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[Destructicus]

Is there a labor I need to designate to prevent animals from starving to death?  Am I relying too much on plump helmets for food, so there's nothing the animals will eat?  Is an animals diet specified in the raws?

[Intro1827]

Grazers need grass, Tigermen need meat.

[Sphalerite]

Grazing animals will eat by standing on tiles with grass or moss or other floor-covering grass-type plants.  The usual method to ensure they do not starve is to create a pasture zone somewhere with grass or cave moss and assign the animals to it.  If you don't do this, they will starve as animals aren't smart enough to seek out grass on their own and will only eat grass they happen to walk across randomly.

Allegedly, tame animals which are owned by a dwarf will sometimes be manually fed by that dwarf, but this shouldn't be relied on to keep them fed.

Only tame animals need to eat, wild animals of those same species do not need to eat.

Carnivores (dogs, cats, bears, etc) don't need to eat at the moment.  Neither do any of the standard domestic egg-laying animals.  Intelligent meat-eaters like tigermen on the other hand do need to eat, and drink.

Some grazers (such as elephants) are incapable of eating fast enough to avoid starving, even when standing on thick grass.  Yaks and water buffalos are about the largest grazing animals you can keep alive.

[Destructicus]

Pastures!  Excellent, that's what I missing.  Thank you.

[Mushroo]

Pastures are kind of a pain-in-the-butt to micromanage. Personally what I do is place one or more Statues in grassy or mossy areas, and designate them as sculpture gardens.

[nenjin]

On pastures....only ever keep one breeding female available, slaughter the rest as soon as they are born. You will have to do MUCH less pasture swapping over the course of several years. Once you've got two or more breeding females, your animal populations explode and they'll be stripping a maximum size pasture in only a few months.

Plus you'll get spammed by messages of animals kicking the crap out of each other.

[xeniorn]

Plus you'll get spammed by messages of animals kicking the crap out of each other.

This...

Make sure not to cram up a lot of animals on the same pasture. They'll start to beat each other and will in time run out of grass / cave moss if it's inside. You can check the wiki for required pasture sizes per animal if you want to be sure.

[wierd]

I refuse to keep gazers.  I BUY wool and cheese.  Yarn doesn't have a quality modifier.

[Muffindog]

Pandas also need bamboo, as it's the only thing they don't refuse to eat.