e.g. the one I assign all the cavy boars and sows and whatavyer to, I don't think they even browse, but I haven't checked), go to that, deselect all assigned cavies (aka guinea-pigs, I assume?) that are sorted neatly at the top of that pasture's list, go to the yak/elephant/water-buffalo/whatever one causing me problems and deselect the neatly top-sorted ones, then go down the list and pick out all the "unassigned creatures", which will generally consist of all the caviinae, plus whatever dogs/cats/etc I currently have running loose.  The former set I assign, the latter set I ignore.  Then I go back to the previously-cavy pasture and repeat to pick up the unassigned unguents causing me trouble.  Dwarf labour happens, and I have a breathing space.

It would be nice to be able to set them alone and forget them, but I've a feeling that most of the creatures with "bulls" and "cows" and "calves" (from elephants down through to the more exotic cattle specie and the more standard variety) and all much too heavy a set of browsers for any realisticly-sized field to be reliably self-sustaining, so I can always swap them around with the various creatures with "boars" and "sows" (and whatever the particular young are called for pigs/cavies/etc).  I haven't worked out where the various ones bearing "foals" stand, in the equation, and I've also mentioned my doubts about goats (which I'm sure a check of the raws would help clarify, or firing up the fortress to check if there's any sign of grass needing re-growing), but I don't think I've had to move either of those types around, so 10x10 seems to be Ok for their needs.


But, for the TL;DR; 10x10 certainly isn't for any of the bull/cow/calf representatives that I've been husbanding.  Mind you, I've also been attempting to breed for bigger animals (or otherwise more interesting, but generally with an primary eye for size and/or strength), as I have with everything else.  Limited only by the efficiency of the butcher's shops, their staff and the various haulers that help clear the end-product out.  Whatever, that might have an influence on appetite.

[Musashi]

Heck yeah, I needed to know once and for all just how large a pasture must be for these goddamn yaks and water buffaloes to survive. 

[Nidokoenig]

A thread where experiments have been done.

The table in that post assumes that the results can be generalised, which they probably can be, but you never know. One thing to point out is that grass grows back quicker if it's next to dense grass, so your grazers might be better off having just half the pasture area actual pasture, in a checkerboard pattern. Another thing to note, from calculations Quietus posted about in the discussion page for Pastures on the wiki, is that the grazer tag times the creatures size always results in 60 million, so you want the fastest growing creatures for greatest return on grass investment, which are water buffalo, so the big things do have their advantages if you can set it up right. Although wooly things have additional compensations that complicate things.