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[JoshuaFH]

an odd thought came to me, could a fortress of small or even moderate size survive off of butchered animals alone?

supposing hypothetically we were working with a computer that had no problem dealing with hundreds and hundreds of animals, creating a pasture could be a viable alternative to farming to create endless amounts of food.

a pasture would be basically a huge field or room where horses, cows, or anything really is dumped into and then allowed to breed uninterrupted. how many adult animals would one fort need to survive off the produced offspring alone?

[woose1]

How much meat does each animal produce?

On the wiki, it says that each dwarf eats around 8 units of meat annually, which means you would need 8 animals for said dwarf (Unless some animals produce more meat than others).

Either way, you would need to figure out not only a way to have a mass butchering system, but you would need:
-A large refuse pile from all those horse bollocks
-A way to protect thos animals (Like a huge armored pasture area manned by marksdwarves and leigions of wardogs
-A mass cooking area
-A way to not only protect the pasture, but your own fort as well
-Some sort of chimney, because a hundred cows all farting underground would stagger all but the sturdiest dwarf
-An EDA licence (your causing serious ecological harm!

[Warlord255]

How much meat does each animal produce?

On the wiki, it says that each dwarf eats around 8 units of meat annually, which means you would need 8 animals for said dwarf (Unless some animals produce more meat than others).

Either way, you would need to figure out not only a way to have a mass butchering system, but you would need:
-A large refuse pile from all those horse bollocks
-A way to protect thos animals (Like a huge armored pasture area manned by marksdwarves and leigions of wardogs
-A mass cooking area
-A way to not only protect the pasture, but your own fort as well
-Some sort of chimney, because a hundred cows all farting underground would stagger all but the sturdiest dwarf
-An EDA licence (your causing serious ecological harm!

Fortunately, horse bollocks and cow farts are not implemented as of now.

Animals do produce more than 1 unit of meat, obviously, and dwarves will only eat 1 unit of meat from a given stack (I believe) at a time. Also, cooking to produce prepared meals preserves the quantity - so if you make an Easy meal with 10 meat and 2 meat, you get a stack of 12 (meat biscuit).

[MagicJuggler]

The amount of meat given off depends on the animal size. A dog for instance produces 5 meat when slaughtered, while an elephant gives off 16 meat. Additionally, they also give off fat, which can be rendered into tallow, which is cookable...(grease-fried burgers, etc).

[Kate Wissen]

It's possible, assuming you have such a computer. And the number depends on how many dwarves you have. Needless to say you wild have to harvest something for booze or import massive amounts of it. Or be cruel and give them only water to drink.

Either way it will have to be a balance between the number of dwarves and the number of animals. Dogs are the most economical for the starting costs, but horses and cows would be more useful in keeping your fps up. A better way would be catch, tame and breed elephants on your pasture. Then again there is always the cat farm. =)

How much meat does each animal produce?

Cat: 3 meat + 1 fat
Dog: 5 meat +1 fat
Donkey: 7 meat + 4 fat
Mule (does not breed): 8 meat + 4 fat
Horse: 8 meat + 5 fat
Cow: 9 meat + 6 fat

And for fun, my recommendation:
Elephant: 16 meat + 10 fat

On the wiki, it says that each dwarf eats around 8 units of meat annually, which means you would need 8 animals for said dwarf (Unless some animals produce more meat than others).

Where is that? I haven't seen anything on eating amounts. Are there notes on drinking amounts as well?

[woose1]

Ok 2 things:
Cow farts and horse bollocks SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTED and I will fight for their rights to appear in ACII games
I do not remember what page I saw that on the wiki, cant find it again. However, it is known that a healthy dwarf will drink 16 units annually which is equall to 3 and 1/5th of a barrel. (although they can survive on less)
3rd thing (MUHAHAHAHHA): It seems taht 1 cow can sustain a dwarf and then some, so I would recommend starting out with more than 10 cows because 5 of those cows will give birth and then you would only have a production of 5 cows per year. I would recommend having some sort of seperation method were you have "Breeding Cows" and "Meatbucket Cows"
considering that 1 cow costs 161, this would be a very difficult challenge.

[woose1]

Update: Im not sure if a hungry or thristy dwarf eats or drinks more.

Update Update: Turns out they do;well at least for drinking they do. I decided to test it:

Code: [Select]

BT:)T
B=Barrel T=Door :)=DwarfAfter a tortuous period without alchohol (he was dehydrated) I opened the door and he drank 1 unit of beer/rum stuff.

Conclusion:Dwarves do not drink more if they are very thristy.

[JoshuaFH]

A pasture wouldn't be hard to protect, just build a wall around it!

also guys, i'm only talking about food source, not drinking source, so don't worry about booze.

if the numbers for how much a dwarf eats is correct, then the required number of animals probably wouldn't be that large. if one were to go outta their way to tame enough elephants, then the requisite number of animals would be even lower!

1 or 2 full-time butchers wouldn't have a problem mincing through them, and full-time haulers w/ good stockpiles wouldn't have a problem sorting it all out.

the one important thing i'm not sure of is how animals breed. do the animals make pairs, as in one male and one female? or if their were 10 females and 1 male, would the 1 male impregnate all the females?

if a large scale pasture worked, it would not only supply a fort with all the meat it would need, but also with all the bones, leather, and fat it would ever need.

[Thuellai]

Yeah - you only get one skin per animal, though, so if leather is a concern, you'd want a dog pasture, or something else fast-breeding.

[Fossaman]

Animals don't pair off. One male can impregnate all of your female animals.

Musk-ox and camels give comparable yields to cows, so you might consider using some of them, too.

[woose1]

When you start out with animals, you get 50/50 male and female. also, when they breed they have a 50/50 chance of making either boy or girl.

[JoshuaFH]

then its just a matter of keeping all the females and butchering all but 1 or 2 of the males for food.

[Thuellai]

Yeah, but you only need one adult male per species of animal in your pasture - females are your breeding control, because as long as one male is alive, they'll all breed.  So you could just slaughter all the males but one or two (in case one dies) and leave the females alive to keep up a constant increase in population numbers.

EDIT:  Ack, ninja'd.

[woose1]

you should make a fortress made out of cow soap for them 2. 

[numerobis]

I've successfully fed large fortresses off a room underground, with chains for about a dozen mating pairs of large pack animals (cows, muskoxen, or two-humped camels all give 15 or more food per animal).  Chained, they don't pathfind very much.  Make sure to dump all the calves into a cage in the middle of the room, and only take them out of the cage when they grow to maturity, butchering to make room (it's inhumane, but that's fine since it's dwarves doing all the dirty work).  Butcher from the top on the animals page, so you don't lose any tame animals to old age.  I had the impression animals *did* pair off, but I could easily be wrong; so, we'll say it's superstition that I keep a balance between M and F adult animals.

You should still probably grow some crops for booze, and cook the excess seeds.