1. Butcher Shop mayhem!
Making a butcher shop thus far has been a mess. I can't seem to get the butcher to separate the fresh meat from the corpses and make sure nothing rots. Basically, I need someone to hold my hand through what exact kind of stockpile to put next to the butcher shop for prepared meats, what kind of stockpile to put as my trash heap and what containers I need to keep the meat from going bad.
For a large meat processing operation (like for elephants) you will almost certainly need:
1. Multiple butchers.
2. Multiple butcher's shops.
3. A designated garbage ZONE (i->g)
4. A corpse stockpile for hunted corpses.
5. Some way to deal with skins (tanners or garbage dumping).
6. Enough haulers to haul the meat to a food (Meat) stockpile.
7. A Food (Meat) stockpile to haul the prepared meat to.
Create butcher shops. Make sure butchers are idle. Supply corpses. Wait. Prepared meats won't rot unless they're left in the butcher's shop. Make sure you have haulers to move them away. Skins must be tanned or disposed of, or they will rot. Several items (cartilage, nervous tissue) will rot but have no use. Dump these.
My most recent attempt at a butcher shop ended up with miasma all over the place because these guys can't tell where to put anything.
Use a garbage chute or doors to block the flow of miasma. Dump items until you have cleared all rotten items, and begin anew.
What parameters should I set for the stockpiles around the shop? What tasks should I be setting my butcher to do? How do I get him to collect fresh corpses reliably?
I think it's just "Corpses". Your butcher will need butchery. Your haulers will need refuse hauling (to dump things you designate) and/or food hauling (to move meat to stockpiles).
2. Stockpile! Why won't they put the right things on the correct stockpile?
For the most part, they do. Some items aren't stock-able, like wooden blocks.
Whenever I distinguish exacting standards for stockpiles the dorfs don't seem to want to put anything on them. For example: Furniture / Doors, Tables, Chairs / Wood. I'll set those parameters, or . . . at least I think I have. The shops just pile up with the goods and they aren't placed where they should. I've got a stockpile specifically set up to accept nothing but stone doors next to my mason, and yet they aren't hauling them aside to make way for more. Is there any way I could be screwing up the details of how to organize a specific-goods stockpile? Do I need to make sure I hit the forbid/permit commands in a certain way? Do I need to make sure I permit all qualities of goods?
Do you have enough haulers? Do they have the labor? Is a burrow interfering? Does your stockpile limit quality, stone types, or other criteria that might eliminate your doors?
Also, the corpses of animals dragged in by cats seem to pile up everywhere they shouldn't and, curiously, generate no miasma.
If vermin corpses generated miasma, no one would play DF for long.
And the dorfs will not haul them off to a corpse/refuse pile pile, even if commanded to dump them in a garbage dump zone.
Do you have dwarves set to ignore vermin corpses? Have you manually designated them for dumping? It's not automatic...
3. Go hunt, you layabout!
When I tell a dorf to hunt, he sits on his lazy ass and does not hunt. Do I need a ranged weapon for him? Can't he just go piledrive some marmots since everyone's starving?
If starvation is a problem, herbalism is your go-to "quickie" solution. Hunting requires the labor, a quiver, bolts and a ranged weapon. If you don't have those items, you won't have a hunt, and if your hunter isn't exceptionally lucky or reasonably skilled, you won't hunt meat for food quickly.
If you have the bows, bolts, and quivers, however, hunting can supply large amounts of food (multiple elephants per herd) if you have multiple hunters of decent skill. Be wary of overwhelming your butchers with corpses.