Grazers which are not assigned to a pasture (such as pets) must be fed.
Pets? you mean "cavern and lava exploration probes"? those only need to be fed if they aren't "put to work".
Seems an awful waste of good meat...
I've got a pretty strict no livestock as pets policy, I'll let them keep their dogs and cats but for everything else:
1. Select offending meatbag in game.
2. Type gui/gm-editor into dfhack window.
3. Expand flags1, find "important_historical_figure", change this to false.
4. Do the same in flags2.
5. Scroll down to 2nd page and find "relationship_ids", expand, change "Pet" to -1 (this seems to be bilateral and the former owner will get no bad feelings)
6. Butcher!
So if you take a look in your "\Dwarf Fortress 0.47.05\dfhack-config\orders\library" folder (if you aren't using DFHack I have no words for you) you'll find a pretty comprehensive set of work orders that Myk and I put together. Including meal prep. While they aren't perfect we worked hard to minimize cancellation spam (it makes me insane) and they are pretty good examples of how to use work orders (I'm particularly proud of the armor & weapons ones).
I generally embark with a slightly modified version of clinodev's craftswarves embark, with enough ores to start out smelting bronze immediately and arm all dwarves and furnish at least reasonably good quarters immediately.
Other critical workflows with multiple steps that generally benefit from conditionals are soap and steel.
I find if I clutter up the manager menu with too much stuff, I end up with tasks that never get done, so I try to use it for the critical, complicated ones, while keeping it simple (i.e. if less than X produce Y) with the others.
I try to use custom stockpiles and other things (like limiting workshops to Legendaries in the relevant skill) for when I want only quality craftsdwarfship for certain substances (like candy or aluminum or cut gems), or to manage stress if someone is going batty from hauling rocks outdoors while it rains elf mucus or something vile like that.
I'll definitely take a look at these. I'm sure there's something I'm doing wrong that I could be doing better at.
Myk and I have tested them pretty extensively. Myk for those who aren't aware is one of the Dfhack rockstars. I did a lot of playtesting for the Dreamfort and I came up with a lot of the complex workorders (making the best weapons/armor out of what you have available but always keeping you stocked, and it is geared for constantly melting lower quality gear since that is something I do as well), but Myk's code made it all possible. Being able to add new features/correct vanilla bugs is pretty handy.
I know clinodevs embark profile well, my own embarks were all based on it. I do like to bring both materials for bronze and a pair of picks though. Although it doesn't seem as critical as it used to to dig in fast, old habits die hard. I honestly have trouble getting sieges anymore. Even with towers, the necromancers all come as immigrants for me. Anyone need a complementary copy of "Secrets of life and death" ?