Ranching & Animal Care

Intro to Ranching / | / / |/_________________________________________________________________________/ | | Second only to farming comes ranching. Ranching (in my terminology at | least) is the animal side of running your farm. | | At the beginning of the game, you actually already have your ranch | buildings, though both are rather small. However, these can be upgraded by | talking to the carpenter (and paying him, of course). There are two ranch | buildings: a bird coop (which houses the chickens, ducks and silkworms) and | a barn (which houses the cows, goats, sheep, horses and ostriches). Odds | are you'll upgrade the bird coop first - it's cheaper, and the animals that | live in it are cheaper and more profitable in the short-term as well. But | once you've earned a good bit of money, you'll want to move on to the | bigger animals. | | For all your ranching needs, Horn Ranch is the place to go. Initially | you'll only be able to buy select animals and products, but as you sell | more ranch products (milk, eggs, etc.), Horn Ranch will grow and sell more. | The first time you visit Horn Ranch, you'll also be given a free cow, a | pretty significant departure from past Harvest Moon games. But we'll get to | that later. | | The chief reason for raising animals is that they yield enormous returns on | the investment: a single cow gives milk every single day, and they operate | through all seasons as well, with every animal giving products all the way | through the winter. | | To care for your animals, you must make sure they eat every day. On sunny | days even in winter, you can let them out to graze in the lawn by ringing | the big bell outside the barn. On rainy and snowy days, though, you must | feed them in the barn and coop, either by placing feed in their trough or | by giving the feed to them directly (it's always better to feed them | directly). Note also that if you don't put your animals back in the barn or | coop at night, they'll stay out and still be outside in the morning. This | is a change from Tree of Tranquility. | | Your friendship with each animal is measured in the form of a heart level, | which is increased by various tasks. Hand-feeding them increases their | heart level, but it's also increased by picking up or petting them, | brushing them and milking them. Note that shearing sheep actually lowers | their heart level, but not significantly -- certainly not enough to warrant | not shearing them whenever possible. | | Higher heart levels correspond to a better chance of getting better | products. A 1-heart animal will almost always give Decent goods, while a | 10-heart animal will give mostly Perfect goods. Even the most affectionate | animal will only give Shining goods about 5% of the time. Heart level also | affects how fast some animals run. | | Almost every animal can be bred. Cows, sheep, horses and goats are bred | through the use of something called a "Miracle Potion". After using a | Miracle Potion on an animal and waiting a few weeks, it will give birth to | a baby of its own type. Chickens, ducks and ostriches are bred differently | though - instead of a potion, simply place one of their eggs in an | incubator and wait a week. After a week, a chick will hatch. After another | week, the chick will mature and start giving eggs of its own. | | An interesting new feature in Animal Parade is that every livestock animal | can be ridden as well. But obviously some animals are faster than others. | | Another interesting new feature in Animal Parade is that you can only have | three types of livestock at a time. You can have up to eight animals | depending on your barn size, but you can only have three types at a time. | So if you have cows, horses and goats, you can't have sheep or ostriches. | None of this affects what poultry you can keep, though. | ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ // // // Ranching // // // // "And God said, 'Let the land produce // // living creatures according to their kinds.' // // And it was so." -Genesis 1:24 // // // //___________________________________________________________________// |/ | Ranching refers to the livestock and poultry portion of the game. At the | start of the game, you'll have an empty coop, a barn and a cow as soon as | you drop by Horn Ranch to get it. But there's a lot more that you need to | know before you can effectively start raising animals. | | _________________________________________________________________________ | / / | / Ranching Basics / | / / |/_________________________________________________________________________/ | | Animal Parade takes a page from the A Wonderful Life book and gives you a | cow really early in the game. You start the game off with a barn, and the | first time you visit Horn Ranch and talk to Cain, he'll give you a baby | cow. | | But in order to take care of your cow, and get more animals, there's a bit | of preparation involved. The stuff in this section doesn't necessarily need | to be done before you start raising