ASK FLUFFIESAREFOOD
Volume 1 Number 7
Happy Thursday Fluffherders! It’s time for another edition of Ask FluffiesAreFood, the advice column that seeks to answer questions of fluffherders and fluffy eaters everywhere! If you have a question, just comment here or PM me!
Lucario asks:
Dear FluffiesAreFood:
I work with large reptiles and one of my co-workers has suggested implementing fluffies into the snakes’ diet since fluffies are able to be bought from pet stores or breeders as a much lower price than live or frozen mice and rats.
I don’t think feeding the snakes fluffies would be too different than mice; in both cases the food is kept fully intact with the skin on, and it wouldn’t be hard to throw some fluffies in the freezer for our snakes who won’t eat live prey.
My concern lies with the snakes eating the hooves. I know snakes swallow their prey whole, but will the hooves digest? We give things like whole pigs and goats to our exceptionally large snakes, but we’re a bit concerned the hooves won’t go down as well with our smaller, thinner species of snakes (cornsnakes for example).
If fluffies are indeed an okay food source for snakes, would all ages/sizes of fluffies be okay for feeding to snakes or should we just stick to giving hairless foals to the small ones? Are there any sources of wholesale fluffies you recommend in particular?
Thank you for your time, and keep up the good work,
A member of the herpetology team at the Saint Louis Zoo
There’s a lot to discuss here, Lucario, but the short answer is, yes, most snakes can eat fluffies, although the size of the snake determines the size of the fluffy the snake can eat. As a rough guide, anything that can eat a mouse can eat a microfluffy, anything that can eat a rat can eat a foal up to two weeks old, and anything that could theoretically eat a goat or pig can eat an adult fluffy.
The hoof-pads of a fluffy aren’t hardened chitin such as on a goat or pig, but cartilage designed not to offend the hardwood floors of fluffy owners. As such, your snakes should easily be able to swallow a fluffy whole and digest it. You can also safely leave the fur on.
The main thing you would need to worry about is the mental health of your employees. Many zoos stopped feeding fluffies to their predators after the anguished pleas and screaming of the prey (in fluffspeak, which is basically English as a four year old might speak it) drove the handlers mad. There are dozens of cases of PTSD, severe depression or anxiety, suicidal ideation, delusions of grandeur, and anger disorders. This can spiral out of control quickly: there is at least one case where a handler came under the delusion that the zoo was actually feeding human children to the reptiles. The police arrested him in the zoo parking lot with an illegally converted automatic weapon in his trunk. They barely prevented a shooting rampage!
Fortunately, you can avoid this with the proper measures. Make sure to train your employees to think of fluffies as food animals, and not as pets or children. Also, make sure to have mental health counselors available to the staff.
Furthermore, many handlers cope with their jobs by drowning out the desperate screams of the terrified, panicked and dying fluffies with loud music. You should not discourage this. If you have rules against wearing headphones and listening to loud music while feeding the animals, you will need to make an exception for employees handling food fluffies or near the pens when fluffies are being consumed. Forcing an employee to expose themselves to those screams puts them on a fast track to mental illness. In some states, it also could mean a lawsuit.
Your best option for procuring snake food fluffies is to work with a commercial breeder in your area, to provide you with a steady supply of fluffies to meet your zoo’s specific needs. The local chapter of the Fluffherders Association can put you in touch with breeders. Pet store fluffies should be considered a stopgap measure. Most pet store fluffies are going to be very expensive as food, but “last chance” fluffies and foals, which would otherwise find themselves slaughtered for meat for the local homeless shelter, will do nicely in a pinch. Of course, if you were an individual owner of a pet snake, I could also recommend keeping fluffies in house to breed for snake food.
RevMe asks:
Dear FluffiesAreFood,
Your letter about cherries intrigued me. What other things (food and not) do you recommend feeding to fluffies to change/enhance their natural flavors?
This is an excellent question, RevMe! The Fluffherders Association of America has compiled a wealth of data on how various foods change the flavor profile of a fluffy’s meat. There is a comprehensive guide, “Fluffy Feed and Flavor,” available from the FHAA website, fluffiesarefood.org. This book is an alphabetical listing of hundreds of foods along with guidance on how it changes the meat taste and how it affects the health of the fluffy. I would strongly urge you to get this book! However, here is a list of my top five “do” and “don’t” fluffy foods for flavor profile.
DO FEED YOUR FLUFFY:
DRIED FRUITS: DO feed these to fluffies to give the meat a fruity flavor, especially if the flavor of the fruit is strong. Dried cherries, dried blueberries, raisins, prunes, dried cranberries, dried pineapple, dried tomatoes and dried kiwi fruit, are all excellent. The fluffy gut will tolerate up to 20% of their calories as dried fruits, with the rest being kibble or whole grains.
FRESH FRUITS: DO feed these to fluffies, being careful not to upset their stomachs or bowels by feeding them too much. Up to ten percent of their calories can be fresh berries, grapes, peeled citrus, pineapple, tomatoes or mangoes. Blander fruits, such as apples and bananas, can be up to 20% of their calories.
NUTS: DO feed your food fluffs shelled nuts as a way to give the meat a richer flavor. Almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts, chestnuts and Brazil nuts are all good. They should be no more than ten percent of your fluffy’s calories for the last two weeks before slaughter. You can also feed your fluffy peanuts, but those don’t seem to change the flavor profile.
PASTA WITH MARINARA SAUCE: It turns out that feeding your fluffy spaghetti once a day for the last two weeks of before slaughter is good for their flavor profile! A rich marinara sauce will give their meat a hint of tomatoes and herbs!
CELERY: Feeding your fluffy up to 10% of its calories in celery is the same as marinating the meat in celery root soup. 10% might not sound like a lot, but celery is not calorie dense – meaning, that’s a lot of celery to feed a fluffy!
DON’T FEED YOUR FLUFFY:
ASPARAGUS: You know how your pee smells after eating asparagus? Imagine your meat tasting the same way. Save the asparagus for a side dish.
BROCCOLI: This makes your fluffy gassy, and the meat taste slightly spoiled. Again, you’re better off saving it for a side dish.
COFFEE: The fluffy ends up sick and hyperactive; the meat ends up bitter. Lose/lose.
SPICY FOODS: While this does add a bit of kick to the meat, you have to feed a LOT of it to the fluffy to get the right effect, enough to make the fluffy very unhappy and also to make it sick. Save the spices for the cooking stage.
SEMEN: Lots of abusers enjoy forcing their fluffies to consume semen for the weeks before slaughter, and claim that this gives the meat a salty, tangy flavor. Really, this is just an excuse to rape fluffies. It doesn’t change the meat profile except to make the fluffy miserable and the meat savory, which can be accomplished by other less disease-inducing means.
Ask FluffiesAreFood is a service of the Fluffherders’ Association of America. If you have a question about raising, slaughtering, or eating of fluffies, you may comment here or send FluffiesAreFood a PM.