Full load of medicine and full load of horse pills and try and stay on the horse. Take Dead Eye refillers as well, because killing animals doesn't refill it. Trot through on your horse and wait for the cougar growl, think the horses tend to notify you of nearby dangers too. Buy an improved campsite and use it to save and get home quickly. Really annoying collecting a grands worth of animal bits and then getting mauled.
There's an area just north west of the ranch. by the railroad tracks, that seems interesting hunting wise. Marked as boar on the map, but every time I go there I get a lot of something. Hawks everywhere at one point, decent money in hawk feathers. There was that time though when the twentieth wolf was one wolf too many.
You guys been in multiplayer yet? Was in there last night, there were two other people in free roam. Hunted one of them down and killed him twice and he left. An APS posse of three might be fun some time.