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[Felius]

Masterwork DF creates a lot of new animals for your dwarfs to use. What are your favorites? And animals do you insist on taking? For defense and war? For hunting? For shearing and milking? For butchering?

Personally, I insist on always taking at least a drake couple. They are naturally armored which is awesome. In addition, a frill lizard or two, to deal with vermin. Other than that, it depends on how many embark points I have to spread around. Some turtles, some beetles, some boozebelly goats, etc.

[urmane]

Vermin catchers and guard animals for me - livestock always seems like more trouble than it's worth, other than providing meat while waiting for the first caravan.

[Bigheaded]

I've been more impressed with moleweasels than the frilly lizards. Always some vermin catchers, once embarked without them and basically lost my entire food supply very quickly. Couldn't find a way to keep em out.

I generally bring 2x warriors which immediately train on embark (i.e build a weapon rack and they begin). So no animals are required for that purpose, also, why use crap animals when you can get hilarious animals from the elves and request stuff from the drow? i usually buy whatever's going.

I never ever shear, but i usually let me fort run around with tattered clothing usually, i very rarely can be arsed with clothesmaking. Sometimes keep some egg layers, i like birds

[Godlysockpuppet]

You guys should try dewbeetles. I kept a fort of 50 with harder farming on supplied with drinks no problem with only 4 beetles

[Felius]

You guys should try dewbeetles. I kept a fort of 50 with harder farming on supplied with drinks no problem with only 4 beetles

They produce booze straight up?

[Varyag]

I didn't know dewbeetles were so useful.

I personally always take moleweasels, they move around at lightning speed all over the map so they reveal ambushes and thieves while simultaneously being fast enough to get away from almost any danger. Also i love the concept of the badgerdog so usually bring a few of those on embark. The other animals not so much but i am not big on cheesemaking so rarely use other animals. I do want to try the other pets though.

From caravans i usually try to get and often order from the guild representative the biggest animals i can find. Mastodons and Colossus Elephants are literally worth their weight in gold as they can stomp most enemies and slaughtering them gives you meat to last you several years.

[Godlysockpuppet]

Dewbeetles you milk them at the farmers workshop with a bucket, then you brew their extract to beetle mead in the still. You get 15 drinks per milking, and they can be milked 2 times or so a season

[dukea42]

If I am remembering the right creature, when I was skimming thru the raws, this was the one you milked the males for the extract?  Important because most people keep few males with autobutcher.

[Ivan Issaccs]

Mountain Tuskox are bad-asses in disguise. If you have these in you're fort, most of them will end up named when they trample Kobold Thieves to death and I've even seen them take on enraged Dragon Raptors and win more often than not.

[Apani]

For Kobolds, I always take Shalswars, Giant Jack Rats and changelings and if I can a couple of drakes or (rare case, since one costs more than half embark) an ogre. Anyway, I'm going to run a test: see who produces more offsprings between the same number of Shalswars (scaly egg layers, meant as dog and cat replacements) and Giant Jack Rats (animals meant to be fast-to-reproduce livestock). I have already estabilished Giant Jack Rats are far better fighters than shalswars in the arena, now I want to see if shalswars make better livestock than giant jack rats.

[Repseki]

I usually bring a breeding pair of moleweasels, a few birds for the library system that I always forget to build in a timely manner, and something to use as a temporary guard while I get some initial things dug out.

I have also witnessed the bad-assness of the Moutain Tuskox Bull's who I usually get as wagon haulers. In my last fort, which didn't last very long (Sinister Glacier), they were the only reason we lasted as long as we did.

I thought it was impressive when one gored a Troll in the face as it walked in. Then a few months later I noticed reports of dwarves canceling jobs because of a FB and expected the worst. But when I zoomed to the site I saw both Bulls standing next to a corpse and a whole lot of blood.

Thinking that was totally awesome I slaughtered a few of the moleweasel over-pop only to be destroyed by animated hair... I had totally forgotten why I hadn't been slaughtering them..

[Bigheaded]

If I am remembering the right creature, when I was skimming thru the raws, this was the one you milked the males for the extract?  Important because most people keep few males with autobutcher.

if this is the case i'm worried where this "dew" is coming from and what the female is doing?!

[Godlysockpuppet]

If I am remembering the right creature, when I was skimming thru the raws, this was the one you milked the males for the extract?  Important because most people keep few males with autobutcher.

if this is the case i'm worried where this "dew" is coming from and what the female is doing?!

Fairly sure both males AND females can be milked. Go play the foocubus dungeon mod if you're here for that kind of thing

[Corundum]

I love cragtooth boars and have used them as a first line of defense since I discovered that they murder thieves quite readily.

I used to farm pekyts as well and was surprised by how well their tough skin can fend off weapon blows. It's hilarious to watch this cute little thing chase down and kill kobolds.

Forest spiders are just bad-ass. I had one hold off a FB long enough for my military to come in and kill it while still surviving. Their habit of grabbing the head of whatever they're attacking and shaking it, thus decapitating their foes makes them indispensable. The webs are just a bonus.

Lets not forget about swordgolems. There is one in my fort called Gooeymonster that has one-shotted TWO frostgiants with blows to the head. Not even my all legendary military can boast of that feat. I engraved slabs to commemorate the events.     

As for farming, the only thing I go for now days are golden geese. They may be expensive but they pay for themselves many times over. 

[masterdiscord]

A bit in the way of a warning - Dewbeetles are egg layers. And they seem to take ages to hatch too. My keets have hatched their first clutch and started a second already. Not a big deal but nice to know.