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[blah_1123]

all the animals in my fortress are starving... there is food available and i dont remember animals being able to starve in any older versions of the game.... help me? D:

[EmperorJon]

You need to assign a pasture area, with grass or fungus, for them to eat. Chances are it's too late already, if they're starving they'll probably die before they can eat enough.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Build a pasture zone and put the hungry animals in it. Grazers (cows, horses, and similar) need to eat now and they will eat grass in a pasture zone.

EDIT: Ninja

Even if it's too late for your current animals there's no harm in setting up a pasture for future animals to use.

[blah_1123]

is it only farm-type animals that i need to place in a pasture zone or do i have to place all animals in them?

[Haruspex_Pariah]

I think it's horses, pigs, sheep, camels, cows, reindeer, any animal that produces milk. The rest such as birds, cats, dogs, can be left on their own. You can put them in the pasture if you want, to keep them out of the way for example.

[blah_1123]

thanks alot for the help, but one last thing. one of my dwarves have a pet lamb... you cant place pets in pasture however, it is starving. what do i do?

[blah_1123]

oh.. nevermind its not sarving anymore :S once again thanks for the help!

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Ah, grazing pets can be difficult. If it happens again, get the owner to hang around in a grassy area. The pet should stop to eat once in a while. If the owner is a miner who works long hours deep underground that could be a problem.

[sambojin]

How could it possibly be a problem for a miner to be dragging a large, annoyed, randomly biting and kicking animal with him as he enters the caverns?

Assuming the animal will attack anything in range, and not just the dwarf in question, it might be a good strategy. Wardogs are pretty lackluster in my opinion, horses and donkeys should do a bit better at stomping things to death. You just have to balance the bad moods vs likely-hood of actual starvation. Close is good, death from starvation isn't.

Oh no! We may have just found one more new way to be an evil, sadistic little bastard in DF. I love this game......... 

[greycat]

Any animal that's marked as a grazer in the raws will need to eat grass/fungus periodically to live.  That includes elephants, giraffes, etc.  If you don't have a pasture zone yet, or don't want to spare the labor to drag animals to a pasture, you can set up a meeting zone on some grass, and the animals will go there by themselves.  That'll buy you some time to get set up.

[Rude]

Assuming the animal will attack anything in range, and not just the dwarf in question, it might be a good strategy. Wardogs are pretty lackluster in my opinion, horses and donkeys should do a bit better at stomping things to death.

this made me think of this http://trigar.com/coolstuff/donkey_lion/donkey_vs_mountain_lion.htm

[Bouchart]

Cows, water buffaloes, yaks and similar huge animals need huge pastures because they eat so much.  For those pets you can buy off of merchants, you might just want to butcher them if you are having trouble keeping them fed.

[sdrawkcabcM tsirU]

Assuming the animal will attack anything in range, and not just the dwarf in question, it might be a good strategy. Wardogs are pretty lackluster in my opinion, horses and donkeys should do a bit better at stomping things to death.

this made me think of this http://trigar.com/coolstuff/donkey_lion/donkey_vs_mountain_lion.htm

Wow... that mule must be a grandmaster wrestler, to throw that mountain lion around by it's tail so easily. That is kind of unbelievable, and extremely dwarfy.