Killing caged animals?

[Tanaka Khan]

So I've caught a whole bunch of wolves that I'd like to kill for meat. Any ideas as to how I go about this? I don't even know how to open the cages.

[Esoteric Avakovist]

Drop them into magma

[The Trashman]

There are a few options, but you'll need a military for the easiest one.

You can order your military to kill the wolves (rectangle tools is best) and then assign the wolves to a pen/pasture. When dwarves come to release the wolves and take them to the pasture, your military will kill them.

Built cages can be linked to a lever, so you could release the wolves remotely to protect your civilian dwarf.

Also, with an animal trainer you can train the wolves. Once they're tame, they can be butchered like any domesticated animal

[LaChouette]

I'd say the easiest one is actually training them. There's no danger at all, and they don't need to be fully tamed to get butchered, so it doesn't take any skill for the trainer to do so.

[Tanaka Khan]

Cheers guys, appreciate all the advice.

[Dirty_Curty]

Set a training area and an animal trainer. You can train wolves, then set them to be butchered. Do it quickly before the become wild again (trained wild animals can become wild again until dwarves learn to domesticate the species). This is the best way to get the meat, as killing them with military can mangle the corpses making them incapable of being butchered at the butcher's workshop.

[RoyalFox]

Originally posted by The Trashman:

Built cages can be linked to a lever, so you could release the wolves remotely to protect your civilian dwarf.

Add trapdoors and a big pit for them to fall down for extra fun and less military need.