your livestock and poultry, but it | isn't involved in the day-to-day maintenance of the animals. | |\__________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | The Barn and Coop \ | \ | Like I said, you start the game with a Barn and Coop -- you don't have to | build them. However, you'll also notice that early on, they're really | small: the Barn can hold only three animals, while the Coop can hold only | four (and no silkworms!). | | That'll work fine early on, but later you'll want to start expanding both | of them. Both the Barn and the Coop have three sizes: Small, Medium and | Large. | - A Medium barn will hold 5 livestock animals, while a Large barn will | hold 8 livestock animals. | - A Medium coop will hold 8 poultry animals, while a Large coop will hold | 12 poultry animals and 4 silkworms. | | To upgrade, you'll have to talk to the Carpenter's. You'll need to gather a | whole lot of lumber first, though, and even after that, the upgrades are | pretty expensive. | |\__________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Purchasing \ | \ | All livestock and poultry are purchased from Horn Ranch, from Hannah | specifically. Every livestock animal can be purchased as either a baby or | an adult. Babies are cheaper, but take some time to grow before they can | produce any animal products or can be ridden. | | Poultry can only be purchased as babies (chicks and ducklings). They're | significantly cheaper than livestock animals and require less care, but | they also don't give quite as much profit. Silkworms, on the other hand, | don't have a young and adult form, so you'll always buy them as adults. | | To purchase an animal, talk to Hannah inside Horn Ranch. Choose the animal | and you'll be asked to name it. Then the animal will appear at your house. | |\________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Livestock Limits \ | \ | This is an interesting feature in Animal Parade. While there are five | livestock animals -- the cow, goat, sheep, horse and ostrich -- you can | only have three types at a time. If your barn is fully upgraded, you can | have up to 8 livestock animals -- but only three kinds. | | In case the message isn't clear enough, here are some examples. If you have | a cow, a sheep and a goat, then you can't buy a horse or ostrich. You can | buy more cows, sheep and goats, though. If you want to buy a horse or | ostrich, you'll have to sell all your cows, all your sheep or all your | goats. Otherwise, Hannah won't sell them to you. | | So what does this mean? You actually need to put some thought into which | three animals you choose. But, it's not really that hard of a decision. | Cows, sheep and goats are far, far more profitable than the ostrich (which | isn't profitable at all) and the horse (which doesn't produce anything at | all). So, odds are you're most interested in those. | | Now, the caveat is that the horse and ostrich are faster. However, sheep | and goats are fairly fast to ride as well, and with the circus animals from | Theodore's Circus providing shortcuts to most major places on the island, | chances are you won't have much trouble getting from place to place. | | Granted many people will want a horse just to have a horse, so you might be | wondering what to choose for the other two animals: cows, goats and sheep | all produce milk (yes, you read that right -- sheep produce milk too), but | sheep also produce wool. Sheep Milk is slightly less profitable than Goat | Milk, and both are less profitable than Cow Milk -- but the sheep's wool | makes up for the slight drop in profit. So, if you want a horse, the most | profitable choices for your other two animals are the Cow and Sheep. | |\______________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Animal Colors \ | \ | Personally, I don't care what color my animals are, but some people do, so | let's talk about that for a second. | | Except ostriches, every livestock animal has multiple possible colors. The | sheep, for example, can be white or black. However, the color you get isn't | totally randomly determined: Hannah only sells one color for each animal. | If you want the other colors, you'll have to breed them. That makes the | white horse, black goat, and brown cow somewhat rare commodities (although | if you ask me, black & white should be the more special cow color). | | _________________________________________________________________________ | / / | / Care-Taking / | / / |/_________________________________________________________________________/ | | Now that you've got some animals, it's time to take care of them. Every | animal requires some type of attention every single day for it to be happy, | healthy and profitable. | |\________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Feeding \ | \ | Animals, like people, have to eat. Granted your character apparently | doesn't have to eat, but you get the picture. Unlike Tree of Tranquility, | there is no automatically-growing grass in your field. That means you'll | initially have to buy