Animals are much more complicated (and realistic) in this game than they have been in previous incarnations. Since it can begin to rain during the day, you'll need to be watching the gathering clouds in order to round up your animals before the storms hit. Fortunately, this is easier than in other games, since there's a button on the wall inside the barn to call all the animals inside instantly and a button outside to call all the animals outside instantly.

You can get fodder for your animals by cutting the fully-grown grass in your field (it's automatically stored in your silo) or you can order high-quality fodder from Takakura's ledger.

Dog

You get to choose one of two dogs at the beginning of the game. The choice of dog makes no difference. You can feed your dog by placing anything edible in his food bowl but it doesn't really matter if you don't - he can't get sick or die. Since there's no dog race or competition, I've seen no benefit to befriending your mutt. You cannot carry him away from your farm either. Your dog will automatically go into his dog house in bad weather. There's no way to get a chihuahua, though rumors have circulated that it is possible. Pressing "R" once will call your dog.

Cat

Romana will bring you a cat one morning in Fall beginning in year one of Chapter 2. You don't need to befriend her, but you should try to wake up late if you're having trouble getting the cat. The cat's as useless as the dog.

Horse

You get the horse from Takakura in Summer or Fall of the first year of Chapter 2. Make sure you haven't ordered anything from him and he'll show up with your horse. The horse is very useful because you can ride him all around the town and get around much faster than you could walk. You can call your horse from anywhere on the map, no matter where he is, just by pressing "R" twice quickly. Your horse should be kept in the barn with the other animals and will eat fodder once a day. There's no horse race, so you don't have to treat him particularly well.

Chickens

Chickens will produce eggs pretty much every day if they're taken care of. You'll need both a hen (female) and a rooster (male) to get an "incubated egg." Only incubated eggs can be placed in the incubator to hatch more chickens. Regular eggs can be shipped through Takakura by placing them in the bin in the storage room. The chances of getting an incubated egg increase if you have more roosters, but remember that you're never going to get an egg from a rooster. ;) The chickens need to be fed bird seed once every few days, but if you leave them outside they'll find their own food. Remember to bring them in before the weather gets bad though.

If you take really good care of your chickens you may get golden eggs. These eggs cannot be incubated but are worth more than regular eggs.

Cows

There are four types of cows in AWL (Normal, Brown, Marble, and Star), and each looks somewhat different and provides milk of different values. You get a head start in AWL since you start with a Normal cow. Cows give milk for 40 days and then need to be seeded before they can produce milk again. You can seed a cow with a bull from the town, for a price, or buy a bull of your own and have your cows seeded for free. Once the cow gives birth again, it will produce special "mother's milk" for ten days, which should be fed to the baby calf twice a day. Once the mother stops producing the mother's milk, feed the calf normal milk for a few days until it will no longer accept it, at which point you should start feeding it fodder like a normal cow.

Milk varies by the type of cow and the quality of care you've given the cow. There are three "ranks" for milk (B, A, and S), with S milk bringing in the most money. A cow will produce various amounts of milk per day depending on the season and how well it's been treated. Your Normal cow will produce milk as much as four times a day when just starting out but will only produce milk once a day toward the end of its producing period. Once you get the food processing room, push your cows in and they will automatically get milked. After a few times the cows will learn to enter the room on their own and will never have to be milked manually again!

Cows eat twice a day when kept in the barn. Be sure they have enough fodder or they'll get unhappy.

Ducks

Ducks are a lot like chickens. To get them, you must have the pond built in Chapter 1. You can only have five chickens, and you must wake up after your wife during Summer of Chapter 2. You'll get an event where some ducks come to your pond, and you can select to keep them. Female ducks will produce eggs, but the chickens will sit on them so it may not look like the ducks are actually laying eggs. The only way to get more ducks is to hatch them. The ducks will eat the same bird seed as the chickens.

Sheep

Sheep can be quite profitable in this game. They can be sheared once a season and eat grass and fodder just like the cows, and share the same barn. You can use the clippers or shears - they both do the same thing. A sheep should be washed often, and if you take really good care of it you may get golden wool, which sells for far more than regular wool (you should haggle the price with Van - he'll offer more than his first price). Sheep are less maintenance than cows, but not as profitable.

Goat

The goat is a somewhat pointless acquisition. You can only buy one goat, and you get it from Van in the first year of Chapter 2. The goat will produce milk for one year and then will stop producing milk, and there's no way to get it to produce milk again. At that point it just becomes another mouth to feed, and you can either keep it as a pet or kill it by leaving it out in bad weather until it gets sick.

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harvest moon © marvelous / natsume.