1) Catalyst is the only way to get leather, as I believe passive mob spawn may have been disabled. (I should have gotten at least one squid with all my irrigation ponds.) Even if passive mobs can spawn, you'd still need to go through Botania to get the pasture seeds from the Vazbee.
2) You can either install pneumatic servos in order to upgrade the itemduct's functionality (allowing white/blacklisting of items as well as extraction), or you can put down a lever/redstone torch to make it extract everything.
2) You can either install pneumatic servos in order to upgrade the itemduct's functionality (allowing white/blacklisting of items as well as extraction), or you can put down a lever/redstone torch to make it extract everything.