fodder, and you'll have to buy and plant grass seeds | later on to let your animals craze. That means you might want to wait until | you have an additional field to plant grass in -- otherwise you'll be | wasting valuable crop space on grass. But in the meantime, fodder works | just fine. | | Every animal, no matter the stage of growth, needs to eat every day. You'll | know if an animal has eaten for the day by the spoon and fork icon floating | above their head. The penalty for missing a day is that the animal will | take one day longer to produce its next product. For animals like cows, | goats and chickens which produce something every day, they will basically | skip a day. For animals like ducks, silkworms, ostriches and sheep which | produce products at a longer interval, it will take one day longer than it | would have otherwise. | | If you go a few days in a row without feeding a given animal, it will die. | Cain will come to your house and yell at you for this. | | There are two ways to feed your animals: feeding them with feed and fodder, | and letting them graze. | | _ _ _ _ | Grazing | | Generally speaking, letting them graze is the simpler option. Every animal | (except silkworms) can be let outside to get their nom on in the field | outside your house. Once let outside, each will eat one patch of grass per | day. Animals can be let outside to graze in every season, even Winter. | | In order to let your animals out to graze, though, you must plant your own | grass. You plant grass the normal way -- till the soil, plant the seeds. | Grass will automatically re-grow, and as far as I know it lives through all | seasons. I haven't worked out exactly how much grass you'll need to plant | in order to never have to worry about running out of food, but it should be | safe as long as you have four squares of grass per animal grazing. Also, | let the grass grow for 3-4 days after planting it before letting the | animals graze on it. | | To let your animals out to graze, just ring the bell outside the barn. This | will let every animal out into the lawn. Unlike Tree of Tranquility, | though, they won't automatically return inside -- you'll need to remember | to put them back in. This is especially important for chickens and ducks, | which won't lay eggs unless they're inside. | | In some cases, however, letting the animals graze is not the best option. | They should not be let outside if it's raining or snowing, so in these | cases it's better to feed them inside. Silkworms cannot graze outside, and | thus must be fed manually. Additionally, hand-feeding them carries a more | substantial affection boost, so if you want to get your animal's hearts up | faster, you need to know about feed, fodder and manual feeding. And yes, | I'm aware this paragraph read like the disclaimers at the end of a medicine | commercial. | | _ _ _ _ | Feeding | | Your other option for feeding your animals is to obtain feed and fodder to | give to your animals directly. You'll need to do this at least part of the | time, given that animals should not be let outside when it is raining or | snowing. Additionally, feeding them manually can raise their heart level | faster. Silkworms cannot be let outside, and thus must be fed manually with | feed. | | Fodder can be obtained in two ways: it can be purchased from Horn Ranch for | 20G each, or you can cut your own grass with the sickle. Purchasing is | typically the better option so that there is plenty of grass for the | animals to graze. Feed can also be bought for 10G each from Horn Ranch, and | cannot be obtained any other way. | | You'll need to keep at least some feed and fodder on hand in case of rainy | or snowy days. You don't want to get stuck on a rainy day with no feed or | fodder, especially if it's Monday when Horn Ranch is closed. | | To feed your animals with feed and fodder, pull the food out of the spout | at the back of the barn and coop by standing against it and pressing A. For | efficiency, pull out as many feeds or fodders as you need before giving it | to your animals. | | Once you have the animal food, place it in the the animal's feed bins. Note | that each barn animal and each silkworm has its own feeding trough, but the | coop has only "community" feeding areas to be shared by all the chickens | and ducks. With chickens, ducks and silkworms, you can also give them feed | directly. | | Both hand-feeding and letting animals graze carry a heart level boost; but | the grazing boost comes from letting the animal out in general, so you can | pick up both boosts in one day by hand-feeding the animal first, then | letting her outside. | |\______________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Moving Animals \ | \ | Animals can be called and moved in four different ways. One of the most | interesting elements of Animal Parade is that every animal can be ridden, | although some are clearly faster than others. | | _ _ _ _ | Riding | | All livestock animals -- cows, sheep, goats, ostriches and horses -- can be | ridden