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[Duntada Man]

Do any animals give multiple hides, or am I best off buying from caravans, and slaughtering all my turkeys?

only if they are big enough and die in pieces and were NOT tame animals, so yes, slaughtering turkeys, dogs and cats is more likely to work

On the other hand, building automated death machines to breed and killdrop wild unicorns/elephants/rhinos/cave crocs in great quantities would be well worth it, as they breed like dogs or better, don't starve, and have 5x value modifiers... and superior tough leather in some mods such as Genesis.

Also you have a machine that breeds unicorns, then tosses them down into giant pits to explode in piles of gore.

Hell even if you don't get leather you've already summed up a good enough reason to build a fortress.

[Sphalerite]

My idea would be chaining the wild animals in a large room. Then, channel out all the floors, except for the floors around the chain (so the animal doesn't fall). Then build a retracting bridge, wait for them to breed and pull the lever in a 10+z drop.

Would this work? Of course big animals would make the bridge stop working, so opening it at the moment the animal breeds is the most likely scenario.

Tricky, the baby animals will want to stay with their mother on the safe central area.  You'll have to use a tame animal behind a window to scare them onto the bridges.

[Sus]

Also you have a machine that breeds unicorns, then tosses them down into giant pits to explode in piles of gore.

Hell even if you don't get leather you've already summed up a good enough reason to build a fortress.

Dwarf Fortress: where an exploding unicorn death factory is a goal unto itself.
Me gusta.

[Sphalerite]

If you do build this, make sure you have a lot of butcher's shops and dwarves with the butcher skill enabled.  A falling elephant can easily create a dozen separate butcherable items when it splatters.  Each one of those will clog a butcher's shop to maximum clutter level when a dwarf tries to butcher them.  A single butcher dwarf simply won't be able to get to all of the body parts before they start rotting.  Be prepared with an army of butchers in advance.  Tanners too, if you're trying to harvest as much leather as possible.

I recently dropped four rhinoceros down a shaft in my fortress, and even with a dozen butcher's shops some of the parts rotted before they could be processed.

[Maklak]

After 31.25 I don't even bother with animal husbandry. It always ends for me with hundreds of animals walking around my dining room and trampling grass, starving, fighting, etc. I just butcher every non pet migrants bring on the spot, but keep a few cats around, Even cats are an annoyance with all that dead vermin.

All you have to do is pasture them.  Non-grazers only need a 1x1 space and they'll be happy, egg layers need nests too.  Immature offspring can all be shoved in a cage until they grow up and are either slaughtered or bred.  I slaughter any stray grazers the immigrants bring in, because many of them require far too much space to be worth it, though sheep can be worth it since they only need a 4x4 space preferably dug out in a soil layer somewhere, and they can produce milk and wool as well as meat.  Also, junk pets like rabbits and cavies which I certainly don't want breeding in my fort get atom smashed.

I once put two animals, one dog or something, and one bird in a 1x1 watchtower, and they were fighting, so I don't think a 1x1 space will cut it. Besides once they have litter, I'll have to pasture that too, or put into a cage. It is just too much work to even bother. I kept some grazers for milk and wool, but they produced it slowly, and it is easier to order milk and wool from caravans, if I even wanted it. Egg layers are OKish, because I usually can pick up the eggs before they hatch, but I generally don't need the extra food. Bees are way below being rewarding for the effort it takes to have them.

I just find it easier to slaughter everything, and even with 2 or 3 butcheries I have trouble keeping up.

As for dropping animals to their deaths, I've heard somebody build an automatic breeder for elephants with pressure plates, but I only ever managed drop traps with goblins (and it killed some of my Dwarves too).

[daggaz]

If you put tons of dogs on top of a pillar, eventually they breed to the point where they start attacking each other and falling off. Instant automation right there.

The fact that you know this... 

[Garath]

it'll be difficult to get wild animals there though

[InsaneRationalist]

Dwarf Fortress: where an exploding unicorn death factory is a goal unto itself.

Oh hey, a signature.

[Loud Whispers]

If you put tons of dogs on top of a pillar, eventually they breed to the point where they start attacking each other and falling off. Instant automation right there.

The fact that you know this... 

Idea nabbed from someone else in a thread about making blood machines

'Have since used it to keep Dwarves nice and bloody clean