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[Hunter0000]

The standard thing people say when asked about animal control is that they throw them in cages to prevent breeding. AFAIK this has been standard for a long time. Lately I have been leaving all my animals outside to roam the countryside and thwart thieves, ambushes ect... I don't have to worry about FPS because I've been playing with immigration turned off. In my current fort the animals roamed into the volcano and some fire imps came out and threw fire at them, as to be expected. What I didn't expect was the massive grass fire that followed leaving me with a wealth of bones to collect.

I have an idea to industrialize this grass-fire bone harvest, but it would help to know a few things. If one digs a deep pit, will grass grow there? if so the production located 'underground' in a deep pit. Otherwise it would have to be located above ground. In either case what I propose is this:

Make a set of two rooms of some size, and throw all your 'spare' animals in there. Periodically leak a little lava into one room to set it ablaze and kill all the animals. Then you collect the bones, rinse repeat.

Thoughts?

[sonerohi]

Won't work. For whatever reason, lava doesn't transfer heat to other tiles, and it just kinda burns up the grass underneath it and then squishes out the fire. You'd need a resident dragon or fire imp that can be chained up behind a lever-operated shielding system. Up the lever to remove the shield, fire imp sees cows or w/e, torches them, they die. Lever down, imp is blocked from view and all, collect once the fire is down.

[kurisukun]

but if you butcher them you also get meat in addition to their bones.

And skin for leather.

[Hunter0000]

Good to know lava wont work, though the imp idea sounds plausible. I wouldn't consider butchering an alternative because it requires labor besides hauling and also requires you to select each animal to butcher. The idea behind this is that it does the same job as putting your animals in cages except with two pulls of a lever every once and I while you get a free bone pile. It also involves fire, which is always fun.

[RavingManiac]

For my wildfire-starting device, I had lava ignite several booze barrels, which in turn ignited the grass. It worked like a charm.

I'm not sure if a wood stockpile can be used as a substitute for the booze.

[Ivefan]

Capture one imp with a cage, build Fortifications in a square leaving one tile in the middle where you build the imp cage, connect it to a lever.
Providing you wish to control the fire of the imp, construct floodgates outside the Fortifications and open when you want the imp to shoot.

-edit-
atleast i think that will work, but i heard that GCS don't shoot webs at things they can't reach and this might happen to the imp too.

[Warlord255]

For my wildfire-starting device, I had lava ignite several booze barrels, which in turn ignited the grass. It worked like a charm.

I'm not sure if a wood stockpile can be used as a substitute for the booze.

This method is proven.

Also, for pit-digging, as long as the floor is soil, you'll be fine.

[Agent_Irons]

For my wildfire-starting device, I had lava ignite several booze barrels, which in turn ignited the grass. It worked like a charm.

I'm not sure if a wood stockpile can be used as a substitute for the booze.

This method is proven.

Also, for pit-digging, as long as the floor is soil, you'll be fine.

This is true. you can get trees down there, too. This happened to me after a bit of careless channeling. Once light gets in, it never gets out. grass means that a square could grow trees, if it weren't stomped on or got around  to it, etc.

[Cheshire Cat]

i just build a high tower, and a really really deep pit next to it. use caveins to clear out all the z levels on the way down.

on a regular basis i throw all the kittens and puppies in there. they go splat, and their limbs and heads and things can aparently bounce as high as 4 or 5 z levels out of the 20 i drop them, landing on ledges left over from the excavation. this is another established method of disposing of animals, and particularly prisoners. it also gives you bones and chunks of meat, you just wait for the miasma to die down and open the doors leading to the pit.

also, a nice way of singling out owned pets in a drownworthy or magma worthy spot is, when they are following their owner, they cannot pass through doors which are designated locked to non dwarves. so you can put a processing room in a high traffic area and periodically melt all the owned animals. this requires a fairly legendary fortress to prevent suicides and tantrums, though if you are feeling evil you may wish to get rid of the freakish cat lady dwarf of your fortress at the same time as well.

the chained/somehow confined fire imp or dragon idea is indeed worthy. you could pair it with the forbidden door pet processing room as well. or, rather then grass, you could just make it your deep underground booze stockpile. just be careful with the smoke, and use fireproof doors.

[LegacyCWAL]

For my wildfire-starting device, I had lava ignite several booze barrels, which in turn ignited the grass. It worked like a charm.

I'm not sure if a wood stockpile can be used as a substitute for the booze.

A wood stockpile can.  Actually, a single log can.  Just get that log burning, and it'll start your fire.  You might need more if there's some gaps or something that a fire from that single point wouldn't reach (like if there's a line of trampled-to-clay tiles), but all you need is one burning thing.

Pretty much anything that'll burn will work as well, but wood is the easiest to get and use.  Hell, you don't even need a stockpile: build a 1x1 wall out of wood, deconstruct it, and forbid the log.  Voila, instant fire kit!