RE: Haba blocks VS Unit blocks
My guess is that it is quite small. Heros sells similar sets I think (or at least they used to?), but again, scaled quite small. I've seen Heros in the past (made in Germany) at Tuesday Morning. My guess is that it is probably about the same scale as the Haba stuff.
Do you want stuff like larger-scaled animals, not MIC? I'm not sure budget wise what you are up for, but the Kinderkram, Ostheimer, and Holztiger animals are scaled larger (so you could build a barn w/ unit blocks if that's what you are thinking). They are a little on the expensive side though.
these are small, made in Thailand:
http://www.willowtreetoys.com/c=lQWP...m_Animals.html
Made in the USA, 2.5-3 inches tall:
http://www.hazelnutkids.com/cgi-bin/...017&type=store
farm animals, 3 inches high, Northstar, made in the USA:
http://www.northstartoys.com/collect.../products/farm
(that site also has a set of people, a set of Nativity figures, and they sell larger animals that roll on wheels).
I'm not sure if that helps. If you have something else in mind, give us more info and hopefully we can come up with some other ideas :) ETA: A lot of the ones I posted are still on the smaller side. If you want bigger, I'm stumped other than looking into the Kinderkram/Ostheimer/Holztiger. You could also look for wool felted animals on etsy, hyenacart, and similar sites, or felt them yourself (needle felting is not that hard), if you aren't set on them being wooden.
ETA: I've seen these at a local store. Anamalz. The site says made of Euro parts, but assembled in China. Not sure what you think about that, but here they are:
http://www.tinybirdsorganics.com/Anamalz.html
Mama to DS-2004
DD-2006
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