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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