DFHack - Common Commands

1) autonestbox - Use this after defining a bunch of 1x1 pasture zones (n) over constructed nest boxes. It will automatically assign any not-yet-pastured, tame, non-grazer, female egg-layers to the empty pasture zones. It will also tell you whether you need more nestboxes / pasture zones.

2) copystock - Copies the stockpile settings under the cursor, allowing you to quickly duplicate a particular stockpile to another location.

 3) autobutcher - This one I'm starting to fall in love with. Tired of bird-splosion because the eggs weren't retrieved in time?

For poultry, I prefer to set it to (15) female young, (15) male young, (10) female adults, (5) male adults.  That gives me the upper limit on egg production from the domesticated species.  If you need more egg production, increase the number of female adults (3rd number) to 15 or 20.

autobutcher target 15 15 10 5 BIRD_CHICKEN
autobutcher target 15 15 10 5 BIRD_DUCK
autobutcher target 15 15 10 5 BIRD_GUINEAFOWL
autobutcher target 15 15 10 5 BIRD_PEAFOWL_BLUE
autobutcher target 15 15 10 5 BIRD_GOOSE
autobutcher target 15 15 10 5 BIRD_TURKEY
autobutcher watch BIRD_CHICKEN BIRD_DUCK BIRD_GUINEAFOWL BIRD_GOOSE BIRD_PEAFOWL_BLUE BIRD_TURKEY

Note: 60 egg-layers can easily feed a fortress of 120-150 dwarves with lavish meals for years.

For pigs, I create a very large room (about 15x15) somewhere underground and use:

autobutcher target 30 30 20 5 PIG
autobutcher watch PIG

Dogs:

autobutcher target 15 15 25 10 DOG
autobutcher watch DOG

 Cats:

autobutcher target 10 10 10 5 CAT
autobutcher watch CAT

Remember to issue a "autobutcher start" once you are done setting up the targets and adding animals to the watch list.  See also "autobutcher list".  If you've had an explosion of a particular species, start with 50/50/50/50, then work your way down 10 at a time until you get to your target number.

4) prospect all - Useful prior to embark to estimate whether there are metals or stones of the desired type.  Also useful post-embark to get a detailed listing of what is actually at the embark site.

5) showmood - A bit spoilerish, but it doesn't show you too much more then what you could figure out in-game.

6) zone - Allows you to assign livestock to pasture zones automatically based on various filters.  A bit tricky to use, but the key points to remember are:

- Create a pasture/pen zone in-game.
- Use the (i) command in-game to highlight it
- In DFHack, issue a "zone set" command to select it.
- Now you can do "zone assign" commands.

Putting all male egglayers in a pasture zone.

zone set
zone assign all own unassigned male egglayer not grazer

Or if you want to only do turkeys, or just the male poults:

zone set
zone assign all own unassigned male maxage 2 race BIRD_TURKEY

Note:  This post was updated in Oct 2014 and works fine with DF2014 (v0.40.13).