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[theMij]

For the most part I stick to migrant/caravan animals for the real meat and leather, but I do like having a small population of cows.  Feeding them is becoming an issue, however.  Most of the food is taken care of by duck eggs.  I'm considering switching to cavies due to a thread I just read talking about them as a food source, although I was under the impression that they didn't give meat when butchered.  Anyway, plants are used entirely for brewing/bag-making purposes.

What's your favorite tasty animal buddy?

[Cydonian Monk]

Baaaaaaaaa.

Lamp chops.  And sheep seem to give more wool than alpacas, etc.

I used to prefer cattle, back when you could chain them 16 to a room around a milking/cheesing workshop.  Sheep just seem more economical, though.  Food, clothing, and they eat less than cows.

Now if you could eat honeybees......  That might change some things.

[Buttery_Mess]

With a little care and attention, bird populations can be made to multiply enormously. They lay way too many eggs imo atm. Every animal leaves a hide which in turn becomes a leather, which I find is more useful than the meat, especially with the infinite eggs you'll have to eat. I could feed my whole fortress easily with about a handful of farm plots and some ducks.

[PopeRichardCorey]

Yeah, currently sheep are my favorite.  Get a single fat ram and a bunch of ewes; cull most of the babies for meat, let some of the ewes grow up for more wool and milk.

With the Grazing, the biggest problem is sieges.  You can't just keep animals inside all the time unless you've got grass inside.  So in my (repeatedly failed) efforts to start a sheep ranch, I've been embarking on soil.  My sheep pasture is sooooo huge.

[Unfrozen Caveman]

Forgotten Beasts

In my current .19 fort, I have lots of grazing animals and lots of grass, but I haven't bothered to set up any pastures and the cows are alive and well, crowding the fancy dining rooms where dwarves chow down on their kin.  None have died or shown any other signs of hunger. 

Does that sound right?

[forsaken1111]

Goats.

They provide milk and don't eat too much so pastures can be smaller.

[PopeRichardCorey]

Forgotten Beasts

In my current .19 fort, I have lots of grazing animals and lots of grass, but I haven't bothered to set up any pastures and the cows are alive and well, crowding the fancy dining rooms where dwarves chow down on their kin.  None have died or shown any other signs of hunger. 

Does that sound right?

That doesn't sound right...  Are the cows following people outside ever?  or kicking in the heads of dwarves?

[Korva]

Before this version, I didn't really have a favourite. Now, I too cast for vote for sheep. Milk and meat and wool, what more can you ask for? Llamas come in second, chickens third partly for the initial hilarity of seeing a score of chicks hatch and run around like maniacs, then waste no time fighting each other when I assigned them to a pasture. I agree that clutch sizes are definitely somewhat out of whack even though eggs do take quite some time to hatch.

[theMij]

I'm running with the Fortress Defense Mod at the moment, so I mainly keep hunkered down underground (I'm also terrible with military stuff).  Sheep might be easier to deal with than cattle.  Also, I hadn't thought about wool at all.  How quick is it to harvest?  I didn't realize that birds gave leather, though, so I will definitely be looking into that.

On another note, what specifically determines how much meat/bones/leather a critter drops?  A cursory glance at the raws for a few critters hasn't illuminated the matter much for me, although I'll be the first to admit I'm not all that experienced in that area.

[FallingWhale]

Sheep and peacocks.

[PopeRichardCorey]

I haven't kept a close watch on it, but I think that on sheep, wool regenerates enough to be sheared again ABOUT every two seasons.  So it's not the absolute best, but it's a nice little bonus to keeping them around.

I think every critter drops a single leather, no matter what; FBs who have filled my food stockpiles beyond reason have left me with a single FB leather.  Meat is determined by the creature's size; there was a lot of research on that around the first editions of DF2010, but I can't find it anymore.  Gigantic animals give you more meat and maybe more bones, and Fat animals may produce more fat, but I'm not sure.

[theMij]

Hmm...  I might need to toss in some giant bird variation.  Battle ducks, perhaps.  I wonder if size has any impact on the weight or value of eggs.  Well, actually, it's unlikely now, but perhaps it will come into play in the future?

[gtmattz]

Dogs hands down, even moreso now with the addition of grazing on all the other animals.  All I have to make sure of is that they have a large enough area to hang out in, as if you stack them in too tight they start to fight all the time.  The make a great food source and have the added benefit of being war-trainable, and breed fairly fast.

[Sphalerite]

Currently enjoying my turkey egg farm, and all the food they produce every season.  I haven't tried hatching their numbers yet, and am not yet sure how to deal with the death by overcrowding issue yet.

Of course, what I'd really like to do is capture some sea serpents and see if a sea serpent egg farm can be built in .19

And a breeding pair of Rocs would be excellent, assuming such a thing is even possible.

[PopeRichardCorey]

Now I wish that there were shavable, milkable, egg-laying animals.  Platypus Wool Vest?  Platypus Cheese?  YUM!