Summary
Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos certainly doesn’t disappoint with its animal options. Big or small, all animals are able to be either purchased or tamed. However, your barn and home space is limited, and you may want to be more particular about which furry friends you bring home.
Each of these animals comes with their own perks, which can be unlocked once you’ve reached a high level or max friendship with them. DLC animals have not been included, though honorable mention does go to the sasquatches, which you can get with the Animal Avalanche DLC.
8Large Wild Animals
Best Large Wild Animals:
These animals are those that you may tame in the wild, which makes them fairly high effort pets. Different wild animals will have different skills that you can unlock only when you’ve maxed out their friendship. Because of their size, they can only stay in the barn. Some of these animals, like the Bengal tiger and the panther, will increase food effect duration. Animals like llamas and alpacas offer cold protection (12 and eight hours, respectively), whileothers can be used as mounts.
You’ll want to be a little discerning, as there are limits to how many animals you may have on your farm, so think carefully about your needs. For example, while the Bengal tiger and the panther both increase food effect duration, the Bengal will increase it by one and a half hours while the panther will increase it by two hours.
If you have the DLC package, you’ll want to be even pickier — the panda increases food effect duration by 4 hours. If you’re not too fussed about things like weather effect protection or food effect duration, you may want to fill your barn with mounts or livestock.
7Birds
Best Birds:
Birds can be easy to forget and easy to miss, given how small they are. However, these are great pets to keep around. If you need someone to help retrieve seeds so that you’re not running around the map trying to find a crop to plant, budgies and cockatiels are useful for finding common seeds. Budgies will find daisy, marguerite, and lotus seeds, while cockatiels will find potato, onion, tomato, celery, and other basic crop seeds.
For rarer seeds, look to the rosy-faced lovebird (uncommon crop seeds), owls (uncommon flowers), or the little owl (uncommon crops). The snowy owl, unlike the rest of the birds, will give you a cooling effect so that you can explore the desert or the volcano.
6Small Wild Animals
Best Small Wild Animals:
There are many small animals that can be tamed throughout the regions, ranging from hares to meerkats and ferrets. Petting rabbits and hares will usually restore stamina, though at varying strengths. As with all farm animals, because of the limited space, you may want to think carefully about which animals to tame and which ones are best left to enjoy in the wild.
For example, you may not want to fill your farm up with stamina-replenishing pets, as you may always increase your stamina hearts through the Harvest Moon Wisps, and can find free fruit on trees. You may feel that finding seeds takes up too much of your time, and need more pets to help aid you in ensuring consistent crop turnover.
In that case, you’ll want to focus on small animals like hares and Netherland dwarf rabbits. If you want a passive way to collect items, Holland lops will occasionally retrieve fruit, and Asian-Small Clawed Otters (DLC) will retrieve shellfish. For those who want to spend a little less time mining, ferrets and meerkats will bring home ore and gemstones, respectively.
5Cats And Dogs
Best Cats And Dogs:
While both cats and dogs give you stamina in return for pets, some breeds restore more stamina than others. For example, the odd-eyed white cat that can be purchased in the Zimagrad animal shop for 9,000 G will restore three stamina hearts.
The sheltie dog in the Herbstburg shop restores one stamina heart. This can be ideal for when you’ve finished your morning farm chores and need to replenish your stamina before heading out on quests.
4Sheep
Types Of Sheep:
There are two breeds of sheep in this game: standard sheep and the Valais Blacknose sheep. You’ll be able to find both out in the wild, where you can tame them. Standard sheep can be found pretty quickly, or purchased in Lectenbury. Valais Blacknose sheep are found in the snowy region in Zimagrad. You’ll actually need to tame one for the main quest, so don’t rush to find/purchase one — the quest line will lead you to a sheep nearby.
Regardless of which breed you have, wool is always produced every three days. Standard wool is used for making Cool Clothes, while Valais Blacknose wool is used for Warm Clothes and the Steampunk outfit (part of the Visitors From Afar DLC). There aren’t many other uses for wool, other than the occasional requests from villagers. you’re able to sell standard wool for 220 G each, and the Valais Blacknose wool for 550 G.
3Cows
Types Of Cow:
Cows may be one of the cutest farm animals. you may purchase them from the village animal shops as calves, and care for them until they become fully grown. Like with all the animals, there is a lot of work to get them to care for you before they offer any milk. Milk can be consumed, sold for 88G, or used in recipes. It’s produced every two days, and you can purchase either a standard black-and-white cow or a Jersey cow; however, you won’t be able to get a Jersey cow until the Herbstburg village reaches five stars.
If you want more than one cow, you have a couple of options. you’re able to purchase another calf from the store, or you can give your cow a magic potion that can also be found in the animal store. The potion causes your cow to become pregnant, and several days later you’ll have a new baby calf to care for.
2Chickens
Types Of Chicken:
You may never have to pay for a chicken, which makes this farm animal completely profitable. Judy hands you one of hers once you’ve completed construction on your barn, and if you complete Doc Jr.’s quest (where he asks for one hot mushroom, five bundles of grass, and several boards of wood), you’ll get an incubator added to your barn. To hatch more chickens, simply place an egg in the incubator, and wait. In several days, you’ll get a new baby chick, and you can repeat the process.
There are three breeds of chicken: standard, Araucana, and Silkie. Eggs are produced every day, which ensures that you’ll be able to make money daily. The eggs can be sold for 55 G each, consumed on their own, or used in recipes. You’ll be able to get Araucana and Silkie chicken once Lectenbury and Lilikala villagers are at four stars, respectively. This will likely give you higher quality eggs, which may be sold at a higher price point.
1Horses
If you want to travel quickly from the outset of the game, you may want to invest in a horse immediately. You may be able to tame a wild one, although that will take some time. Horses can also be purchased in the villages, from the animal store.
While horses don’t produce anything that you can consume or sell, their swiftness in getting you from point A to point B truly comes in handy as you unlock the fast-travel statues.
Unfortunately, they do not move well in the desert, the volcanic areas, or in the snow. For those areas, you will need more specialized mounts, so make sure you leave room in your barn.
