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[Weizen1988]

So, im a little confused, wiki says cave crocs give scales, also says scales cant be used as leather, googling around trying to look up what animal is best for a leather supply tells me to get cave crocs in most threads. So which is it? Or have most people heavily modded their games and stuff like making scales usable as leather is just common now?


I guess related, what do you all think is the best (fastest breeding) leather source? I was thinking its Hares by the look of it, minimal meat (I dont need huge supply of food, just leather, though i guess I could just build more kitchens to keep up with the meat before it rots.) to leather, breeds quickly, though ill probably get boars just for added ivory.

[Bumber]

I've heard turkeys are the best for breeding overall, as they lay lots of eggs. The eggs themselves could be a problem, though.

Hares require grazing, and they don't even breed like rabbits. Mongooses are an improvement over hares (no grazing.)

[Goatmaan]

The easiest and most fps friendly way is just order it from the liason. They can bring up to 4 bins per leather type, no meat or bones to deal with, just bins full of leather plopped on the depot.

  Goatmaan

[PatrikLundell]

Given that DF currently produces one piece of leather regardless of whether it's a peahen or a giant elephant you can't provide your fortress with enough leather to even produce shoes only without also flooding the fortress with enormous amounts of meat.

Thus, I'd either skip large scale leather use or take up on Goatmaan's suggestion.

Cave crocs lay lots of eggs and produce lots of meat and have scales, which means no hides...

[Weizen1988]

I've heard turkeys are the best for breeding overall, as they lay lots of eggs. The eggs themselves could be a problem, though.

Hares require grazing, and they don't even breed like rabbits. Mongooses are an improvement over hares (no grazing.)

I hadnt noticed the grazer tag on them.

Given that DF currently produces one piece of leather regardless of whether it's a peahen or a giant elephant you can't provide your fortress with enough leather to even produce shoes only without also flooding the fortress with enormous amounts of meat.

Thus, I'd either skip large scale leather use or take up on Goatmaan's suggestion.

Cave crocs lay lots of eggs and produce lots of meat and have scales, which means no hides...

Yeah, I figured it gave no hides, but when you google dwarf fortress best animal for leather, the first several links i saw all said "cave crocs" So i thought I was missing something. But the fps and meat quantity were why I was looking for whatever the fastest breeding thing that produces leather was. I guess ill just buy it from the caravans, sucks, i need a whole bunch for backpacks and waterskins and shit, and I was hoping to not have to trade for it. Oh well.

[Vorox]

I recall that if you drop an animal from a huge height, it will explode into a million pieces and when butchered, each piece will provide a unit of skin. I'm not sure if you can butcher body parts in Fortress mode though.

[Werdna]

Dwarves won't butcher livestock that die by any other means aside from butchering.  They will do it I think for 'foreign' animals like Beak Dogs and Crundles though.

Edit: by livestock I mean 'tamed' animals.

[anewaname]

Peafowls only take a year to grow, like hares, but they don't need grazing and they will stay parked in their nestboxes (FPS). I put them in a room with a no-pet door and a few cages. Cage all the poults after the mass hatching and ensure there is only one butcher but many tanners (meat hauling gets priority so you need to limit the kill rate or hides may rot).

[PatrikLundell]

Splatter butchering of non tame creatures is still a thing, so if you can splatter it into pieces each piece will yield one skin. Note that they cannot be tamed in any manner, but pitting them into a very deep hole should work ("very deep" means considerably more than 20 levels). Obviously the pitted creatures shouldn't be fliers...
Definitely a lot more work than buying from the caravans, though.

[Weizen1988]

Splatter butchering of non tame creatures is still a thing, so if you can splatter it into pieces each piece will yield one skin. Note that they cannot be tamed in any manner, but pitting them into a very deep hole should work ("very deep" means considerably more than 20 levels). Obviously the pitted creatures shouldn't be fliers...
Definitely a lot more work than buying from the caravans, though.

Yeah, and I guess I probably wont need it as often after this time, so ill just buy a shitload. Im making like 100 backpacks, quivers, and waterskins, figuring ill probably never need more than that, that would be half of my fort in the military, unless those things degrade, in which case this was just costly and stupid. Leather clothing still degrades, so that plan was a failure, need significantly less now. I guess ill just produce hundreds and hundreds of silk outfits, since i got some giant cave spiders before the flatworm made of fire moved into my cavern, set it all on fire again, save the leather for quiver, backpacks and such. Shame we cant have artifact clothing (or at least ive never seen such a thing).

[Fleeting Frames]

You would do best with skinned egglayer for domestic leather production for simple setups. Turkeys are best domestic animals available, while ostriches are best overall (1 higher max, and 90k body size - 50% larger than dwarves). 40 egglayer strong turkey farm can produce 960 leather a year, and several times that in bones, meat, tallow.

More exotically, you could put creatures on chain to have them breed, then tear apart the children. A timed release mechanism could even ensure the children are fully-grown first.
I have seen mentions of serrated blade traps being effective dicing weapons. Though you'd need to obviously slice them into 4 pieces even with triplets born to match turkeys.
Hydras, having 7 heads, would be ideal.

However, either way, you can then reanimate the untanned hide and slice it into smaller pieces. Though note that pieces can get too small for weapon or bare-handed attacks to properly slay them (and I think only obsidian or ice casting would preserve the hide for tanning, of which ice is the only one that you can remove with mechanisms), so careful planning need to go into automating this, lest you risk your fortress.


Or you could buy leather from caravan. Starting at 5 a piece, and maxing out at 50 for maximum-priority(x2) elephant (x5) leather it's not expensive at all - you could buy 100 dog leather for a single masterful spiked wooden ball.

And the caravans will bring you hundreds of leather when maxing all of it out. Could produce shoes, trousers and cloaks for whole population several times over.

And yeah, they don't degrade, unless hit in combat in 43.04+ - only leather clothing degrades. Though I personally leave off backbags in my drafts, as that loses the happy thoughts from dining in awesome rooms and gives potential of storing backbag in a room and having food in it rot.

[Thisfox]

Shame we cant have artifact clothing (or at least ive never seen such a thing).

....I have an artifact copper boot, two artifact gloves (one leather decorated with marble, the other alpaca wool decorated with gold and lead), and my last fortress had an artifact silk hood with pictures of precious stones on it done in silver....

I would have preferred an artifact chair, frankly. Those are useful. Artifact clothing I tend to dress my Champion in, so he looks dapper. Seeing as my Champion only has one foot, that one boot thing is pretty damn successful actually.

[anewaname]

You would do best with skinned egglayer for domestic leather production for simple setups. Turkeys are best domestic animals available

Turkeys will provide more overall, but it takes 2 years for them to grow.

[Fleeting Frames]

Don't need to wait that long - tested embarking with five poults just now, got leather and 2 fat/meat from 3 of them (and skull from all of them).

[anewaname]

Oh nice. This embark's leather worker likes blue peafowl leather, so those were chosen. Usually it is turkeys for the extra plumpness.