I imagine if a poopie-fluffy were given supplemental food they’d probably have the healthiest G.I. tract of their whole herd. I mean as long as their herdmates dont have any parasites to pass on, right? :3c
This is some VERY interesting headcanon and could lead to a lot of novel and amusing weirdbox and/or abuse.
i could totally see a Abuser using this as a training tactic in raising/transforming a Bestes’ Babbeh into a poopie-pal
Idk, making their shit eating behavior “normal” and actually beneficial to them seems to ruin the point of “sowwy poopies” and “poopie fluffehs”. The anus cleaning thing was always something a lower status fluffy did for a higher status one partially because it’s so unpleasant and a way of asserting dominance over the lesser members. But obviously, in your head canon anything you want, goes. I also love your art. A great little piece of fluffy lore here (I can’t believe I just wrote a critique on talking fictional horse’s shit eating habits, what the fuck is wrong with me.).
In my head cannon, this is true. Eating the poo at least once is beneficial to them. Sometimes, you’re going to find a fluffy will eat there “accidents” and get touchy if they think they will get in trouble for cleaning up after the accidentally poos. This is when you reward them for cleaning up the accidentally poos. Don’t reward them with anything but skettis and skettis mush.
This is a fantastic idea! Might incorporate this into my own headcanon, if that’s alright.
just because it’s healthy for them doesn’t mean they do it willingly (thats the fun part hehe)
cold medicine tastes like garbage, but we still take it bc it makes us feel better and helps us get healthy faster
it’s also funny to think about an animal that needs to eat its own poop like a rabbit, but with the sentience and ability to refuse/protest. fluffies are so perfectly stupid and full of poop
the points you bring up are actually part of what i was getting at with “this behavior must be taught”!
being sprayed with poop sucks, having to eat poop sucks, being forced to clean everyone else’s buttholes while yours is still poopy super duper sucks. poop as a threat/weapon/dominance display is integral to fluffies as a concept, youre totally right! i wanted to add the little spin that something so upleasant and degrading is necessary to their health :3c
i didnt think of it before, but having fluffies not absorb all the nutrients from their food could be used as an explanation for how certain Poopie Babbehs survive long enough to be rescued and adopted. it can also be yet another reason why ferals are sicklier and have shorter lifespans than pet fluffies bc they arent getting those gut bacteria back that they shat out.
in the ideal herd there wouldnt be any selfish/lazy/mean-spirited fluffies, they would all participate in unpleasant work like butt-grooming or nest-cleaning as a way of reaffirming social bonds, yet the fates (and Smarties) are rarely so kind to the little shitrats.
(whats wrong with you? whats wrong with ME?? im the one that wrote this whole damn poop-eating essay to begin with aljajsjxbksjbskxnbxk im always a slut for worldbuilding even if it’s literally shit lol)
i would be honored!
Fluffies are often portrayed as being motivated by vanity ( they were designed for little girls, after all. Or, well, bronies. Or, most relevantly, what obviously clinically insane hasbio marketing people hallucinated those demographics were like ). Poopies are not “pretty”. Yet, at the same time, sorry poopies are the only thing even close to being a means of self-defense for a fluff. Would imagine there are some complex emotions there, at least complex enough that the average fluffy would be entirely unable to analyze them.
& beyond that, there are the horrors of poopie madness
Poop madness…
laughs
They have no idea that’s a normal thing for them, as they see themselves as the perfect companion for humans, and human people don’t eat there own poop. This explains why the low social cast is actually the most healthy cast, unbeknownst to the species.
Or they would be, if it was not for…well, everything else.
Most animals do eat shit from time to time.
The ones with anus-based natural weapons have glands that are consciously activated and produce severely terrible smells or actual poison.
Humans are also fairly unique in never engaging in this behavior, being disinterested on an instinctual level. There are animals who don’t eat the feces of their own species, but humans exhibit complete revulsion in all circumstances.
Fluffies, as chimeras, could retain awareness of their feces being a way to hurt others. They also are programmed with their higher intelligence by humans, meaning adding in some routines to avoid eating feces like a normal animal would to make them more like cartoony toys but not finish all the feces-related behaviors due to the early escape fits.
But also why infants starve. Eating feces may be the sole source of nutrition for some species like koalas, but others will need nutrients found in milk that are not excreted in useable form.
The ones allowed to nurse last instead of never may be the ones to reach healthy adulthood.
They may still be unhealthy if the rest eat a diet of mostly meat and/or processed junk food instead of cellulose-based foods and sugars.
Adaptation may also factor. Survivors who pass on their genes may over time be better suited to it.
This does make sense. Poop-eating fluffies mostly seem to react more like a kid being forced to eat vegetables than a human being forced to eat poop - they cry and whine, but rarely do they go into vomiting fits like most humans would.
I like it.
Dark hugboxers love to twist their ponies’ minds to eat poop and do other crazy things.
I’d imagine that they’d be programed to avoid eating shit mainly because Hasbio thought buyers wouldn’t like it if their toys liked to eat their own shit, mainly due to shallowness and vanity (which would honestly be true for many people). This, of course, leads to issues as many animals, especially ones that eat alot of plants, need to sometimes eat their own poop both for the missed nutrients and to gain the correct gut bacteria needed to digest the cellulose in the plants.
In the headcanon I’m coming up with, this is actually something Hasbio anticipated and accounted for. Essentially, they used DNA from such bacteria to give the fluffies the ability to breakdown plants without them. Theoretically, it would have made their digestive system more efficient than any natural animal, however, the fluffies were released before it was fully worked out so their intestinal tract is malformed in most individuals which reduces the amount of nutrients they can extract even with the bacteria genes.