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[NecroRebel]

How do you get fuel for your furnace?  I have tons of wood and butinimous coal, but dont know how to use it for my furnace.

To turn wood into charcoal (fuel), you need to build a wood furnace and have a dwarf with the Wood Burner labor make charcoal at the wood furnace. One wood turns into one charcoal. This process takes no fuel to run.

To turn bituminous coal into coke (fuel), you need a smelter and have a dwarf with the Furnace Operator labor run the "make coke from bituminous coal" reaction. This turns 1 bituminous coal and turns it into 3 coke, but this process takes 1 fuel unless done at a magma smelter. As such, bituminous coal produces a net of 2 fuel per stone at non-magma smelters. Lignite is similar, but only returns 2 coke per reaction, thus only nets 1 fuel per stone.

2.  Why arent my dwarves putting bins in my supply zones and puttign stuff in them?  Either the bins just sit in the finished goods section, or they are in the pile of stuff, but nothing is in them.

There's 3 possibilities. First, you might be trying to bin things that can't be binned, like furniture. Second, you might just be being impatient; dwarves will put new items into a bin that is set for a stockpile, but won't move items that are already in a stockpile into a bin until they're otherwise idle. Third, you might have inadvertently set the minimum bins to your stockpiles to 0, which can be fixed, if true, by using the q-cursor over the stockpile.

[Nameless Archon]

Make sure hunters have a crossbow, quiver and bolts - they need all three to hunt. If you have bolts assigned, make sure they've picked up a crossbow and quiver to match. Quivers can be made from animal (like donkey) leather.

[CapitolLights]

ok, how do I get leather?

I remember something about selecting animals to be killed, but so far I've had issues with anyone dealing with aniamls (I just figured out how to work animal traps though)

Also, in game time has almost been 2 years, and no attacks of goblins or anything (except for annoying goblin robbers, and stupid monkeys...)

[NecroRebel]

ok, how do I get leather?

First, a butcher must slaughter or butcher an animal at a butcher's workshop; this will provide a skin. Then, a tanner will take the skin to a tanner's workshop and turn it into leather; this job is automatically queued once there is a skin close to a tanner's shop that isn't otherwise tasked.

To slaughter an animal, you enter the z screen, go to the Animals subscreen, find an animal you want to slaughter, and hit b. Alternatively, from the main screen scroll to the animal with the v-cursor, go to the p subscreen, and set them to be slaughtered there. Once you've done this, a slaughter animal job will automatically be queued at a butcher's workshop, and a dwarf with the drag the animal to the shop and slaughter it, causing it to instantly explode into its various meats, bones, organs, and other body parts.

To butcher an animal, first you must kill a non-sapient wild animal. Then, the carcass of that wild animal must be dragged to a refuse stockpile near a butcher's workshop, at which point a butcher job will automatically be queued at the butcher's shop. A butcher will come along and butcher the wild animal's carcass into its constituent parts. Unlike slaughtering an animal, butchering isn't instant. Also note that I use the term "wild animal" rather than just "animal" repeatedly; this is intentional and specific, as the bodies of dead stray animals cannot be butchered.

I remember something about selecting animals to be killed, but so far I've had issues with anyone dealing with aniamls (I just figured out how to work animal traps though)

Animal traps actually aren't related to leatherworking, as they cannot actually trap any animal that provides a skin. To capture wild animals alive, you need cage traps instead.

Also, in game time has almost been 2 years, and no attacks of goblins or anything (except for annoying goblin robbers, and stupid monkeys...)

Not unusual for someone starting out. Goblin ambushes will start appearing once you've got enough created wealth, exported wealth, or population, which you probably aren't experienced enough to develop quickly enough to have them showing up in the first couple years. If snatchers are coming, you'll get ambushed eventually.

[AdeleneDawner]

3.  I've assigned crossbows to people, and my hunters, but when ever my hunter hunts, it says "can not hunt, no ammunition."

How do I fixed this? I have plenty of bolts, and have 100 bolts assigned to each squad (and my hunters)

Is your hunter actually going out and shooting at things?

This sounds like a normal part of the process, especially with an inexperienced hunter: When your hunter goes out, he brings a quiver of bolts with him. If he uses all those bolts without killing anything, he has to cancel the hunting job to go back and pick up more bolts, at which point you'll get a message about it. The hunter will then go pick up more bolts and try again.

The message should be something like "Urist McHunter cancels Hunt: No ammunition". "Cancels" doesn't mean he can't do it at all; it means he took the hunting job (implying, for hunting, that he had everything he needed) and then had to abandon it. If there are no bolts at all, your hunter will just hang around your meeting area saying No Job, and you won't get any messages about it.

[CapitolLights]

ok.

ok, I've butchered some animals (like donkeys and bulls) but I havent gotten any skin from them...

[blue emu]

ok.

ok, I've butchered some animals (like donkeys and bulls) but I havent gotten any skin from them...

Should be labelled "Fresh Raw Hide". It goes to a Refuse stockpile.

[wuphonsreach]

ok.

ok, I've butchered some animals (like donkeys and bulls) but I havent gotten any skin from them...

Should be labelled "Fresh Raw Hide". It goes to a Refuse stockpile.

