Sorry to double-post, but I guess no one else has had any little questions for a few days.
I'd like to try to rely minimally on farming by making food production based on animals. In this there are a few problems, though.
Firstly, having huge herds of stray watevers bogs the FPS down immensely. If I want to do this, I'll need to pit them somewhere that prevents pathing. I know animals will still try to path through forbidden doors, but will they path through closed flood gates? I hear that closed bridges will break pathing, but that being near a meeting area can mean that they'll still try and path there regardless?
Secondly is pet issues. If I keep the livestock locked in a remote part of the fortress, will I still have to worry about dwarves other than the butcher adopting them? Or do they just sense that the animal is there and claim it like with spore breeding?
Lastly is if there are pets, can they be pitted like other animals? And if they can, what would be the simplest killing machine for them? I was thinking installing an upright spike in a one-tile sized animal containment chamber and pulling the lever until the screaming stops. Will upright spikes get stuck in cows? Drowning chambers seem overly complicated for this and drop pads require the dwarves to walk down ten Z levels to retrieve the meat (or up ten levels to drop them). Any other fun slaughter ideas?