Animals

Like all of its predecessors, Harvest moon DS. has a wide variety of animals that you can keep on your farm in order to make money and have. However, a few things have changed from the previous games. This time, you don't start with barns for most of the animals you get. You have to build your own before you can buy animals. See the building's Section for the price and requirements to construct the buildings. The wood cutter will make all of them for you if you have the right amount of money and material. The game's touch screen also adds a more impressive interface with the touch panel gloves to caring for the animals. You can now pet, milk, and wash your animals with the tough panel gloves rather than only the other tools if you prefer. Just a side note, I prefer to focus on Crops rather than animals, so I haven't kept track of how long it takes them to mature. It takes a week or two for them to grow into adult form and start producing milk, eggs and wool, ect. I will provide you with the information that I have available.

You can move your animals outside on days with nice weather if you want too. If there out on rainy weather or in a hurricane or blizzard they will often get sick. This will also happen if you forget to feed them inside. If they are outside for several hours, chickens and ducks will find food on their own and cows will eat mature grass if there is any. Otherwise you will need to return them to the barn and give them food in their food box. Cows and sheep eat fodder which you can grow or buy from yodel ranch. Chickens and Ducks eat bird feed which you can buy from the poultry farm. If your animals get sick, you can cure them with animal medicine, otherwise they will die after a few days. Note, I usually leave my animals inside and just feed them. That way they won't get sick unless their is a storm.

You can have only a limited number of animals on your farm. Each animal requires a shed to live in. Each shed holds a total of 4 animals. You can have a total of 7 animal sheds which means you can have a total of 28 animals at any given time. Note, you also need a pond to buy ducks. You can get new animals by buying them from one of the farms or having the ones you have reproduce. You can get a new chicken by placing an egg in an incubator and letting it hatch. This is cheaper than buying them from the farm. It takes 3 day for a bird to hatch and a week for it to mature into an adult. I don't really know how long it takes cows and sheep to reproduce. It's better to just buy them as adults from the ranch. The miracle potions only save you 1000g and they end up tying up one of your mature animals for a few weeks. During that time period it still needs to each but won't produce anything. So, they end up costing you more money than they are worth.

Listed below are the types of animals and some information about them

Dog:: You start with the dog and give him a name at the games beginning. You can throw him or pet him with the touch panel gloves to raise his affection rate. Also, you can train him with the ball that Thomas gives you on the first day. He will play fetch with you. Supposedly, he will chase away wild dogs from your land at the end of the day. Otherwise, he is pretty useless.
Cat:: You also begin the game with the cat. It can be picked and thrown and petted with the touch gloves. It's basically a worthless animal. I just ignore it because it severs no probative value.
Horse:: Tanaka brings you a horse after you ship about 1200 items through a shipping box. You can pet it with the touch gloves and brush it with the brush. You can ride it around the valley, which is faster than walking, but slower than the teleport stone. It can also be used to ship items anywhere in the valley.
Chickens:: They are bought from the poultry farm or hatch from eggs. Chickens need to be feed bird feed once a day. They can be thrown or petted with the touch gloves to increase their affection rating. As their affection increases, the quality of their eggs will also increase. Small eggs sell for 50g, medium for 60g and large for 100g.
Ducks:: Ducks are similar to chickens in every way accept they cost more to buy and require a pond before you can purchase them. However, their eggs sell for more than chickens do. Small 80g, medium 100g and large 150g. Ducks will only lay eggs every other day.
Cows:: you buy cows from the yodel ranch for 5000g each. They need to be feed fodder once a day and you can brush them and talk to them to increase their affection ratings. You can milk them when they mature with either the touch panel glove or the milker. The selling value of their milk increases with their affection rating. small 100g, medium 150g, large 200g. you can also get makers for cheese and yogurt to increase profits slightly.
Sheep:: Sheep produce wool that you can sell and have to be shorn once a week. They eat and have their affection increased like cows do. You can use the touch panel gloves to wash and shear them, or you can shear them with the clippers. The wool sells as follows small 100g, medium 400g, and large 500g. There is also a yarn maker to increase their selling prices slightly.

The selling value of animal produce increases along with the affection rating of the animal. You can make an animal happier by brushing it, talking to it, and taking it outside. You can also use the touch panel minigames to increase the level of the products produced by sheep and cows by scoring high on the minigames.

Birthing new animals:

You can have your animals give birth to off spring in several ways. This is required to unlock several of the harvest sprites later in the game. To have a chicken or a duck reproduce, you simply need to put one of their eggs in the incubator located in the bird shed. It takes a 3 days to hatch and a week to become a productive adult. Sheep and cows are a little more complicated. You need to impregnate them with a miracle potion from the yodel ranch. Then you need to walk up to the animal you want to make pregnant and use the potion on it. The next day the animal will be moved to the special pregnant box in the barn. You will need to put feed in the special box while the animal is pregnant or it will become sick. Sheep and cows stop producing milk and wool while their pregnant. It takes 3 weeks for a baby to be born and another week to grow into an adult. Afterwards, it takes another week before it will start producing milk or wool. This is a waste of time and money in the game when it comes to cows and sheep. It is more beneficial to just buy adult animals to begin with. However, your sheep or cows need to reproduce 15 times to unlock one of the sprites. Baby animals gain affection faster than their parents do.

The animal festival:

There is an animal festival each season other than the winter for a particular type of animal. You can only enter one animal in each festival each year. In order to win the festival you need to have 9 to 10 affection hearts on your animal. If you win your animal will increase one level and the products it produces will sell at a higher value. Additionally, your animal's offspring will also start at the same level as its parent. This can be used to increase the productivity value of your animals on the farm. The animals start on level 1 and go all the way to 100 supposedly. You cannot level up a particular animal more than once.

Upgrading the milker and sheers:

One thing that I recently found is that the milker and sheer's can upgrade to higher levels. You can do this by milking or sheering your animals with the touch panel gloves. They will increase slowly over time. As they do, they can actually generate 99 milk or wool per sheering or milking. They can also raise the selling price of product several levels which ship for more money.