from place to place. You can't ride these animals, though, until | their heart level is at least 5 hearts. They also have to be an adult, but | there's no way to raise an animal to 5 hearts before it grows to its adult | form. | | To ride, simply stand alongside the animal and press A -- you'll be | prompted to hop on. Animals can be ridden into and out of the barn, and | around town. If you dismount, the animal will stay in roughly the same area | for a decent period of time. | | While you can ride all the animals, they don't all move at the same speed: | the ostrich and horse are the fastest, followed by the goat and sheep, and | then the cow. The higher the animal's heart level, the faster it moves. | | Avoid riding any animals in bad weather, though. If snow is only on the | ground, it's ok -- but if snow is falling or it's raining in any way, the | animal is likely to get sick if you ride it around in the rain. | | _ _ _ _ _ | Whistling | | If you find yourself out and about and want a ride, you can also whistle | for an animal. Press A and B at the same time to call an animal to you. | Note that in some areas, you can't whistle for animals. Annoyingly, it | appears that the highest heart-level animal will come, which makes horses | even more useless. | | Note that blowing the whistle that Owen gives you will call a circus animal | to you, not a livestock animal; and that's only after completing the | Theodore's Circus Event | _ _ _ _ _ | Hand Bell | | All livestock can be called towards you using the bell. When you ring the | bell, every livestock animal within earshot (on screen and within a few | steps off-screen) will walk towards your character. This isn't actually | that useful, since to take care of the animals you need them to be somewhat | separated. The only purpose it served in past Harvest Moon games was to | make it easier to move the animals in and out, but in Animal Parade... | | _ _ _ _ _ | Barn Bell | | There is a bell alongside your barn that can be rung to automatically | transport all your animals indoors and outdoors (whichever they weren't | before you rang it). If some are in and some out, all will come out. This | is the easiest way to move your animals in and out. If you want your | animals to graze in the yard, simply let them out in the morning using the | bell, then put them back in at night using it. That will give them ample | time to graze and eat their fill, and will raise their affection levels | too. This bell will summon both barn animals and coop animals. | | Note that unlike Tree of Tranquility, animals will not automatically go | back inside at the end of the night. That means that if the weather's bad | the next day, they'll still be outside in it. Also, chickens and ducks | won't lay eggs unless they're put inside for the night. In short, let your | animals back inside! | |\____________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Animal Heart Levels \ | \ | For most aspects so far, poultry (chicken, ducks and silkworms) and | livestock (cows, goats, sheep, horses, ostriches) have been identical. | However, when it comes to raising your animal's affection points, there is | a strong difference between poultry and livestock. | | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Poultry Heart Levels | | Like the villagers, poultry operate on a 10-heart system for affection - | each heart corresponds to 100 heart points. So, raising a poultry animal's | affection by 100 heart points corresponds to an increase in 1 heart on | their heart level. You can check your poultry's heart level by opening up | the menu screens, scrolling to the Heart icon and scrolling down to | Animals. | | There are three ways to increase a poultry animal's heart points: giving | them feed by hand, picking them up, and letting them outside. Letting them | outside is the best way, but you can get the hand-feeding bonus by feeding | them before letting them out. If you let them out first, they'll eat | outside. Note, though, that the time it takes to hand-feed each chicken and | duck really isn't worth the extra bonus. | | This also makes it clearer why it takes ages and ages to raise a silkworm's | heart level, as they can't be let outside. Fortunately, the dye pot and | yarn maker make silkworm's affection relatively irrelevant -- product | quality is based on heart level, but dyed silk yarn doesn't have a quality | rating. But we'll get to that later. | | Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to lower a poultry animal's heart level | than raise it. Two actions lower their heart level: letting them outside in | the rain and using a tool on them. Fortunately though, forgetting to feed | them does not appear to lower their affection: instead, they just don't | give products for a couple days after a missed feeding. Of course, | forgetting to feed them for days on end will kill them, which could be | considered the "ultimate" affection lowerer. | | Overall, the best routine for chickens, ducks and silkworms is to wake up, | let them