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[dirty foot]

Any kind of bird, really.

True livestock are far more inefficient in this game than they are in real life, which is, personally, a major surprise.

[Korva]

Sheep plus blue peafowl provide everything with the least hassle so I'm fond of that combination. In fact my current fort has a bit of a sheepsplosion because I bought a couple and then let them breed out of control for 5-6 years. Until mowing grass and haymaking or grain-feeding is implemented, I won't bother with anything bigger than sheep anymore.

[Drawde]

Sheep supply wool and goats supply milk.  No idea if you can milk sheep though.

I believe you can both milk and sheer llama and maybe alpaca, but I have no idea how much they eat.

[Korva]

Sheep give milk too. Llamas and alpacas are the other two allrounders but they do eat more.

[Necro910]

Chickens and turkeys are good. I suggest turkeys, they give a lot of meat and eggs. They don't live as long though, so catch 'em quick!

[DaJonkel]

I use turkeys and water buffalo's.    I know buffalo's aren't the most efficient of foods, but I like how their descriptions make you believe you actually got something nice going on.  "A large mammalian herbivore. It is powerfully built and has long curved horns. He is gigantic and quite fat.  His fair is ash grey, his skin is dark tan. His eyes are black"

[Lytha]

I use a pair of blue peafowls, a pair of alpacas, a bunch of cats, and I modded those pesky unicorns to be [PET] and [TRAINABLE]. However, they do graze like lunatics, so I am hoping now for a male grizzly bear from the elves. They already provided me with a female one.

[acer_palmatum]

Searching through the raws, those with the [PET] tag already, but not [GRAZER], other than Dogs, are Grizzly Bears, Black Bears and Tigermen. I don't think dwarves will eat a tigerman, but bear farming would have potential (plus Grizzlies can be trained). Embark in a temperate area or try your luck with the elves.

Aye I stock up on black bears and grizzlies before I declare war on the elves. Not only do they require 0 grazing but they also have the most valuable pelts of any domestic livestock.

[Renzuko]

i've been working on the whole, throw 2 peacock's in a room with multiple nest boxes and wait...they take a year to go from egg to full grown, and they lay about 6-8 per batch, lock the room and you can get quite a few

something im not sure about though...

once you do get 50 fowl, can they still lay egg's that we can just eat?

[ral]

Optimal livestock is ZERO livestock. Just slaughter everything that the immigrants bring in. Kill kill kill!!!! (then cook well)

It's too difficult to keep the eggs under control. Every time I mess with eggs I get 10x what I need.

[Renzuko]

use peacocks? they only lay between 6-8 egg at a time

[Ubiq]

Change Cave Crocodiles to [PET] and add [TRAINABLE]. Almost five or six times the meat of a turkey, over twice the meat of a cow, doesn't graze, has massive egg clutches, and can rip the face off a goblin with relative ease.

[Ganondwarf]

Okay I know this isn't helping anyone except me but...
Cats don't provide meat when butchered? What? I always start with 3 females and a male for that sole purpose.
Although maybe I should be trying something different...

[THEFEZ]

Optimal livestock is ZERO livestock. Just slaughter everything that the immigrants bring in. Kill kill kill!!!! (then cook well)

It's too difficult to keep the eggs under control. Every time I mess with eggs I get 10x what I need.

Although only on my 4th fort, I'm with you.  My current fort's home civ only has cows/donkeys/horses for livestock, and even if I let them roam free outside, they die in a season or two from starvation.  I just butcher any adult non-dog without a name immediately.

[Mimidormi]

From what i have observed, a butcher's skill doesn't affect only the speed, but the amount of meat obtained from the corpses also, especially from small animals. I've noticed substantial difference even with only a proficient butcher (obtained 7 meat, 6 bones, skull, fat, and the usual innards from a goose).

On topic, the best livestock depends on what are you looking for, and on the kind of map you're playing. The best all-rounder is probably the sheep (needs a reasonable amount of grass and gives horns/hooves/milk/wool), the cheapest source of food is eggs from the poultry (probably turkeys being the best bet with an inexperienced butcher).

Theoretically, the best meat-to-eaten-grass ratio among the domestic animals belongs to the water buffalos, but they're also the worst domestic grazer to feed, so they get trumped by exotic, non-grazers, war-trainables grizzlies and giant eagles, or even dogs.