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[Ganthan]

I thought about simply pitting animals down a 12 Z level drop to make them shatter into many parts, each of which would get processed into a seperate skin for tanning, but then I remembered reading that tame animals that die by any means other than direct slaughter won't be butchered?  If so then that's disappointing, but I still liked the image of a half a dozen dwarves sitting around chatting in their private little meeting hall when a live animal suddenly drops from above and splatters apart in a cloud of gore and the dwarves being unfazed by the sight, simply regarding it as, "Well, back to work."

[FuzzyZergling]

Also, corpses/parts that are below a certain size wouldn't be harvested.

[Sphalerite]

It will work if you do it with wild animals.  And yes, each part of the animal yields its own piece of leather, but on most creatures there are only 6 or 8 body parts that will yield leather when butchered.  Still, 6-8 pieces of leather instead of one is nice if you're trying to maximize leather production.

[Garath]

works well with elephants, less so with smaller creatures, not so with cats

[Yaotzin]

Do any animals give multiple hides, or am I best off buying from caravans, and slaughtering all my turkeys?

[SRD]

An average leather bin is like $130 for me so going through all that trouble isn't worth if imo.

[Garath]

Do any animals give multiple hides, or am I best off buying from caravans, and slaughtering all my turkeys?

only if they are big enough and die in pieces and were NOT tame animals, so yes, slaughtering turkeys, dogs and cats is more likely to work

[Tirion]

Do any animals give multiple hides, or am I best off buying from caravans, and slaughtering all my turkeys?

only if they are big enough and die in pieces and were NOT tame animals, so yes, slaughtering turkeys, dogs and cats is more likely to work

On the other hand, building automated death machines to breed and killdrop wild unicorns/elephants/rhinos/cave crocs in great quantities would be well worth it, as they breed like dogs or better, don't starve, and have 5x value modifiers... and superior tough leather in some mods such as Genesis.

[Brewster]

It's a balance. "Is it worth it" is subjective - do we need to build a giant dwarf that pee's water & magma no, but it's awesome. So, if you just want to buy all your leather - ya, it's probably easier, but will you have a big grin on your face when you do compared to watching a elephant drop 12 zlevels down? No.

What I've been doing is raising goose. 10 females make about 50 babies and little more then half when butchered when born make skin. So that's 30 leather for free, plus the tallow, meat, bones & skulls.

[Maklak]

I tried getting leather from tamed animals and it didn't work for me. Now I just order many kinds of leather from liaison at once, pretty much everything that has standard cost and short name, like cat, dog, donkey, cow, and so on. This way I get more than enough leather for my military with little effort, and can focus on other things. 

After 31.25 I don't even bother with animal husbandry. It always ends for me with hundreds of animals walking around my dining room and trampling grass, starving, fighting, etc. I just butcher every non pet migrants bring on the spot, but keep a few cats around, Even cats are an annoyance with all that dead vermin.

I still normally have 2 butcheries and 2 tanneries next to my big refuse pile outside.

[Loud Whispers]

If you put tons of dogs on top of a pillar, eventually they breed to the point where they start attacking each other and falling off. Instant automation right there.

[Sphalerite]

But only tame animals fight when crowded, and tame animals which die from a fall can't be butchered.  It's automated, but kind of useless.

[Loud Whispers]

But only tame animals fight when crowded, and tame animals which die from a fall can't be butchered.  It's automated, but kind of useless.

If you put it in your dining hall, it splatters your Dwarves with blood, forcing them to bathe frequently, greatly reducing the chance of infection in the likely event they get horribly injured.

[orius]

After 31.25 I don't even bother with animal husbandry. It always ends for me with hundreds of animals walking around my dining room and trampling grass, starving, fighting, etc. I just butcher every non pet migrants bring on the spot, but keep a few cats around, Even cats are an annoyance with all that dead vermin.

All you have to do is pasture them.  Non-grazers only need a 1x1 space and they'll be happy, egg layers need nests too.  Immature offspring can all be shoved in a cage until they grow up and are either slaughtered or bred.  I slaughter any stray grazers the immigrants bring in, because many of them require far too much space to be worth it, though sheep can be worth it since they only need a 4x4 space preferably dug out in a soil layer somewhere, and they can produce milk and wool as well as meat.  Also, junk pets like rabbits and cavies which I certainly don't want breeding in my fort get atom smashed.

[Prologue]

My idea would be chaining the wild animals in a large room. Then, channel out all the floors, except for the floors around the chain (so the animal doesn't fall). Then build a retracting bridge, wait for them to breed and pull the lever in a 10+z drop.

Would this work? Of course big animals would make the bridge stop working, so opening it at the moment the animal breeds is the most likely scenario.