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In DF, I have a refuse pile set up fine, and I have pressed o-r-o to allow dwarves to gather refuse from outside, but there is one yak that decided to die in my dining room, creating miasma. No matter what I do, I cannot remove it.

Yak corpse

Now, it is a skeleton, but I still can't figure out how to remove it. Maybe because it's very heavy, the dwarves cannot lift it?

Let me be clear, I've marked it for dumping, and forbidden it. Other types of refuse are being moved to the refuse pile as well.

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    If it's forbidden, your dwarves won't touch it. Try marking it as Unforbidden.
    – bcpettifer
    Oct 7, 2014 at 6:57
  • Oh. Want to post that as an answer?
    – Kyranstar
    Oct 7, 2014 at 17:47
  • I've seen this happen a lot. Say, a wave of migrants brings a cow, and I forget to pasture it outside. It will starve in a random meeting hall, and will stay there for good, creating miasma while rotting, and eventually being a permanent bone decoration for my fort. Nobody will touch the damn thing.
    – mkaito
    Oct 24, 2014 at 0:12

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There are a number of factors that will affect whether your dwarves will collect corpses and move them to a refuse pile.

In this specific case the problem is probably that the corpse has been marked as forbidden. This will prevent the haul job being created so no dwarves will move it.

For future visitors to this question, there are some other common causes for this including:

  • Are your dwarves too busy? The hauling job is quite low priority, so if there is a lot going on in your fortress you may find that your dwarves do not haul corpses to you (hopefully) outdoors refuse pile. If you've just been attacked and sustained heavy casualties and want to prevent miasma in your fortress, it may be worth temporarily disabling some dwarves other labours so that they get to the job of cleaning your fortress.

  • Is there any space in your refuse pile? These have a tendency to fill up quickly (especially if vermin remains are being collected). It might be worth considering having a refuse pile that just accepts corpses to stop it from filling up too quickly.

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