If you are trading with a friend, there's a way to give him awesome items without actually losing them from your own inventory. You'll need to use both available save slots. Start by entering multi-player in your primary saved game and initiating a trade. Select the stuff you're ready to gift your friend, and have your friend select something useless that he won't miss. When the trade is complete, save progress to the second save slot on your system (not the primary one that you were actually using). Then exit out to the title screen from there and you'll be able to load your original save file. When you do, you'll find that you haven't lost any of the items you gave your friend. There's no real benefit for you, since you don't receive any animal products or increase the friendship rating in-game, but your friend should still appreciate your effort. You can repeat this trick as often as you like.