I yawn. Being on first shift meant being up early. Before the fluffies woke up. Before the sun was up. A grunt comes out while my arms are out-stretched. Each day starts off the same, starting with the walk through the converted chicken house.
Its still quiet. Scattered around the building are large fluff-piles. Each one congregated upon round heating pads, one per pen. A mild Georgia autumn is here at last, I muse before pausing by the office. Its always been a bit relaxing to watch the mounds of fluffies gently rise and fall in their slumber. The ferals had the mothers and young ones in the center, with their smarty and toughies around the outside. This was a good herd, one of several in the building.
We keep the bad ones outside. Let them enjoy the weather while watching the good herds get better treatment. Sometimes we’ll lose a particularly head-strong smarty and a toughie or two, but eventually the herd itself comes around.
The office is more a small shed inside the larger building and even then more a storeroom than anything else. A small make-shift desk got built into the wall, space enough for a laptop and some paperwork but not much else. Glasses get pushed up with one hand while the other grabbed a ruggedized tablet. It slowly comes to life, grabbing a hold of the wifi from the satellite dish on the roof. Data trickled in with a schedule, email, and other vitals for the day. My day. Best to get started.
Administrative work was set aside as a large cart was loaded up with feed. One part farm-grade kibble got mixed with two parts of kudzu clippings, leaves, stems and all. Rehabilitating the ferals to a semi-domestic state took a while, but not as long trying to redirect their diet to eat the invasive plant. Getting out of the office without making too much noise is never easy, and one herd is always ready for breakfast.
“Nice miss Wee-an gib nummies?”
“Hab wet nummies?”
“Can hab bwown nummies miss Wee-an?
“Nice miss Wee-an gib nummies fow make miwkies?”
I put a pointer to lips in a “shhh” pose, which the fluffies immediate quiet to. Starting from the back each herd’s trough is filled up. Enough to start the day with, but not enough to fill them. No, that be their work for the day. Except for the herd by the office.
When I get to them the leftover chow gets put away in the office. There’s a bin for stuff to be used the same day, and I dump it all into there. Making a note we need to get more supplies, I return with a dozen cans of dog food plus a cannister of vitamin powder. The fluffies sit patiently, waiting.
“Stay.”
Heads nod while they sit up, eager. Hooves step in place, back and forth, as they wait. Little eyes watch while the tabbed cans are opened and dumped into the feeding troughs then covered with the vitamins.
“Come and get it.”
A rainbow of color shuffles forward, each going for a spot in the feeding trough. I smile a little. Another good, but different, herd. My pet project.
“So, all trucks are at their destinations around the park and setting the herds to forage,” Alan reported as he placed his walkie-talkie radio back onto its charger.
“Great. How long are we keeping them out today?”
“Given the weather we can probably keep them out til 2pm. Best get them loaded and back before the kids get out of school.”
I nod. Three of the nearby state parks were having trouble with kudzu over the summer. It would’ve been nice if they had asked for help earlier, but there were always other concerns. A sigh accidentally.
“Yeah, I know,” the black man says, rubbing his head. “But frankly they were too busy keeping visitors out of trouble when the problem was easier to deal with.”
“Well, we’ll do what we can. I figure we’ve got another few more weeks to have the herds eat back the stuff.”
Alan nods. “Speaking of which, your little friends back there need some work too.”
“That they do. How have the fluff-hunters been doing this year?”
“Pretty good, honestly. We’ve gotten about twenty registered kills in Toccoa Springs forest this past weekend.”
“Twenty?” I’m doubtful.
“Most of the fluff hunters are saving up their vacation time for a big push before deer season starts.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I laugh. The local deer seem have taken to fluffies, so seeing them with the neon critters wasn’t uncommon. The fluffies feel more secure while the deer have an additional layer of protection. What the deer don’t hear the fluffies might smell. And if the fluffies get scared, the deer know something is going on.
Thus the deer hunters hate fluffies.
“Okay fluffs, time to get some more to eat.” I look at my little herd, twelve adults not including the mothers with young. They cheer.
An hour later we’re in the forest, fluffies unloaded. Alan has six on leashes as do I. They cheerfully babble, enjoying the leaves on the ground crunching beneath their hooves. We’ve thankfully got them trained to sit still when dressing them, so each has a bright orange and purple safety vest on.
