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[StreetPizza]

Hey there, Bay12ians, I'm here with a question.

I like to give my dorfs a little variety when it comes to food, so when I saw an emu in my game today, I decided to order one of my axedwarves to go kill it through the military squad menu. I don't know what to do after the axedwarf kills it; when I put the order to butcher a dead animal in to the butcher shop a few levels down, I get the message that I need a "butcherable unrotten nearby item." The emu corpse ended up rotting because I didn't know what to do.

Later, a barn owl flew into--and was turned into assorted barn owl bits by--a weapon trap, but the butchery wouldn't detect that one either. I even tried moving the butchery right next to the corpse, but still no luck. What am I doing wrong? Was it because the barn owl has no meat (like buzzards)? What about the emu? If I had moved the butchery next to its corpse, would it have worked? Do I have to use a hunter if I want some wild meat for my dorfs?

Thanks in advance!

[celem]

Butchers take corpses to butcher from the refuse pile.

When a hunter kills a critter he returns its corpse to the butcher shop itself (though sometimes a fast hauler will move it to refuse before butcher arrives).  Either way, the butcher can only take corpses from the pile, not from the map in general, or he can butcher something a hunter has dropped onto the shop itself.

Your dwarves by default are ordered not to collect refuse from outside, a corpse falls under this heading.  The default key binding to fix this is o-r-o.  Haulers with refuse hauling will then move the corpse and all pieces to corpse pile, butchers shop will then 'auto-generate' a job to butcher them.

[StreetPizza]

I tried what you recommended and it worked. I wish I had known this a little earlier so that the emu would still have meat on its bones, but hey, emu bone bolts. Thanks again!

[Quietust]

In previous versions, "nearby" meant "within 40 tiles" (as the crow flies), so you had to make sure your butcher's shops were reasonably close to your refuse stockpiles. I haven't checked this in the current version, but it probably still works this way.

[Seraphim342]

One thing about gathering refuse from outside, it can cause swarms of dwarves to go running to random corners of the map to pick up little trinkets left here and there, then get killed by ambushers.  Worth checking around ad mass-forbidding any areas where caravans got slaughtered, etc.  as I once had 10 dwarves get jumped when they went to go pick up bits of human and goblin left outside. 

[donald]

Would it be possible to place a single tile refuse pile under the corpse, just long enough to generate the work order at the butcher's shop?

Or does the corpse not count as really being in the pile if  you do that...?

[Kibstable]

Could you load the corpses into a minecart that dumped onto the butcher from z+1 and miss out the refuse pile?

[krenshala]

Unless the corpse is tasked for butchering, it gets hauled to the refuse pile even if its in the butcher shop already.  My solution was to just always place the butcher shop (and tannery) immediately adjacent to the refuse pile (that also accepts corpses).  Of course, the drawback to this method is that you have to secure the refuse pile area so necromancers don't turn your future (and past) food products into mobile machines of mayhem, but thats just another aspect of playing DF now, right?