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[bobhayes]

I see a lot of posts with suggestions to "drop in food" or "drop a kitten down there to let it explore", things like that.

How to make things drop in a Fun way I understand. Wheeeeesplat.

How do you drop something in that you want to use? For items, I guess you make a garbage dump above a quantum stockpile, mark the item for dropping, then undesignate the garbage dump (so that the noble's prison room doesn't get turned into a refuse dump) once the items are dropped.

How do you do that with animals, though? For example, if I want to send a kitten down to the cavern to reveal it all, do I breach the cavern, put in a door, mark it no-pets, dig a one-z channel with a ramp and designate it as a pit, pit the kitty? It seems like the kitty would just hang around at the locked door, which is what they seem to do from my experiments with trying to get all the pets in one room.

I guess I just want to make sure I'm not missing some genius techniques for dropping stuff, because both of these seem a little laborious and one seems like it wouldn't really work.

[Sphalerite]

What I do when dropping a kitten or puppy into the caverns is make a lever-controlled floor hatch, over a hole with caverns below, with doors just before and just after it.  I lure the animal into walking down that corridor and as it does set the door just after the floor hatch to be pet-impassible.  It will reach that door and then stand there confused.  At that point I set both doors to be completely impassible, and then have a dwarf pull the lever, dumping the animal in the caverns.  Pull the lever again and un-forbid both doors to reset the trap.  This design has the advantage of being usable for animals which are already pets.

[shlorf]

First breach the cavern so you have some part of it revealed. Then make a hole in the ceiling of the cavern where it's not too deep (less than 3 z-levels shouldn't kill a cat). From the the zones menu designate the hole as a one tile zone and turn it into a (p)it. Don't exit the zones menu instead keep the cursor on your new zone and press shift-p. You will now see a menu from which you can assign animals to your newly created zone. Designate a few cats or kittens to the pit and a dwarf will bring them and throw them into the caverns. If there's no way back into your fortress the animals should start wandering around and explore new areas. As Sphalerite said this method won't work for animals that have (been) adopted (by) someone.

[Altaree]

First breach the cavern so you have some part of it revealed. Then make a hole in the ceiling of the cavern where it's not too deep (less than 3 z-levels shouldn't kill a cat). From the the zones menu designate the hole as a one tile zone and turn it into a (p)it. Don't exit the zones menu instead keep the cursor on your new zone and press shift-p. You will now see a menu from which you can assign animals to your newly created zone. Designate a few cats or kittens to the pit and a dwarf will bring them and throw them into the caverns. If there's no way back into your fortress the animals should start wandering around and explore new areas. As Sphalerite said this method won't work for animals that have (been) adopted (by) someone.

If you build a retracting bridge over the pit, you can drop animals through it but monsters can't fly in.

[Captain Man]

Is it possible to build a channel, designate as a pit, then put a retracting bridge over it to keep those winged nasties out?

[Altaree]

Is it possible to build a channel, designate as a pit, then put a retracting bridge over it to keep those winged nasties out?

yup.  that is exactly what I said above.

[Dutchling]

Is it possible to build a channel, designate as a pit, then put a retracting bridge over it to keep those winged nasties out?

yup.  that is exactly what I said above.

But you did not say if it was possible