Picking up from last time, our topic today is what does and can happen after your fluffy gives birth. Before we go on, though, I would like to emphasize that when it comes to raising foals, my area of expertise is primarily on the medical side of things— nutrition, shots, developmental milestones, that sort of thing. If you want advice on how to keep the foal from growing up into an irritating little hellgremlin, then I recommend you consult one of the many, many books on how to raise fluffies and work from there. With that out of the way, let’s dive in.
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Playing Favorites
If there’s one sentence every fluffy owner dreads to hear (apart from “Dis am smawty’s wand!”), it’s “dis babbeh am bestest babbeh”. Going from personal observation, this largely seems to be a behavior found in ex-ferals (where the pressure of life in the wild encourages mothers to single out the smartest and/or strongest in their litters for special attention) and mill-raised fluffies (where mothers have it drilled into their heads that foals of, say, a particular color and/or type are better than others, with the principle of “fluffy say, fluffy do” ensuring that it sticks with the mill population).
On a side note, the “poopie baby” phenomenon (which, for the uninitiated, is when the dam’s least favorite foal— usually a brown one— is forced to subsist on the rest of the family’s droppings) seems to be exclusive to mill-raised fluffies and ferals directly descended from them. If I had to guess, it’s probably related to the old practice of many of the larger ones deciding that litter pals (short version: lobotomized pillowfluffs— again, usually brown ones— forced to eat fluffy manure) was better than dealing with litterboxes or having ever-growing piles of manure on the premises.
Outside of ex-ferals and mill-raised fluffies, a dam playing favorites is often a sign of…
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Bitch Mare Syndrome
Back when I first got certified to work with fluffies, I was under the impression that “bitch mare syndrome” was just something made up by a particular demographic of fluffy owners in order to justify their pet’s bratty behavior after giving birth (and later used as an excuse by more abusive owners to…well, abuse the mother and foals as opposed to taking any steps to combat the behavior).
In the time since then, I’ve managed to observe enough cases to confirm that it does exist, and it appears to be a form of postpartum depression. That being said, my research on the subject is still ongoing, so keep your eyes peeled for any updates on the topic.
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The “Alicorn Glitch”
Based on my own observations, accounts of adult fluffies exacting violence on alicorns (particularly foals) for being “munstahs” are largely overblown. Or to put it another way, in all my time tending to fluffies, I can count the number of times a mother has stomped her alicorn foal on one hand— apparently, even the infamous glitch (for the uninitiated, the “alicorn glitch” is a weird quirk of fluffy psychology where they can’t seem to register a fluffy with both wings and a horn as being…well, another fluffy) can’t overpower the familial bond. Or more likely, accounts of the “glitch” in action have been exaggerated over time.
As for the “glitch” itself, it usually manifests as an overall sense of uneasiness when an unrelated fluffy is in the same general area as the alicorn. Going by personal experiments, how it’s expressed seems to depend on the fluffy’s overall intelligence— the smarter the fluffy, the better it does at staying calm. Conversely, dumber fluffies tend to be more prone to acting on that unease, which can (and has!) resulted in them doing things like killing the alicorn in a blind panic.
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A Brief Guide to Foals
Honestly, I should (and probably will at some point) give this topic a dedicated entry. For now, though, I’ll leave you with what I call the “6-7-8-12 Rule”. If you’re wondering what the numbers mean, each one corresponds with when a significant event in the foal’s life should happen— begin the weaning process at around 6 weeks, first round of vaccinations at around 7 weeks, and getting them fixed at around 8 weeks (males) or 12 weeks (females).