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[Mungrul]

This is a persistent annoyance in my current fortress; pastured livestock are getting scared by something, then scattering out of their pastures. I keep finding giant grey langurs and giant bluejays in places they shouldn't be.

All of my pastures are contained with doors, and I've even recently made sure that access to one pen does not require going through another, so as to avoid one type of animal maybe getting scared by whatever one the dwarves are dragging to the Farmer's Workshop or Butcher.
Similarly, I've elimated mixing species, so each species has its own pasture now. Yet animals are still getting scared out of their pastures.

The only thing I can think that might be causing it is that I have a habit of channeling pastures one layer down from the surface, then flooring over the resulting pasture. While this prevents things jumping into the fortress through my pastures. it does also mean that they qualify as "Outside."

Could it be that pastured animals are getting scared by wildlife walking or flying over the roof of their pasture?

[anewaname]

This is a persistent annoyance in my current fortress; pastured livestock are getting scared by something, then scattering out of their pastures. I keep finding giant grey langurs and giant bluejays in places they shouldn't be.

All of my pastures are contained with doors, and I've even recently made sure that access to one pen does not require going through another, so as to avoid one type of animal maybe getting scared by whatever one the dwarves are dragging to the Farmer's Workshop or Butcher.
Similarly, I've elimated mixing species, so each species has its own pasture now. Yet animals are still getting scared out of their pastures.

Seeing other tame animals will not frighten pastured animals; tame cave dragons will not frighten tame sheep.

Are you having problems with wildlife invading your fort (crundles, kea, primates, etc) and running all over the place? They may run in fear from dwarfs and into a pasture, where they will frighten livestock once they become brave again. If this is happening, consider chaining some wardogs at strategic locations.

Do your pasture zones fill each room? If the pasture is too small, sometimes animals move one tile outside the pasture and that will trigger the job, so I always make pastures fill the room.

Are you butchering animals within sight of the pasture? That will make them afraid (but I am not sure if it will make them run). I had three butcher workshops in the middle of a pasture to slaughter hundreds of turkeys, and most of the living turkeys were terrified from seeing other turkeys die.

The only thing I can think that might be causing it is that I have a habit of channeling pastures one layer down from the surface, then flooring over the resulting pasture. While this prevents things jumping into the fortress through my pastures. it does also mean that they qualify as "Outside."

Could it be that pastured animals are getting scared by wildlife walking or flying over the roof of their pasture?

If the roof over the pasture is complete, there will be no line-of-sight.

[Mungrul]

Thanks for the response anewaname.

• No wildlife roaming the halls near the pastures, and as noted, all of the pastures are self-contained with only one point of entry.
• Yes, my pastures fill their rooms, but the don't include the border walls and doors.
  
• The butcher is well removed from the pastures, and not visible to any of them, again being fully walled and doored.

I'm flummoxed.

[Salmeuk]

huh. and you're certain no holes have appeared in the roof after tree-felling? while its much easier to notice in premium, in the days of ASCII this was a big problem because the '.' of an empty space was indecipherable within the '.,'' of the random ground texture.

Do tantrumming dwarves cause animals to flee?

you should post some screens of the setup

the only other thing I can think of, is "pasture animal spontaneous violence syndrome" - that animals will sometimes fight each other if they are held in confined spaces, and thus forced to walk on top of one another. So when you built super-dense holding pens that can cause spontaneous violence. Though I'm not certain on this still occurring in premium, it could explain the sudden frightening - the animals are scaring themselves! And tbh there is no real solution to this. Even in a perfect setup sometimes the llama will decide to pick a fight with the rooster..

the species not mixing is interesting but I honestly do not believe that has any impact on this.

[anewaname]

Yeah, animals frightening animals seems like the only thing left... Maybe they are carrying an unresolved conflict with another animal; were any of those langurs or bluejays captured and tamed by your dwarfs?

It might be possible that one of the non-herbivores animals has a "brawler" personality, "even to the point of starting fights for no reason". If you don't see any creatures getting into those pastures and you are sure the pasture rooms are sealed from above, a selective butchering will probably resolve it.

[Blue_Dwarf]

Maybe the pasture doesn't have enough grass? If the animals stack on top of each other on the one remaining grass tile, they can start fighting.