After some data crunching, it’s interesting to see that certain skill-set planning can lead to advantages in the game more so than other skill branches. Of course, it depends on your playing style (mining is also very rewarding), but whilst writing up the Animal Kinship Pays off Quickly Glitch Strategy blog post (with the help of the info sent in by Ted), I found it interesting to see how, even after much nerfing of Animal meat rewards (I think I remember it being something like 16 meat per nibble at one point in early Beta), animals can be a great source of energy, mood and currants at the higher skills of Animal Kinship.
I'll let you find out why it's rewarding over on the blog post, but if you have any other tips on how to get the most of animals (or other skill related rewards), please post or comment!