all outside to eat, enter the coop to gather the eggs and silk, | then feed the silkworms. The bonuses for picking up and hand-feeding the | chickens and ducks really aren't worth the huge amount of extra time it | takes. Letting the chickens and ducks out before you enter the coop is just | to cut down on the load time. | | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Livestock Heart Levels | | Like villagers and poultry, livestock operate on a 10-heart system. Each | heart corresponds to 100 heart points - so, raising an animal's heart | points by 100 corresponds to an increase in 1 in their heart level. | | There are several ways to increase livestocks' heart points: hand-feeding | them, letting them outside, brushing them, milking them, and riding them. | | Raising the affection of livestock is a lot faster than raising the | affection of chickens, ducks and silkworms. And like poultry, you can | receive heart points both for hand-feeding and for letting your livestock | outside. Again, this may not be worth it to you as the benefit is | relatively small. | | Perhaps the best part of this is that the act of obtaining milk from a | livestock animal itself raises the animal's heart level. It doesn't help | with horses and ostriches, but it helps with cows, goats and sheep. | Remember that shearing lowers your sheep's heart level, but not enough to | actually discourage you from doing so. | | Overall, the best routine for the livestock animals will depend on where | you are in the game. Brushing them gives a big enough heart level boost | that it's worth doing every day, and you'll obviously want to let them | outside and milk/shear them every day. The big decision to make is whether | to milk, shear and brush them inside or outside: early in the game when | time is at a premium, you might want to do it inside since time stops | indoors. Later in the game, when the days seem to creep by, it can be nice | to let them outside and pass some time while you take care of them. Plus, | you deal with fewer load times by letting them outside first. | |\________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Animal Products \ | \ | So you've got the animals, you've paid a fortune for them, you've taken | great care of them... for what? For profit, of course! | | The main reason to keep animals is because the products they produce are | among the most profitable items in the game. While the animal's alive and | an adult, it will produce a product on a specific schedule. Most animals | will produce a product every day, but others will produce one every 2, 4 or | 6 days. | | The method for obtaining the items differs from animal to animal. For eggs | and silk cocoons, for example, the item will just appear on the barn or | coop floor each morning. All you need to do is pick them up. Milk and wool, | though, require you to take an item (milker and shears, respectively) and | use them on the animal. The item will replace the tool in your hands. | | Like crops, animal products have quality ratings. The quality of an item is | based largely on the affection level of the animal it's obtained from. It's | not a direct thing -- a single cow could produce Perfect milk for three | days in a row, then produce Good milk for a week. It's just influenced by | heart level, not directly controlled. | | So what's the influence like? At the lower heart levels, you'll get almost | all Decent products. Around 3 to 4 hearts, you'll start getting Decent and | Good products in about the same proportion, and you'll get your first | Perfect products too. Once you get to around 6 and 7 hearts, you'll get | about the same number of Perfect products as Good products, with the | occasional Decent and Shining products. Finally, at the maximum heart | level, you'll get Shining products pretty regularly, but you'll still get | mostly Perfect products. | |\__________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Processed Products \ | \ | If you really want to rake in the profit, though, there's one more thing | you need to know about: the Makers. The Makers are items that let you take | a normal animal product and transform it into a more valuable, more useful | product. There are five Makers in the game (the way I count them, at | least): | - Mayonnaise Maker: Changes Chicken, Duck or Ostrich Eggs into | Mayonnaise, Duckonnaise or Ostonnaise. | - Butter Maker: Changes Cow, Goat or Sheep Milk into Cow, Goat or Sheep | Butter. | - Cheese Maker: Changes Cow, Goat or Sheep Milk into Cow, Goat or Sheep | Cheese. | - Yarn Maker: Changes Wool, Silk Cocoons or Flax into Wool Yarn, Silk | Yarn or Flax Yarn. | - Dye Pot: Changes Wool Yarn, Silk Yarn or Flax Yarn into Dyed Wool Yarn, | Dyed Silk Yarn or Dyed Flax Yarn. The color is determined by what herb | or flower you add to the pot. | | The Mayonnaise Maker will sit in the coop after purchased; the Cheese, Yarn | and Butter Maker will sit in the barn; and the Dye Pot has to be placed in | the kitchen like any other kitchen utensil. All are purchased