Getting Meat from Trapped Animals

[V-Bro - The Titan's Driver]

I'm having a little trouble figuring out how to get food from caught animals.

I managed to trap a live grey squirrel - small, but it was a start. I figured my settlers could make a meal out of it - but I never figured out how. I thought I was supposed to use the butcher table, but none of the options were effective. Says it couldn't find anything. I tried putting the squirrel (still in the cage) nearby, but I still could do nothing at the butcher table.

So how DO I butcher this squirrel? Or is the butcher station only for 'domesticated' animals?

Added Note: Geez, I can't even figured out how to move an animal corpse. Yes, I'm sure I need to move it to the butcher shop, but where's the "pick up and move" option?

[SaD-82]

There are animals (usually the small ones) that can't be butchered at all since they wouldn't yield enough ti justify the effort. Squirrels are one of them.
What you can do with a squirrel:
Be a pet for a dwarf.
Or put it in a place where dwarves will see it so that anyone who likes squirrels will get a positive thought out of them.
Other than that: Nothing to do with it besides finding interesting ways to kill it.

[Fel]

Grey squirrels are what the game considers "vermin", which are all things too small to count as animals.
You can't do much with those other than making them pets for dwarves that happen to like that specific vermin (otherwise it doesn't do much).
Some vermins can be used to extract something, but it's not worth much anyways.
Overall vermins are better left alone.

You can "capture" proper animals through cage traps, those can be tamed then butchered if you want.

As for animal corpses, it depends on how they died.
If it's something that died of hunger in your meeting area then you can't butcher it for meat.

The butcher's workshop automatically butchers valid animal corpses that are relatively close to it.
This means that you want a refuse stockpile outside (to not get miasma when something starts to rot), allow dwarves to gather refuse outside, and have the butcher's workshop close to that.
You will also want a tanner nearby to turn the skin into leather, your kitchens can also process the fat into tallow.

For animals that died of hunger or corpses that started to rot already, you need to wait until they are skelettons, at that point you can order the butcher's workshop to turn these animal skelettons into bones and a skull.

[V-Bro - The Titan's Driver]

Originally posted by Fel:

Grey squirrels are what the game considers "vermin", which are all things too small to count as animals.
You can't do much with those other than making them pets for dwarves that happen to like that specific vermin (otherwise it doesn't do much).

You can "capture" proper animals through cage traps, those can be tamed then butchered if you want.

As for animal corpses, it depends on how they died.
If it's something that died of hunger in your meeting area then you can't butcher it for meat.

The butcher's workshop automatically butchers valid animal corpses that are relatively close to it.
This means that you want a refuse stockpile outside (to not get miasma when something starts to rot), allow dwarves to gather refuse outside, and have the butcher's workshop close to that.
You will also want a tanner nearby to turn the skin into leather, your kitchens can also process the fat into tallow.

For animals that died of hunger or corpses that started to rot already, you need to wait until they are skelettons, at that point you can order the butcher's workshop to turn these animal skelettons into bones and a skull.

I see. So what I'm getting from this is to make a refuse pile (specifically for corpses) on the world surface, and set up the butcher's shop nearby, perhaps close underground.

The animal has to be something that Dwarves would consider an acceptable size, and small beasts aren't even a mouthful's worth.

So my next question is how to assure Dwarves can retrieve a corpse for processing. They took down an aggressive giant coati, but I couldn't figure out how to tell them to retrieve the body for butchering.

[Fel]

They will haul it to the refuse stockpile, but you might need to go into the Labor menu, then standing orders to set the rules to "gather refuse outside".
Be default I think it is set to "ignore refuse outside".

[V-Bro - The Titan's Driver]

Originally posted by Fel:

They will haul it to the refuse stockpile, but you might need to go into the Labor menu, then standing orders to set the rules to "gather refuse outside".
Be default I think it is set to "ignore refuse outside".

All right, I think I figured it out. A little daunting the game is, but I think I can manage to learn it yet.
Thank you.