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[Lex Talionias]

i am breeding cattle for the general purpose of food. but how do i control them? i need them to not walk through the middle of my bloody city all the time and to stay in a set area. i tried pits but they just get out again or i cant get to them for milking. even doors don't work as they just all path to the door and wait for someone to open it. dose anyone have any options?

[cerapa]

Chain them up, works like a charm.

[Fellhuhn]

Make the pit twenty z-levels deep. Won't walk out from there. My favorite solution.

[Larry421]

Place some chains (or ropes) all around the farmer's workshop you use for milking. Assign the livestock that you want breeding to those chains. Shove everything else in a cage, also next to the workshop. The milker will remove animals from a cage, but a hauler will try to return them straight away. This leads to animal tug-of-war if the cage is too far away from the workshop.

[Lex Talionias]

i heard that animals don't breed in cages though, so i have to use ropes/chains?

[Fellhuhn]

They don't breed but they deliver if they are already pregnant when caged. Like lady dwarves do while swinging an axe into a troll's head...

[Sphalerite]

My strategy for running a meat and dairy industry:

Make a room somewhat isolated from the rest of your fortress, connected by a corridor with a few doors that are set to be pet-impassible but usable by dwarves.  In this room build a cage, a few chains, and a farmer's workshop.  The farmer's workshop should be as close as possible to the cage.  Optionally, build a butcher's workshop, tannery, kitchen, and stockpiles for meat, milk, cheese, corpses, bones, raw and tanned hides, and other meat and dairy byproducts nearby.  Also, optionally place a furniture stockpile set to accept only buckets next to the farmer's workshop.

Assign all your female livestock to the cage.  Take a look at your male animals.  Assign the best (most muscle, largest size) of each species to one of the chains next to the cage.  Butcher the rest.

Set the farmer's workshop to repeat milking jobs.  Your milker will go and get an animal out of the cage and take it to be milked.  While it is out of the cage, it may become pregnant due to the male animal.  After being milked, it will be let loose, but the pet-impassible doors will stop it from getting into the main fortress, and eventually a dwarf will come along and re-cage it.

Animals which become pregnant while uncaged will give birth in the cage.  Every time you get a birth notification, check the gender of the offspring.  If it is female, assign it to the cage.  If it is male, assign it to a chain, then examine it for size and muscle quantity.  Inferior animals get butchered, superior ones replace the current breeding stud.  This method is easiest with cows, where you can see the gender of the animal from the name.  Other animals - donkeys, horses, camels - make it harder to tell what gender the offspring is.  You can add gender-specific tags to the raw files to fix this, but I only bother with cows.

You will want to have a second farmer's workshop in your main fortress running frequent cheese-making jobs, to turn all that milk into lovely cheese, and then optionally a kitchen making cheese and meat roasts.

[Hans Lemurson]

Having the females get pregnant on their trips out of the cages, but still stay in the cages most of the time?  Nice.  Hadn't thought of that.

Also, are you sure that breeding actually works in DF?

[Sphalerite]

Also, are you sure that breeding actually works in DF?

No.  It's supposed to, and I manage my livestock with the assumption that it does, but I have not yet sat down and made charts and tables of parents and offspring to determine what if any actual genetics are implemented.  It might just be completely random for all I know.

[qoonpooka]

Also, are you sure that breeding actually works in DF?

No.  It's supposed to, and I manage my livestock with the assumption that it does, but I have not yet sat down and made charts and tables of parents and offspring to determine what if any actual genetics are implemented.  It might just be completely random for all I know.

I've found that acting in accordance with features that should be working sets you up for the best outcome in the long run when the bugs get squashed and suddenly these things come online.  Even if they're not, you're clearly fine now and could only get better.

[Lex Talionias]

My strategy for running a meat and dairy industry:

Make a room somewhat isolated from the rest of your fortress, connected by a corridor with a few doors that are set to be pet-impassible but usable by dwarves.  In this room build a cage, a few chains, and a farmer's workshop.  The farmer's workshop should be as close as possible to the cage.  Optionally, build a butcher's workshop, tannery, kitchen, and stockpiles for meat, milk, cheese, corpses, bones, raw and tanned hides, and other meat and dairy byproducts nearby.  Also, optionally place a furniture stockpile set to accept only buckets next to the farmer's workshop.

Assign all your female livestock to the cage.  Take a look at your male animals.  Assign the best (most muscle, largest size) of each species to one of the chains next to the cage.  Butcher the rest.

Set the farmer's workshop to repeat milking jobs.  Your milker will go and get an animal out of the cage and take it to be milked.  While it is out of the cage, it may become pregnant due to the male animal.  After being milked, it will be let loose, but the pet-impassible doors will stop it from getting into the main fortress, and eventually a dwarf will come along and re-cage it.

Animals which become pregnant while uncaged will give birth in the cage.  Every time you get a birth notification, check the gender of the offspring.  If it is female, assign it to the cage.  If it is male, assign it to a chain, then examine it for size and muscle quantity.  Inferior animals get butchered, superior ones replace the current breeding stud.  This method is easiest with cows, where you can see the gender of the animal from the name.  Other animals - donkeys, horses, camels - make it harder to tell what gender the offspring is.  You can add gender-specific tags to the raw files to fix this, but I only bother with cows.

You will want to have a second farmer's workshop in your main fortress running frequent cheese-making jobs, to turn all that milk into lovely cheese, and then optionally a kitchen making cheese and meat roasts.

dam, that is all i need. thx. will use that set up.

[Nameless Archon]

(snip, how to run an effective dairy industry)

This is the method I use when I want to bother with dairy products. It works very well. If you feel you need a higher rate of pregnancies, build two cages - one on each side of the room, and occasionally swap all female animals to the other cage. The delay between uncaging and re-caging will often accomplish the same thing as the milking, but can be done even when there's nothing to be milked.

[mrbaggins]

Epic dairy story!

Needs to be put in the wiki as the best way to manage livestock

How many doors do you usually use for the airlock? Three?

[dwarfhoplite]

how i control my livestock is: i dont control it. it all explodes in my hands every time

[Maklak]

How about building a farmers workshop in the middle of dining room set as meeting zone, and milking random animals that wander there? Seems like a less hassle. Would having the same dwarf as milker and cheese maker, and one farmers workshop with both milking and cheese making set on repeat work?

Personally I don't bother much with food industry. My food supplies seem to explode anyway from farms and random animals that walk into my cage traps. Oh, and I use wooden barrels, and that makes selling prepared meals to caravans more difficult. Besides prepared food prices inflate the fort value too much, and I get more immigrants than I know what to do with, lots of annoying goblins, and less FPS. I could use any amount of lether, tough. By my calculations I want at least 20 pieces per every dwarf in my military, and all that capes will tear apart after some time anyway, so I need replacements too. Do I only get at most one leather per animal? I think somene mentioned, that dropping large animals from a tower has a chance of producing raw hides from more than one piece of exploded animal.