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Are there any differences (nuances or usage) when using prefix 子, 小 or 仔 for
denoting young animals?

Examples:

  * Kitten: 子猫 vs 小猫 vs 仔猫
  * Puppy: 子犬 vs 小犬 vs 仔犬
  * Pony: 子馬 vs 小馬 vs 仔馬
  * Calf: 子牛 vs 小牛 vs 仔牛
  * Lamb: 子羊 vs 小羊 vs 仔羊
  * Piglet: 子豚 vs 小豚 vs 仔豚
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2011-09-07T05:08:00.760
3039
2011-09-08T00:27:00.473
112
question
homophonic-kanji animals
Kitten: 子猫 vs 小猫 vs 仔猫
子 means child. 仔 means an animal child, but does not seem to be used much
regularly except for mentioning a child of a horse. 小 means small, which often
means child but not necessarily.
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2011-09-07T12:39:03.053
3047
2011-09-07T12:39:03.053
3039
answer
The OP's comment just now is on the right track:

小猫 certainly could be just a small cat.  
仔猫 would be more common in science, but for a different reason than you
guessed: 仔 is actually the correct character for a child animal, but it's not
one of the 1945 -- er, 2136 as of last year, is it? -- 常用漢字. Since 子 looks and
means almost the same, it took on the added responsibility of being the
simplified form of 仔.

I think for the anthropomorphism case those characters would need to be
switched. =p

Google hits [Japanese pages only]:  
"仔猫" - 3,160,000  
"子猫" - 10,700,000  
"小猫" - 1,310,000
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2011-09-08T00:27:00.473
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2011-09-08T00:27:00.473
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answer