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[Mister Always]

Birds don't eat.  Cage those suckers.

How ya gonna get 'em to lay eggs?

The females spend their whole life sitting on nestboxes, and the close proximity doesn't seem to tick them off, so you don't need to cage them.

Besides, what better way to start a day of hard work than with a peacock omelette?

[Girlinhat]

The chicks that crowd around the mother will fight.

[Mister Always]

The chicks that crowd around the mother will fight.

Assign the chicks to another pasture. Or don't keep any males around. Or cage the chicks. Or train war chicks.

[RTiger]

I don't mind the constant fighting of my dogs and the dwarves. It's good danger room training, without needing the danger room

[Mister Always]

I don't mind the constant fighting of my dogs and the dwarves. It's good danger room training, without needing the danger room

Let's see about that the first time a dog tears some fisherdwarf's entire hand off.

[Urist McGyver]

The dog's shear power of destruction is compared to a sword made of leather.

[Starver]

Birds don't eat.  Cage those suckers.

I tend to have one pasture area[1] that I keep birds on, and probably could put the occasional single grazer on as well (unless they're 'fighty', and tend to snap at my goslings/whatever), and this is where I put my nestboxes as well.  As I get more creatures, I'm learning to

• Move them on from pasture to pasture as the grazed grass/whatever dissappears,
• Individually move the bad-tempered ones onto pastures of their own, to which I might later add another creature to see if their mood has improved[2]

But so far I haven't had more than a couple of years of significant creature density per fort in the versions of DF in which these features exist.  And this new mode of working certainly prompts one to butcher animals one doesn't want, where previously I'd have just tethered/caged/let roam free whole hoards of creatures (culling the less suitable off, in an attempt to promote better breeding).  Now one has to in order to maintain order and, to a definitely non-zero degree, player sanity!


[1] Even though they don't need it, but it's usually my "starter pasture" from before I expand.

[2] Not enough experience to know if this is the case, but I'll give 'em a chance.  Haven't had any squabbling-deaths, yet, or even anything more than a "knock over" incident.  Certainly nothing like the suffocating and beheading incidents already mentioned in this thread.

[Magnar]

I thought it was cute that the puppies were scrapping, though I couldn't figure out why all 8 of them were crowding my stairwell.  Cute, until 3 of them died from infighting and one decided it'd be a great idea to go outside and try to eat a bull... I'm all for natural selection but losing half a litter wasn't what I was expecting lol.  Hopefully if they survive long enough to be trained they'll start to behave a little better and not attack the dwarf they're assigned to XD

My chicken has decided to get all antsy too, randomly pecking at dwarves as they go past, thankfully she couldn't hit anything if her life depended on it lol, my horses on the other hand are constantly bruising eachother.

Bit of a noob question though, would using [v]iew units and turning off [c]ombat stop animals being so aggressive?  Also do animal injuries such as cuts ever heal?  I'm kind of regretting keeping so many animals on my first "getting back into DF after several years" game.

[Fredd]

Regret keeping so many animals is a understatement. I have a bone refuse pile, I could build a mansion with.Spent last 2 seasons butchering livestock, about nonstop.
 Next fortress, am just gonna keep birds, and a small herd of alpacas. Poo on bees too

[Starver]

Bit of a noob question though, would using [v]iew units and turning off [c]ombat stop animals being so aggressive?

That setting you're seeing is just a "skills filter".  When you do that for the dwarf, and 'skills disappear', it doesn't stop them from employing those, it just lets you see more of the others, or more easily identify what's left.  Animals don't have any of said skills (learnable, and improvable, anyway), so you see no change.  And filtering/not filtering doesn't have the effect I think you think it has.

Whether animals are dumber than dwarves or not, they certainly can't be so easily cajoled by "inspiring" them to take up new professions, undertaking military manoeuvres or (save for the near miraculous pasturing equivalent) having arbitrary burrow restrictions on where they can pick up and use any materials that aren't just as arbitrarily designated as unforbidden.

[Lytha]

Yaks are horribly aggressive, really. If that wasn't enough, they gobble up insane amounts of grass. So, I wouldn't keep them or let them breed at all.

[zozeer]

Training does not make them play nice together.
Until today I used a 1tile pasture to keep the bulk of my wardogs in the entry way ( less path space then with a rope and with the ability to hold a lot more with a quick release method...).

I was chasing down a very friendly panda with a small squad and some war dogs so I ignored the 'stray war dog is fighting' messages.
when I looked back at my Depot to do some trading my entry hall was caked in dog blood.  I lost 5 or so war dogs.  Lesson learned...

(side related note)  modding rabbits to have meat was one of the best moves ever (only about 1-3 meat each but it makes the once a decade mass butchering better). 

[Magnar]

Ahhh it's a filter!  You learn something new every day, or in the case of DF, you learn about 20 new things every day lol

Looks like i'll be making a more-than-reasonable stack leather soon XD

[Rhazak]

My cow just kicked the calf she had birthed, to death, this is horrible.

[o_O[WTFace]]

Pastured creatures seem to mill about the pasture randomly, with some preference for all clumping up in the middle.  A few smaller pastures would most likely solve the problem.  It also seems like creatures get angry if they can't eat food fast enough and water buffalos and cows have trouble keeping themselves fed no matter what the pasture size is. 

My cow just kicked the calf she had birthed, to death, this is horrible.

She wanted a calf with better stats, so she re-rolled it.  Dwarfiest cow ever.