“So, I never did ask,” Alan starts as we walk to the fluff deposit further ahead. “What on earth gave you this idea?”
“Hmmm?” I ask. “Hunting fluffs?”
“Well, that,” he says while pulling back on left hands when a stallion starts jabbering about fluffy nummies. “But more their diet. They’re not exactly predators by any stretch of the imagination.”
“No, they’re not,” I agree as my fluffs get excited and pull against the leashes. “More scavengers.”
“To put it nicely.”
“Well, my old professor at UGA had a class on fluffy genetics that he let me audit.”
“Really? Isn’t that, like, Masters or PhD level stuff?”
“Can be,” I answer. “But for me it was just for the hell of it. We got along well, and I took it seriously that I could help tutor some of the underperfoming students.”
“So, what’s that got to do,” Alan said, waving his hand about the forest. “With this?”
“As it turns out, there’s a somewhat uncommon gene combination that can come up which prevents fluffies from metabolizing vitamin A, arganine, taurine, and some other vital nutrients from plant sources.”
“Really?”
“Yep. More than that, while their short digestive track is normally a problem, its not so bad for animal proteins. Meat can be a little easier to digest compared to foods with thick cellulose walls.”
“Wait… so you’re telling me these little guys…?”
“Fwuffy am mawe! No am stawwion!”
Alan laughs. “So you’re telling me these little mares and stallions are better off with animal protein diets?”
The mare ha-rumphs with some satisfaction. We should really give them names later on.
“Yeah. Because they’ve got that particular genetic sequence they’re actually obligate carnivores. They can’t be omnivores or herbivores.”
“So they’re like cats then.”
“Exactly.”
“Yaaay! Nummie-fwuffies!” erupts from the herd as they come upon a pile of carcasses left by the fluff hunters. They’re stacked in a metal cage with a gate in the front. Its only chest high, but that’s tall enough to keep feral dogs out.
“I thought cannibal fluffies were supposed to have swirly eyes or something?”
“That’s an urban legend, or so I’m told,” is my bemused reply. “You never know with these little guys. Lots of surprises in their DNA.”
I open the door to the cage, letting the unleashed herd in. They set upon the days old bodies, tearing at them, digging in. Three of the bodies get put into a bag for me to take back to the mamas and their young ones while Alan reconciles the bodies with the report.
“It always freaks me out to see them eating like that.”
“Well, fluffies decompose fairly quickly,” I note. “After a few days everything is soft enough that even an animal as weak as a fluff can tear it apart.”
“I know, but that doesn’t really help.”
The fluffs are exciting and energetic after eating their fill. In all about six of the seventeen dead fluffs were consumed. I make a note to have the rest picked for another project. They’ll get autopsied, checking for poisons, chemicals, parasites and more. Another biologist near Atlanta hit on the idea of using them as a biological barometer of sorts to gauge conditions in the area. Given how slowly they move about, its not a bad idea. Something with a larger range wouldn’t work quite as well.
One of them pokes his head up into the air, sniffing. “Fwuffy smeww fwuffy!”
“Oh, which way?” Alan asks, leashing the pink stallion.
“Dis way!”
I leash up the rest and follow. We go deeper into the forest, cold air rushing past us. It was a good day to not wear contacts. Near a stream the pink fluff stops, pointing his snout to under a fallen tree. Alan walks around one side while I go the other. All the fluffies are quiet, waiting.
“Noo… no huwt fwuffy!” a voice squeaks out. “Am nyu mama!”
“Its okay,” I say quietly, raising an open hand up. The fluffs all sit down, relaxing.
“How many babies do you have?” Alan asks, taking off his backpack, slowly opening it.
“Fwuffy hab wotsa babies! Bu’ no can weab caus’ too many boom-boom noisies! Scawy!”
“Do you have a special friend?”
“Nu… bawkie munstah num speshul fwen’ many bwite times ago…”
I watch as Alan goes his thing, scooping the mama up with five babies, placing her tummy-up into the backpack. He nuzzles her as he does so, softly reassuring her everything was going to be okay. A smile grows on my face; he’s good at this, and probably knows which herd he wants to put her into.
Her and her babies won’t be ready for the rest of fall’s work, but come spring we’ll have some new faces in the kudzu crew.
Its been commented that some folk found cannibal fluffies to be a bit much to swallow. So I thought about it and decided on something that might be a bit more believable.
