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[Zedicius]

I have a bunch of skeletons lying about on a stock pile from animals that have starved too death. Is there a way to extract the bones out of them, or are they pretty much useless? I can't view them like units and there doesn't seem to be any way to direct them too the butcher shop, not even with the 'extract from dead animal' job.

[Quietust]

Butchers will automatically "butcher" usable skeletons to yield bones and hooves/horns and shells and all that fun stuff.

Note that the corpses or skeletons of intelligent creatures will never be butchered (due to Dwarven ethics, defined in entity_default.txt), and the same goes for pets and, oddly, stray animals.

[obeliab]

Does the skeleton-to-bones process actually happen at a butcher's shop?  I thought it was automatic, but just took a long time.

[Quietust]

Yes, it happens at a butcher's shop with the job "Butcher animal". Contrary to popular rumors, skeletons will NEVER "rot" to leave usable bones - the only way you ever get usable goblin/kobold/human/elf bones is by chopping off limbs and letting the flesh rot off of them.

[obeliab]

Then something should be done about the wiki.

[JmzLost]

1.  Tame animals that have starved, bled, or otherwise died without being slaughtered cannot be butchered.  Period.
2.  Animals that are below a certain size will never produce anything except a skull, and your butcher won't touch them even if they are wild, unforbidden, and 1 tile from the butcher shop.
3.  The same applies to parts that are too small to yield any meat/bones/etc.  If your butcher can't get anything from the part, he won't touch it.
4.  According to the wiki, it may take years for a skeleton to decay into a pile of bones.  I have never seen it happen, but I tend to toss things into a quantum garbage dump to keep my refuse stockpile from becoming full.  And my forts tend to be short because I keep coming up with a "great idea" that needs a fresh embark.

tl;dr Wait for years and maybe, or magma.


JMZ
EDIT: Ninja'd FOUR times while typing.  Damn I'm slow.

[Zedicius]

1.  Tame animals that have starved, bled, or otherwise died without being slaughtered cannot be butchered.  Period.

Well damn. That's annoying.

[bucket]

If your animals are starving to death, it's because you're not assigning them a pasture.
(i > size area > n > add animals with N)
Pets will follow their owners and can mostly feed themselves. Tame animals without owners will mill around in your meeting hall until they starve. What I do is periodically toggle breeding pairs for adoption and slaughter the rest.

[Zedicius]

If your animals are starving to death, it's because you're not assigning them a pasture.
(i > size area > n > add animals with N)
Pets will follow their owners and can mostly feed themselves. Tame animals without owners will mill around in your meeting hall until they starve. What I do is periodically toggle breeding pairs for adoption and slaughter the rest.

THAT explains a lot... and I reckon makes herding animals a lot easier as well. Thanks for the tip!

[JmzLost]

If the pets owner stays underground in a rocky area, the pet will still starve.  I assign ALL pets to a secure pasture to keep them from getting killed, and so I don't have to make sure the owner of a horse or donkey paths over grass on a regular basis.

Larger grazers will starve faster than smaller ones.  Elephants literally cannot eat fast enough to stay alive, unless you change their GRAZER tag.  Larger numbers mean longer between times an animal has to eat.  Sheep, goats, and pigs seem to be the best grazing animals for meat vs pasture size right now.

JMZ

[Naryar]

Oooh, but skeletons have a decorative/dramatic value. Outside. Possibly the one of a great beast, and possibly in a desert so it looks even more omnious.

I like to keep skeletons outside in my desert embarks to look cliché cool. Especially camels and vultures, though goblins work as well...