And if you have tanner shops and dwarves with the tanner job, they should be taking it straight from the butcher shop (unless you've mucked with orders) and turning it directly into leather.

[CapitolLights]

ok, I think I need a refuse pile.

Do only some animals give hide?  I can butcher a cow, but for now i only have butchered unicorns and horses.

[blue emu]

ok, I think I need a refuse pile.

Do only some animals give hide?  I can butcher a cow, but for now i only have butchered unicorns and horses.

Both Unicorns and Horses should give hides.

[Saiko Kila]

ok, I think I need a refuse pile.

Do only some animals give hide?  I can butcher a cow, but for now i only have butchered unicorns and horses.

I think inexperienced butcher retrieves less material. Dabbling one may give only a skull from a turkey, while the same turkey will yield bones, fat, meat, innards and a hide when butchered by more experienced artisan.

[wuphonsreach]

Yes, butcher is one of those jobs where you want a single dwarf to handle all of it due to getting better results from the activity.

(I don't think tanner matters as much, all my farmers are also tanners as a result so that hides don't rot in the butcher shop before being turned into leather.  Better tanners might do it faster.)

[AdeleneDawner]

ok, I think I need a refuse pile.

Do only some animals give hide?  I can butcher a cow, but for now i only have butchered unicorns and horses.

I think inexperienced butcher retrieves less material. Dabbling one may give only a skull from a turkey, while the same turkey will yield bones, fat, meat, innards and a hide when butchered by more experienced artisan.

This may have more to do with the age of the turkey than with the butcher. Turkeys are considered adults at 1 year old, but don't reach their full size until they're 2 years old, according to the raws, so a one-year-old turkey might not be over the minimum size for giving things other than a skull no matter who butchers it. You'd need to make sure to test this with turkeys from the same clutch, if you wanted to figure out whether different butchering skills give different results, and also keep an eye on how they're described - muscular animals have been observed to give more meat, for example.

[Saiko Kila]

ok, I think I need a refuse pile.

Do only some animals give hide?  I can butcher a cow, but for now i only have butchered unicorns and horses.

I think inexperienced butcher retrieves less material. Dabbling one may give only a skull from a turkey, while the same turkey will yield bones, fat, meat, innards and a hide when butchered by more experienced artisan.

This may have more to do with the age of the turkey than with the butcher. Turkeys are considered adults at 1 year old, but don't reach their full size until they're 2 years old, according to the raws, so a one-year-old turkey might not be over the minimum size for giving things other than a skull no matter who butchers it. You'd need to make sure to test this with turkeys from the same clutch, if you wanted to figure out whether different butchering skills give different results, and also keep an eye on how they're described - muscular animals have been observed to give more meat, for example.

Possible. I try to kill gigantic but skinny animals to prevent them from breeding, and muscular or fat animals to get actual meat. But I was surprised when two turkeys in row gave me only skulls, even cats give more. And "skinny" should yield some skin

And considering hides - it is better to have an experienced tanner, because raw hides can rot pretty fast, and many hides maximally clutter the tannery - not only elephant hides, which means that tanning takes a lot of time. Like a month. This is the reason I don't butcher to often - I always have to wait for my tanner. Maybe I'll build another tannery.

[wuphonsreach]

I always run a 2:1 ratio for tannery:butcher shops.  Never more then 1 butcher shop, so that means I always have 2 tanner shops.  And I typically run 3 kitchens, two near the tanner shops to do the fat renderings and another nearby (with large input stockpiles around it) that typically has "prepare lavish meal" on repeat.  For the food mills, I have:

(1) butcher who also farms
(2-3) farmers that can also do tanning
(2) cooks (usually all they do is cooking)
(2) brewers (tend to be dedicated if I already have enough farmers)

That setup generally keeps up with the butcher.  I do have a nearby 3x5 or 4x6 stockpile that takes fat (and allows the use of barrels).  And a stockpile near the lavish food kitchen that accepts raw meat / prepared fish in barrels (typically at least 30 tiles large since I buy bulk meat/fish from the caravans).  I also make sure to have enough stockpiles to accept prepared food spread across the fortress so that prepared meals don't sit and rot in the kitchen.  And have my primary leather stockpile (usually 30 tiles large) right near the tanneries as well as a single leatherworking shop.

So the flows in my fort tend to look like:

[butcher, raw hides] -> [2 tanner workshops] -> [leather stockpile] -> [leatherworking] -> (leather armor)
[butcher, raw fat] -> [fat/tallow stockpile] <-> [render fat @ 2 kitchens]
[butcher, raw meat] -> [meat stockpile] -> [lavish food @ kitchen] -> [prepared food stockpile]
[butcher, bones] -> [bone-only refuse pile] -> [craft workshop] -> (bolts / crossbow / bone items)
[butcher, hair/skull/etc] -> [no-bones refuse stockpile]

Once in a blue moon I'll have too many dwarves on simultaneous breaks and will see a bit of miasma.  Which generally means that my intermediate or output stockpiles are not big enough.  The last miasma that I saw was due to prepared food rotting in the lavish food kitchen, so I built a few more small prepared food stockpiles around the fort.

My butcher tends to be only middling skill, the cooks end up as high-skill fairly quickly.  The tanners are hardly ever above dabbling/novice.