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[bloop_bleep]

I started my second attempt at an evil embark today, and this time it went further than expected. However, I forgot that the water buffalos that were brought to haul the wagon were grazers, and so didn't assign them a pasture. (Even if I remembered, all the vegetation was dead at the embark site, so I wouldn't have been able to feed them either way.) So they died of starvation, and then reanimated, SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF MY FORTRESS. They went on a rampage and since I didn't have a competent military yet, I lost my embark.

I then reclaimed and was joyous at the sight of all my stuff lying in big heaps both inside and outside the fortress. I hoped that reclaiming would get rid of the troublesome beasts, and at first my hope seemed to have been realized, but then one of the water buffalos appeared with the message "An ambush! Drive them out!" Maybe the other one was hiding somewhere my dwarves hadn't revisited yet and so hadn't revealed itself yet.

I really liked my embark, so how do I get rid of this beast?

[Derro]

Cage traps are very cheap to make and work fine against undead stuff. If there's a chokepoint (fortress entrance?), you can place a trap there and lure the buffalo through with some dwarfy bait.

Alternatively, you could re-embark again and get your dwarves some copper war hammers and mail shirts this time, as well as ranks in hammerdwarf and dodger. With some luck, they'll bash the buffalo's head in. This is, of course, not without risk: dwarvish zombies are a very possible outcome.

If the buffalo is in some secluded, unimportant area (like a hallway), you could just wall it in and forget about it.

[Melting Sky]

Large undead are dangerous even with skilled fighters. If you decide to route them out by fighting them make sure your starting soldiers have as much dodge and weapon skill as possible. Your dwarves will generally be badly maimed any time one of its attacks land regardless of what they are wearing, so its best just to dodge or parry the blows than to try and rely on armor for protection. A helmet might be a good idea since it might prevent a dwarf from being one shotted.

I think the cage trap suggestion that was made by Derro is probably your best bet.

[Squirrelloid]

Related question: can you safely butcher animals in an undead biome where reanimation is a problem, or will it reanimate their body parts?  (Is a magma disposal necessary, and will a bonecarver have time to turn the bones into something before they reanimate?)

[Derro]

Related question: can you safely butcher animals in an undead biome where reanimation is a problem, or will it reanimate their body parts?  (Is a magma disposal necessary, and will a bonecarver have time to turn the bones into something before they reanimate?)

Skin and hair will reanimate. They can be neutralized by cage traps, dropping them into pits (lava at the bottom is optional), atom-smashing, or quick tanning/spinning.

Note that something like undead head hair is invincible: no weapon will harm it. Try to avoid their formation at all costs.

[Sbcc]

Nothing is invincible. Magma and Water can make some nice hair statues.

[PatrikLundell]

Bones do not reanimate, but when butchering in reanimating biomes the skin and hair will sometimes reanimate before the dorfs manage to process it (or dispose of it), even if they stand ready to do so immediately. General hair and skin is not invincible, but HEAD hair and skin is (or at least close enough in practice) in regular combat. A reanimated skin can split up into multiple skins when defeated, and they can be reanimated in turn, and one of these can be the dreaded head one. In addition to this, when a defeated reanimated skin splits up, one or more parts can get stuck in the butchery/tannery building, requiring the deconstruction/reconstruction of the building to get it out (and give it extra time to reanimate).

A method that's worked reasonably well is to line the relevant workshops (butchery/tannery/thread processing farmer's workshop) with cage traps and have militia stationed in the area when butchering. Reanimated pieces can be caught in traps, and civilians can dodge into them, which saves them from the reanimated parts, but makes it a pain to get them out, as the cages have to be built, hooked to a lever, and the lever has to be pulled). Invincible reanimated parts in cages can be dealt with by atom smashing, although obsidian casing works as well. There are reports that reanimated parts dumped in magma keeps crawling around at the bottom of the magma sea, although I haven't tried that myself.

[Fearless Son]

There are reports that reanimated parts dumped in magma keeps crawling around at the bottom of the magma sea, although I haven't tried that myself.

I would be inclined to pit the reanimated body parts, preferably into magma.  That should kill it, but as you pointed out it might not. 

Oh, or maybe pit them into an execution chamber!  Something you can dump prisoners into and have them torn apart by undead!  Like in Army of Darkness!