Animals

What is a farm without animals? Exactly, a farm that is useless in winter. There are 4 kinds of animals you can get in Harvest Moon, and they're all very useful. Well, except the dog. He just eats your food and pees on your carpet.

Picture	Name	Buying Price	Selling Price	Produces	Description
	Chicken	1000	500	Eggs	Chickens are probably the first animals you'll buy. They're really cheap (you just need to buy one, you can breed others pretty fast and for free), don't require any attention besides food (miss one day of food and they won't lay eggs for 3 days) and they look cute. The only problems they are is that foxes can eat them if you leave them ouside (why are you taking your chickens outside?) and that their eggs only sell for 50 each, with no ability to upgrade them. It's probably a good idea to keep like 6 chickens until you can afford cows. After you get cows it's just not worth it to spend your time with chickens anymore, especialy if you also have to maintain your crops.
	Cow	5000	Varies	Milk	Cows are awesome. They cost a ton, especially since you also need the brush and milker (to milk the cows and to keep them happy), but they require a lot of attention. Talk to them and brush them once daily. Their milk can be upgraded until they sell for 350 a day, if you have 3 cows that's 1050 a day for relatively little effort! Unfortunately, it's expensive to get new cows, since you can't just hatch their milk like you can with chickens. You can either buy a new cow for 5000, or buy a potion to impregnate a cow for 4000. I suggest just buying a new cow, it won't take 2 months to get a useful new cow that way (1 month during pregnancy, 1 month before they produce milk), and your pregnant cow produces milk of one grade lower during her pregnancy. It's just a lot less hasstle to fork over an extra 1000.
	Horse	None	None	Frustration	To get the horse, you need to leave your farm during the first day of winter. The horse will approach you as soon as you step outside, and you being the clever businessman that you are, take her in and raise her as if she was your own. After about a month Rick gives you some saddlebags, which are incredibly useful, since you can throw crops in there, which saves a lot of walking time. Unfortunately, the horse has a habit to not stand still for long, which can make dumping food in the bags a bit annoying. Still, she's incredibly useful.
	Dog	None	None	Urine	The dog serves no practical purpose that I know of. You just need to hug him 100+ times to get the best ending. It's also a superdog, it can survive being outside in a twister.

Animal Products

Obviously, animals produce products you can sell, except your dog and horse. This is very useful in Winter, since you can't grow crops then.

Picture	Name	Produced by	Selling Price	Description
	Egg	Chickens	50	While a pretty reliable source of money, since chickens lay eggs daily, they don't sell for much, and can't be upgraded to *do* sell for more money. Handy, but not really useful as your main source of income.
	Small Milk	Cows	150	The standard milk your cows produce. While already a lot better than eggs, your cows can produce better quality milk if you're nice to it.
	Medium Milk	Cows	250	If you're nice enough to your cows they'll start producing this. Quite useful, but they still aren't exactly what we want...
	Large Milk	Cows	350	Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! This is amazing! If you're *very* nice to your cows, they'll start producing this. Probably the best source of money you'll get.