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[Plex]

So I had a new fortress going rather smoothly until one of my dwarves got into a strange mood. I had everything he needed but skeletons, so I thought I would kill one of the yaks at the dwarven caravan, but I screwed up and accidentally killed the wagon itself. My humble militia chased the yak cow into the hallway leading to the food stockpile, and a recruit hit the yak in a lucky spot and it began to vomit. Another kick fractured its leg and it fell unconscious. I increased my squad size to 10 dwarves and watched them all kick the unconscious yak lying in a pool of its own blood and vomit for about 5 minutes. Around then dwarves began to get really, really hungry because they couldn't path past the yak. Any dwarf that tried to go to the food stockpile got horrified by the half-dead yak, turned and ran.

My dwarves are close to death, my military is exhausted and the yak's injuries keep healing. I saved the game here because I had no other thing to do. The dwarf in a strange mood had now gone insane, the recruits are not doing any damage anymore for some reason and I'm desperate.

Any ideas would be great.

[Khalari]

Dig a 1 tile-wide corridor around the cow.

[Chevaleresse]

...In the future you should probably butcher the yak. I didn't even know you could order the militia to kill pets.

[Immortal-D]

Is it too late to simply build a new Stockpile?  Remove your Dorfs from the military, then create a Burrow.  That should force them out of the Yak Room, which is now my new favorite thing to say.  Get your hunger under control, then if you have any available ores & fuel, throw together a few copper axes or whatever.  If that isn't enough to kill the wayward beast... well, we'll cross that bridge if we have to.  Oh, and obviously place a locked door to the Yak Room once your Dwarves are safely away.

[Melting Sky]

Edit: Much of my original advice has already been covered by others. Here are a couple of other options that may or may not be much help.

If you don't have your metal industry set up then you could try and kill it with xbows and bone or wooden bolts but that might not be enough to bring it down. Crossbows were nerfed a while back so they aren't nearly as dangerous as they once were.

I think evacuating the dwarves and just sealing the yak behind a door or doors and tunneling around the offending hallway is probably your best short term solution. 

Another possibility would be to make and set up an air lock using a couple of doors at a bottleneck just outside of view of where the yak is currently being fought and put a spike trap with a repeater in there, then disband the squad and burrow the dwarves as was mentioned above and hope the wounded yak paths into the airlock. This requires a lot of set up, but at least the shops and materials should be readily available in even a fledgling fort. The reason I suggest the spike trap over other trap options is that I think the Yak as a member of your civ is probably trap void.

[jcd]

Well, just arm someone with a pick or an axe (or conscript the miner/woodcutter) and kill the damn thing.
Best done after you take care of food/drink.
What do you mean, you killed the wagon itself?

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

You can't buy or slaughter pack animals of the traders themselves. Still, I don't think you can butcher slain pack animals. Slaughter a puppy next time. Or several, if that doesn't work.

[Plex]

Well, just arm someone with a pick or an axe (or conscript the miner/woodcutter) and kill the damn thing.
Best done after you take care of food/drink.

I have a few axes in the embark wagon outside, but the dwarves are simply ignoring my attempts to equip them and they are fighting the yak relentlessly.

The dwarves can't path past the yak, and I can't move the yak until it dies. I'll save carving giant holes in my young fortress as a last resort.

What do you mean, you killed the wagon itself?

Yes.

Is it too late to simply build a new Stockpile?  Remove your Dorfs from the military, then create a Burrow.  That should force them out of the Yak Room, which is now my new favorite thing to say.  Get your hunger under control, then if you have any available ores & fuel, throw together a few copper axes or whatever.  If that isn't enough to kill the wayward beast... well, we'll cross that bridge if we have to.  Oh, and obviously place a locked door to the Yak Room once your Dwarves are safely away.

I have axes, but my dwarves won't equip them. They aren't listening to burrows either, and removing them from the military either forces them to try pathing to the food stockpile, scream like a little elven girl and run or both. Even dwarves that aren't in the military are trying to fight the yak.

The yak is in the middle of my main 3-wide hallway, which makes things a real pain in the ass.

Here is a screenshot: (The yak is amidst the big brown blob near the center, at the T-junction next to my future magma forges. There are two engravers smoothing out the forges, oblivious to the situation. The food stockpile and future tavern is at the top and the main stockpile room is at the bottom.)

http://www.imgur.com/0B0U1QD

[Trollhammaren]

If all else fails, mod yak skin to melt into ichor in your save.
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SKIN:ICHOR_TEMPLATE]
This kills the yak.

[Tacomagic]

Had this happen with a cave dragon that wandered up into my fort once.  Aggression-locked everything in the fort after a planter got a lucky punch on the thing and knocked it out.

The only thing you can really do is hope a miner with a pick shows up in the next immigrant wave and you can draft him.

Now, if you've got any aggressive animals tamed, you might be able to get them in there and attack.  Just toss a meeting area around the yak.

At this point, if starvation is problem, just draft every dwarf you have (if you haven't already) and hope somebody gets a lucky hit with something.

The final thing you can try is to retire the fort and see if the issue gets sorted out in the 2-week lag when you restart it.

[Plex]

I desperately tried to wall off the yak and make a passage around it, but the dwarves refused to get started on the walls and kept running away in fear. More than half of the population was trapped outside, the yak got up and stabbed my expedition leader in the face with its horn and killed him, then fell unconscious again; all of my recruits starved and died and eventually everyone remaining starved.

Sorry guys. Thanks for the suggestions though, it would have helped if I had been faster.

Moral of this thread: Strange moods within the first 2 years are a death sentence to the dwarf that contracted it. And maybe even the entire fortress.

[Trollhammaren]

That's not it at all. The moral is don't screw with yaks 'cause they will mess you up.

[fluffymormegil]

Moral of this thread: Strange moods within the first 2 years are a death sentence to the dwarf that contracted it. And maybe even the entire fortress.

Next time you get a strange mood you can't fulfil, just Montresor the moody dwarf and let them go mad and starve in private. Then engrave a slab for them.

Also, bring some dogs with you when you embark. Dogs are a wonderful source of meat and bone.

[Immortal-D]

Bwahah, sounds like some proper !FUN!   At least now you know better for next time, and really, that's the mark of progress.  Each Fortress lasts a little bit longer than its' predecessors.

[bmxbumpkin]

wait... why didnt any of your military have any weapons?