from the | General Store. | | Be careful, though: while usually putting an item in a Maker will increase | its quality, there are certain items that will actually lose value when | changed into something else. These are: | - Good or higher Duck Eggs, as Duckonnaise has no quality rating. | - Good or higher Ostrich Eggs, as Ostonnaise has no quality rating. | - Good or higher Silk Yarn, as all colors of Dyed Silk Yarn sell for less | than Good Silk Yarn. | - Good or higher Wool Yarn, as all colors of Dyed Wool Yarn sell for less | than Good Wool Yarn. | - Perfect or higher Flax Yarn, as all colors of Dyed Flax Yarn sell for | less than Perfect Flax Yarn. | |\________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Breeding \ | \ | Except for the silkworms, every animal can be bred on your farm. Breeding | has the following benefits: | - Breeding is cheaper than buying a new animal. | - With breeding, you can get an animal of a rarer color, like a white or | black horse, or a black cow, goat or sheep. | - Both the parent and child receive an affection boost from breeding. | | And the following drawbacks: | - Breeding takes some extra time, as you have to wait for the birth, and | then for the animal to grow up. | - You have to have an extra spot open in your barn for the duration of | the pregnancy, so effectively you miss out on a week of having another | animal. | - Breeding DOES remove your animal's ability to be milked or ridden | during the pregnancy (for livestock). | - Pregnant animals won't graze outside, meaning that they must be fed in | the barn and can't be ridden. | | To breed livestock, you'll need to purchase one of the four Miracle Potions | from Horn Ranch: Cow, Sheep, Goat or Horse Miracle Potion. Buy it, use it | on the animal, then wait the amount of time listed in The Animals section | below. | | For poultry and ostriches, you'll just need to grab one of their eggs and | put it in one of the incubators (after you purchase them from the General | Store, once you have a Level 2 Coop for the Chicken/Duck Egg Incubator, or | Level 3 Barn for the Ostrich Egg incubator). The chicken and duck egg | incubator can be found in the coop after purchase, and the ostrich egg | incubator in the barn. You can also incubate eggs that you just purchased | from Horn Ranch, which can be a nice way to get your first chicken, duck or | ostrich if you don't want to buy a chick (though you'll make up the | purchase price in the extra week of having an adult chicken). | |\________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Illness \ | \ | Occasionally, you'll find your animal is in a consistently bad mood, shows | a sad face, and won't let you ride it. It probably won't give any milk | either, or lay any eggs. | | This happens when the animal is sick. Usually this will only happen if | you've let the animal out in the rain, but it can also happen when you | forget to feed them, or occasionally just randomly. Before you assume it's | sick, try feeding, petting and brushing it -- if this fixes it, it was just | ticked off at you, not sick. | | When this happens, you'll need to get some Animal Medicine from Horn Ranch. | Animal Medicine works just like Miracle Potions -- just use it on the | animal and voila, all better. | |\________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Selling \ | \ | Cute as they are, sometimes you just get sick of seeing those little animal | faces. Or maybe you want to try out one of the other animals, and so you | need to get rid of some of the ones you have. Regardless of the reason, | you'll find that at some point, you need to sell your animals. | | Selling is easy. Just go talk to Hannah at Horn Ranch and choose the Sell | Animals option. She'll give you a list of your animals, and you can choose | which to sell. The sale price will be based on what the animal is and how | high their hearts are -- a higher heart-level animal will sell for more. | | Some people wonder if it'd be profitable to buy a cow, raise it to 10 | hearts, then sell it and buy a new one. Unfortunately, not really -- the | money you make from having high-quality milk to sell in the time it takes | to raise another one is far more than the money you get by selling the cow. | Still, it can be useful to sell an animal that's about to die, though | that's always hard to predict. | |\______ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Death \ | \ | Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, blah blah blah. Each animal has an | approximate lifespan, and as it meets and surpasses that lifespan, the | chances of death increase. Animals may also die if you don't feed them for | too many days in a row. | | When an animal dies, Cain will come to your ranch and tell you, then hold a | small funeral for the animal at the cemetery. If the animal died of old | age, he'll console you; but if it died of neglect, he'll yell at you. | | \____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________/

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