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[Pilsu]

-A large refuse pile from all those horse bollocks

Thanks, those chunks will never be the same


How does butchering calves affect the meat yield?

[pushy]

How does butchering calves affect the meat yield?

Infants do not provide as much meat or bones (or chunks, though that doesn't matter) as their adult counterparts...around 2/3 of what the adult gives. Some specifics for domestic animals:
Cat: 3 chunks, 3 meat, 3 bones, fat, skull, skin
Kitten: 2 chunks, 2 meat, 2 bones, fat, skull, skin
Dog: 5 chunks, 5 meat, 5 bones, fat, skull, skin
Puppy: 3 chunks, 3 meat, 3 bones, fat, skull, skin
Horse: 9 chunks, 9 meat, 9 bones, 5 fat, skull, skin
Horse foal: 6 chunks, 6 meat, 6 bones, 5 fat, skull, skin
Cow: 9 chunks, 9 meat, 9 bones, 6 fat, skull, skin
Cow calf: 6 chunks, 6 meat, 6 bones, 6 fat, skull, skin
Donkey: 7 chunks, 7 meat, 7 bones, 4 fat, skull, skin
Donkey foal: 4 chunks, 4 meat, 4 bones, 4 fat, skull, skin

[JoshuaFH]

what about baby elephants?

[Kate Wissen]

It looks like baby elephants would give 10 meat (if my assumptions of the math are correct.)

[Narmio]

Id just like to nitpick for a moment... 

"Bollocks" refers to testicles, rather than droppings.  Appropriate slang for dung includes "Manure", "Horse patties" or my favourite, "Horse apples".

...But seriously, I've run a fort pretty heavily off meat, I went for about 12 females and 3 males from each species, and killed all other adults.  I also imported meat and fish from the humans and dwarves, and had a bunch of fisherdwarves.  You will, of course, need farms for booze.

[woose1]

I.... knew that....
I mean, do dwarves EAT that stuff?

[MuonDecay]

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.

Hence why deer hunters are made to shoot the males, for example.

[Jotwebe]

I use the following setup for breeding animals:

One or two males of each kind are made available as pets, or chained somewhere, as studs.

Females get a chain/rope each.

All young get thrown into a cage until they grow up; then I look at the z-animals submenu and set the males to slaughter (since the puppy-cage is conveniently close to a butcher-tanner-kitchen assembly-, or rather dissembly-, line, the hauling doesn't take that much time).

The fresh adult females then get assigned to chains - again close to the puppy-cage, for when they spawn in their turn.

No animals clogging up the dining hall or getting killed by goblin ambushes.

For starters, I think three of a kind is a nice number, since it  gives you one stud and two females - horses or donkeys seem to have good value-for-meat...

[Abyss]

Hence why deer hunters are made to shoot the males, for example.

Actually, at least where I am, you are legally only allowed to take one antlered deer. All the others have to be antlerless, which generally means female.

Also, what's with all of this talk about about large pastures and stuff? Toss every animal into a 1x1 room, with a series of pet-unpassable doors into and out of that room. No pathfinding, as they can't move anywhere, and no hassle of chains or cages (plus they can still breed, whereas in cages pregnant females will give birth but will not get impregnated.)

[pushy]

what about baby elephants?

Untested, but probably 10, as has already been stated....and you wouldn't really want to wait for them to grow into adults for the extra meat anyway - many animals only take a year to grow into adults, but elephants take a full decade.

[Ezuku]

While I'm sure you could actually survive on meat alone, the micro required to constantly designate for slaughter would make you pull your hair out.

[slink]

Like the one poster above, my herds are 3 males to 12 females.  I used to try to keep twice that but I stopped getting young ones at some point, probably due to exceeding some limit on number of animals.  I take muskoxen on embark, because one can easily buy horses, cows, and donkeys from caravans.  Camels cost too much to take on embark, but if I can, I collect some because I like to have all six common meats (we don't eat cat or dog in my fortresses).

When I lived in a state where I hunted deer, one could take one antlered deer or one antlerless deer (doe or yearling buck), but not both.  There were far fewer antlerless licenses granted every year than antlered, and the number was based on required reduction of the herd.  One buck can service as many does as he can talk into it, so to speak, and defend from the other bucks.

Oddly enough, my current fortress has NO BOOZE.     Well, mostly no booze.  They have some right now because a caravan just arrived.  I got into a barrel shortage early on and I am having a hard time hammering my way out of it.  For instance, I just ordered the production of 90 barrels.  There are only 19 more to be made from that order, yet there is exactly one empty barrel in my barrel stockpile at this very moment.  I haven't been able to make any Dwarven Syrup, either, because of the shortage.  My Dwarves have been drinking from a very nice well, the cistern for which I refill every spring when the brook thaws.

So, although they will not be estatic all the time, they can survive without booze.  I have a population of 218 right now, btw.  I'm hoping maybe this winter we can finally MAKE BOOZE.   

[Plank of Wood]

It's too bad that none of my dwarves actualy EAT my Muskox Roasts (Makes of Finely minced muskox meat, superioly mince muskox meat, finely minced muskox tallow and finely minced muskox meat), as the trade resource is far to valuble for consumption.

Any dwarf that disagrees with this policy will be told to shut up and told to keep eating their Plump helmets.

[neue]

a small farm of about 8 cows feeds my fortress
I slaughter all their babies before they grow up, we have hundreds of meat chunks

[MuonDecay]

While I'm sure you could actually survive on meat alone, the micro required to constantly designate for slaughter would make you pull your hair out.

You could instead work out a way to segment off part of your pasture and kill everything inside. Since dwarves automatically butcher dead animals, this would pass the burden onto them.

Perhaps splitting your populations into separate drowning chambers fed by pitting newborn animals into them and waiting for them to grow up.