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[NegaDwarf]

One of the main problems I seem to have when I come to a Fortress at the moment is I don't seem to have a good system when it comes to slaughtering time.

Did you know there is a max number of Dogs you can have? Seriously. Eventually all the dogs grow up and no more puppies are born no matter what you do. Not sure how many, but well, when you have that many dogs, all you can do is give some Animal Trainer a few skills levels and then set all the dogs in a cage outside and wait for the next siege to pull the level that opens the cage...

I'm just wondering what a good rule of thumb might be when it comes to animal population. 10 war dogs and slaughter all the rest until you need more? Its something of an issue for me.

Of course. I just cage all my kittens and let them sit there until I run out of 'Mobile Ambush Detectors' then I free a few to bring the population back up.

[irdsm]

I generally wait until some stupid management idea leaves me without food.

"Okay, we have 600 drink, 200 prepared food and 200 plants. Lets let the farms fallow, huh?" "Oh crap non of those plants are eatable raw or cookable and we are out of prepared meals!"

Anyways, my stupid mistakes aside, I usually just let everything breed and put the babies into a cage until they die or I remember to let them out and train them if they are dogs (in my current game I'm using the civ forge mod so I've got war cave crabs and war giant beetles. I've bought wolves from the high elves and alligators and unicorns, all war trainable. Only the wolves have bred so far)

[NegaDwarf]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with the same problem.

[Albedo]

When you need the meat, when you need the bones, when you need the skins.

Except for prepared meals, you aren't raising animals for the "created wealth", and even then there are (depending on your map) better ways.

If you don't need any of these, then you need to either start killing all the females and reducing your breeding program, or learn to live with it.

[Heliman]

I have a golden rule that prevents screw ups when the food fairy comes calling. I keep a 1k reserve supply of food and drink at all times, to ensure happy dwarves.

[zwei]

Did you know there is a max number of Dogs you can have? Seriously. Eventually all the dogs grow up and no more puppies are born no matter what you do. Not sure how many, but well, when you have that many dogs, all you can do is give some Animal Trainer a few skills levels and then set all the dogs in a cage outside and wait for the next siege to pull the level that opens the cage...

Yep, found out the hard way when trying to run beastmaster fortress where you want each dwarf to have at least 5 war dogs as bodyguards ... ended up only giving them to dwarves susceptible to being ambushed (woordcutters & hunters & firshers) and mothers with children.

Real shame, my machine could handle 1000 dogs, and dorfs themselves could handle it as well, i am sure.

[zooeyglass]

i certainly think it is to do with how much your industries related to slaughtering are set up/ready. i only really slaughter when i am also ready to use the bones/skull, tan the hide and render the fat/use the meat in a meal. if i am, i slaughter away merrily. if not, i cage like a madman.

[Ashery]

I tend to butcher all males (With the exception of dogs and cats...all dogs are trained into war dogs and all cats get butchered) and only butcher females when I'm low on bones or food (The latter hasn't happened yet as the vast majority of crops rot in the fields).

Mind, I run bone bolt production 24/7, so I burn through mass amounts of bones. The meat and tallow end up making up a significant part of my fort's diet as well...I could probably remove my farms entirely and still feed the fort (Turtles and foraged food make up a sizable chunk as well).

Sitting on 64 war dogs and no puppies at the moment, but I have no idea about the actual cap (Almost all the dogs are caged, a few chained and a couple still follow my dungeon master around, so there being *no* puppies at all is a bit surprising). Only reason the dogs are caged is because they followed the dungeon master around constantly. A mild annoyance in and of itself, but when you have 20+ dogs following the dungeon master into the already crammed obsidian farm as he goes to smelt some metal...yea...Had to either cage'em or watch several dogs light on fire during a farm refill.

[Haedrian]

I keep a single male, and all the females.

As soon as a male is born, I butcher him. If you can buy certain animals from the elves , you might have lots of quick reproducing animals - groundhogs are one of them if I remember well.

That said, I really use animal products, so I slaughter as much as I can afford.

[Jim Groovester]

Having an effective animal breeding program is helpful if you want to train marksdwarves or you want build a fortress made of soap or you want to line the road to your fortress with skulls.

I'd recommend setting aside about ten females and one or two males for breeding purposes, and then butchering the young as soon as they reach adulthood for the additional meat and bones. Horses and muskox will probably be your most productive products, but everything gives meat, bones, and fat.

I've never run an effective slaughtering industry because I've never been pressed for food, and my goblin fortress has plenty of meat from the horses that the elves, humans, and dwarves ride in on.

[Skorpion]

- When you need the bone, meat, leather, skulls, fat, or hauling tasks.

- When you start lagging.

- When a cat is born.

[buzz killington]

I have good sized herds of horses, donkeys, cows, and muskoxes.  I find slaughtering time is much easier if I have 2 butchers committed to it and 5 or 6 butcher shops.  Micromanaging them for a bit keeps one slaughterhouse from filling up with rotten chunks.

[Haven]

Whenever possible.

[yggiz]

I slaughter every animal, except for dogs, one livestock species, and any exotic animals (I slaughter groundhogs and monkeys as an exception, I don't need those multiplying).

I prefer to embark with two-humped camels as a source of bones[10], or muskoxen, because I imagine the oxen smell worse than their owners. Pet horses and donkeys and things I try to cull, too. Either by killing the owner first, or selective spikes of the pet itself.

I do make soap, but only export it so far. Why build with camel tallow soap when I can hold out for the elves to bring me grizzlies. Grizzly bear soap road would be much more awesome than camel soap!

Massive slaughtering gives me thousands of prepared meals stockpiled and more bone bolts than I could ever wish for. And in a couple of years, the animal populations are exploding again.

[Jude]

I'd like to know how animal breeding works...can one male really effectively inseminate the fort's whole female population in a species, or would it be more conducive to fast breeding to keep several males?