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[bucket]

I usually embark with three animals:
Female hunting dog (to accompany my hunter/fisherdwarf)
Male war dog (for my woodcutter, who moonlights as an axedwarf if something comes up)
Female cat (for vermin, and eventual inexhaustible supply of kitten steaks)

What about YOU?

[Girlinhat]

Male dog and female dog.  Train them on site, it costs half as much embark points, and costs you one piece of lumber/stone and a few seconds to train it.  I also modded in a "watcher" creature that's essentially an eye and digestive track, made to spot ambushes and thieves, but get slaughtered if they get too close to a hard substance.  .19 I'm taking beacocks and sheep/goats.

[agatharchides]

On my only serious .19 embark I took goats, rabbits and ducks. Though rabbits breed like crazy.  I may go for sheep next time.

[EmperorJon]

On my most recent .19, chickens. Tons of them. I'll never need food again. Which is quite sad. After taming countless turkeys and getting my hand on a breeding pair of geese I now have several dozen geese, turkey, chicken and duck eggs around, plus about 4 turkeys, 3 ducks, 3 geese, and about 20 hens. I've not even killed any of them or anything. In fact the only 2 casualties have been the horse and water buffalo which refused to eat enough grass and died.

[Psieye]

You know, that is a point - it's weird that one hen can produce more food (each season, or is it month?) just by sitting on a nest box than if you butchered her and used her whole body for food. They only cost 6 points to embark with too.

[Uristocrat]

.19 I'm taking beacocks and sheep/goats.

Was that a typo of peacocks, or did you mod in something crazy hybrid bee-creature?   

[Girlinhat]

that was peacock, but now that you mention it...

[squeakyReaper]

that was peacock, but now that you mention it...

My first modding project shall be an enormous grazing bird that lays eggs, can be butchered for fourteen horns, and has a hive that produces strawberry mead and fresh soap from its walls.

...

Or not, but it'd be fun.

[ral]

Normally just male and female untrained dogs. Then I chain them up in the entrance hall to stop thieves. After that I rely on migrants and caravans to bring cats and anything else.

Haven't messed with eggs, except for a brief experiment with viscous wild ducks. Seems like the standard methods of food production are still easy enough that I have plenty of food if I head for those first. Overall I don't care much about animals on embark. They don't seem that important.

[Ferrus]

I like dangerous sites, so I usually take a male and female wardog to help out my one swordsdwarf when needed.

[AngelaChristine]

1 male dog, 6 female dogs.  Everyone gets the animal training labor enabled, and the very first thing they do is build 7 kennels, and each train 1 guardian wardog who will then follow them around for the rest of their lives, but not have the downsides of pets.  That usually takes 2-3 game days, but makes it much less likely that one of my initial 7 dwarfs will bite it early in the game.

This last time I took 5 hens, 1 rooster, 2 ewes and a ram too.  So many eggs. 

[Korva]

I embark with two female dogs and a male. They are trained on-site as war dogs by my militia-dwarf, and two get chained up by the entrance while the last one continues to tag along after its trainer. For the longest time, I used to bring a female cat as well, but vermin aren't such a big nuisance IMO so I now save the points for something else and rely on migrants and traders to bring me a kitty or three.

That's in 31.18 and previous.

In 31.19, it'll be a really tough choice with all the interesting new beasties. A breeding pair of chickens (or ducks, or geese, or ...) is a must. I'd like to bring a wool-producer too but I don't expect I'll have enough points left over.

[UberNube]

... I'd like to bring a wool-producer too but I don't expect I'll have enough points left over.

Meh, just wait till your first goblin ambush and have some cage traps ready. Plenty of goblin wool for everyone!

[bobhayes]

On .18 I embark with a male cat to prevent early vermin infestations and one or two female meat animals - cow, or cow + donkey.

[Jake]

Two hunting dogs, two war dogs and a tomcat. My woodcutter and fisherdwarf get a war dog each, since they spend most of their time a good distance from the fortress. The two hunting dogs, as you might imagine, go to my hunter. They seldom get any actual kills since .31; their main purpose is to distract an adversary for long enough to gain a decent head-start, and maybe take down the odd snatcher.