Hur skapar man en fråga i MySQL för att subtrahera på varandra följande rader baserat på datum och ett distinkt fält?

Frågan har förändrats lite, här är min nuvarande uppfattning om vad du vill ha.

CREATE TABLE inventory
    (`animal` varchar(6), `date` date, `quantity` int);
INSERT INTO inventory
    (`animal`, `date`, `quantity`)
VALUES
    ('dog', '2015-01-01', 400),
    ('cat', '2015-01-01', 300),
    ('dog', '2015-01-02', 402),
    ('rabbit', '2015-01-01', 500),
    ('cat', '2015-01-02', 304),
    ('rabbit', '2015-01-02', 508),
    ('rabbit', '2015-01-03', 524),
    ('rabbit', '2015-01-04', 556),
    ('rabbit', '2015-01-05', 620),
    ('rabbit', '2015-01-06', 748);

Frågan

select animal,actual_date,past_date,quantity_diff
from
(   SELECT a.animal, a.Date
    AS actual_date, past_date.Date
    AS past_date, (a.quantity - past_date.quantity)
    AS quantity_diff,
    1 as drewOrder
    FROM inventory a
    JOIN
    (SELECT b.animal, b.date AS date1,
    (SELECT MAX(c.date)
    FROM inventory c
    WHERE c.date < b.date AND c.animal = b.animal
    GROUP BY c.animal)
    AS date2 
    FROM inventory b)
    AS original_date ON original_date.animal = a.animal
    AND original_date.date1 = a.date
    JOIN
    inventory past_date
    ON past_date.animal = a.animal
    AND past_date.date = original_date.date2
    union
    select distinct animal,null,null,null,2 as drewOrder from inventory
) x
order by x.animal,x.drewOrder,x.actual_date;

Resultaten:

+--------+-------------+------------+---------------+
| animal | actual_date | past_date  | quantity_diff |
+--------+-------------+------------+---------------+
| cat    | 2015-01-02  | 2015-01-01 |             4 |
| cat    | NULL        | NULL       |          NULL |
| dog    | 2015-01-02  | 2015-01-01 |             2 |
| dog    | NULL        | NULL       |          NULL |
| rabbit | 2015-01-02  | 2015-01-01 |             8 |
| rabbit | 2015-01-03  | 2015-01-02 |            16 |
| rabbit | 2015-01-04  | 2015-01-03 |            32 |
| rabbit | 2015-01-05  | 2015-01-04 |            64 |
| rabbit | 2015-01-06  | 2015-01-05 |           128 |
| rabbit | NULL        | NULL       |          NULL |
+--------+-------------+------------+---------------+