Part Three
You grab lunch on the short drive home, and your alicorn’s gratefully devour a handful of fries each as a reward for their good work today. Parking in your driveway, you let the alicorns go play in the yard while you retrieve a handtruck from the garage. You carefully take each crate of ferals and stack it on the handtruck. The sudden movement is greeted with a chorus of tiny voices:
“Nuu, no wike uppsies!” Cries a tiny foal, clinging it its’ mother’s fluff, and a trickle of poo drips forth, smearing on her fur. She is unpleased.
“Weeee, fwuffy fwying!” Squeals a pegasus with obvious delight.
You wheel them carefully down to the barn, and into the enclosure with your workbench, where you set them down. You glance into the sink while donning gloves and your apron, and are surprised to find Oreo still alive. She has clearly woken up, and chirps weakly at you from a pile of discarded foals, who have likewise gone to sleep.
“Fwuffy hab tewwible owies, mistah!” she mewls, “Please help fwuffy?” You answer her by banding her mouth shut and lifting her to the workbench, out of sight of the ferals. You can’t have her scaring the others, but putting her down right now seems like a waste. The clots on her legs break open when you move her, and she begins to bleed from her broken legs. Making a split second judgment, you open a drawer and withdraw some supplies. The legs will have to come off, but the sounds and smells will spook the other ferals, so you will have to stabilize her and decide her fate later. Tiny fluffy-sized tourniquets are cinched tightly above the breaks and she squirms weakly, She screams, but with her mouth fastened shut it sounds more like “SRMMMMMMMFH!” There is more attempted screaming as you give her open wounds a once-over with an antibacterial wipe before carrying her over to an isolation cubby in your office. You check that there is food and water before removing the band from around her snout. You quickly shut and seal the plexiglass door to the cubby before she can scream and spook the ferals.
Whew. That was a pain, you think to yourself. Time to deal with the herd.
Setting the crates down and emptying them, you let the fluffies walk around your enclosed workspace. There are several accidents as foals and adults alike pee or poop on the slick floor, but you can deal with that later.
“Attention fluffies.” you announce to the herd, most of whom stop to look up at you. “Now that you are at Daddy’s house, there are new rules to follow. Bad fluffies who don’t follow the rules will get owwies. Rule 1: Daddy is the smarty of this herd. What I say, goes.
Rule 2: no demands. If you need something, you ASK daddy and maybe I will give it to you if you are good. Bad fluffies who demand things like a smarty will get the sorry stick.
Rule 3: Daddy gets to choose which babies are best and which are poopy. Mummahs don’t choose poopy babies in Daddies house. Mummahs who hurt their babies, even babies that don’t smell good, will get terrible owwies. IS THAT CLEAR?!” There are whines of protest from several mares about your rule about foals, but the rest nod along. You scatter a handful of treats amongst them, and while they scramble and fight over the nummies, you begin the sorting process.
You decide that the dams come first. You bundle up the Earthie mare and her foals in a warm blanket and give her a wipe down to clean away her feces. While you do, you check her for any obvious disease. Seeing none, you walk her down to the nursery and put her in a vacant cage, where she begins to sing as her newborns nurse greedily.
“Mummah wub babbehs, babbehs wub mummah!’ She sings happily, holding them close.
You return to the bench and lift another expectant mare up for an examination. This blue Unicorn is swollen up with all her foals, but she can still waddle around slowly. She doesn’t have any growths or rash, her eyes are clean, and there don’t appear to be any ticks or fleas, a small miracle.
“Dat tiwkwe, Daddeh!” she giggles as you palpate her abdomen.
“Have you ever had babies before, fluffy?” you ask.
“Dese am fiwst tummy-babies, nu daddeh.” You thought so, given how shiny and new her coat is under all that dirt. You bring her over and set her in the sink, running the tap nice and warm before you carefully rinse her down.
“Nuuu, nu wike wawa! Wawa gib fwoeba sweepies to speshul fwend!” She bleats, wiggling her legs ineffectively. You shush and reassure her that she is fine, and she settles down under the warm stream. You soap her up and rinse her off before giving her a quick rub-down to make sure she is dry.
She is going to go in one of the cages, but with one of the experienced mares to help her give birth.
Once you are done with the dams, you methodically gather up the mares and their attendant foals. Placing a bowl of kibble on the countertop, you watch how each of the foals behaves. Your first example is a nice blue pegasus and her three foals.
“Tank ou fow nummies, nice mistah!” the mare chirps happily, digging into the kibble with gusto. As she eats, her three foals sniff the kibble and turn their noses up.
“Nuu wan dese nummies. Fwuffy wan mummah’s milkies!” a tiny filly bleats. Well, that settles that, you think, scooping the whole family off and carrying them over to an empty cage. The next contestant is a white mare with two unicorn foals. Despite the mothers protest that they are “stiww tu wittwe for kibbwe,” the babies tuck in to the cheap food greedily, gorging themselves in no time. Ignoring the mothers pleading, you place them in a holding pen, and the mother in a separate one, and continue the sorting process. Most of the mares plead that their foals are too little, but over half are more than happy to eat kibble already, and the majority go into the holding pen with the other, marketable foals.
Some, however, do not make the cut. A surprisingly comely mare is placed on the table with her three foals. One is a rich brown color with a nice golden mane, but the other two are an unfortunate gray-green, like week-old split-pea soup. You lift them from the bench, and they join the other discarded foals in the sink.
“Pwease mistah, gib back fwuffy’s babies? Nee milkies and wub fwom mummah!” She reaches up her little hoofs in desperation.
“No.” You answer simply. If she can have more of these nice brown foals, she will be a productive breeder. Maybe a better looking stallion will improve the ratio of nice-to-ugly babies she has in her next litter.
On it goes, until you have a pen full of whining mares and stallions, and another filled with chirping, crying foals. A similar, yet clearly more mournful tone of crying comes from the sink, where all the discarded foals and adults are piled in one stinking heap, having pissed an shit all over each other. You roughly shovel them into a big trash bag, the bag wriggling as they thrash and complain.
“Why huwt fwuffy?”
“Nuu, why fwuffy make poopies on fwend?! Nu smew pwetty nu mo!”
You take the bucket from your truck and empty it into the bag. Out pours the dead toughies and the smarty-friend, but there is another thump as Lemon lands on top, squealing loudly.
“Wemon hab tewwible owwies! Pwese, gib huggies? Pwese hewp soon-mummah?” Under the corpse of her late smarty ‘special friend’ she pleads. Well shit. How is she still alive? You pull her from under the bloated corpse of a puke-yellow stallion. Over her constant protests, you flip her over. She is quite rotund, and likely to pop any day now, but both back legs are broken. She cries in pain as you feel them under her fluff. Well, this one is fucked. You move to toss her back in the trash bag.
“Pwese nu kiww Wemon-fwend Mistah! Wemon is gud mummuh, make gud babbehs!” What? You turn around. A bright, sapphire-blue mare with cream mane has reared up against the side of the holding pen. She is joined shortly by several others mares.
“Wemon-fwend am gud mummuh!”
“Nu kiww speshul-mummuh Pwese!”
What the hell? The mares all seem enamored with this bright yellow dam. Shit. You don’t suppose you could give this vermin the benefit of the doubt. You can always kill the babies if any turn out smarty. You sigh and bring out a tool box from under the bench. You’ve never done this on a dam before, so Lemon might not even live thru the procedure.If she does, she is a lucky little shit. First comes a band for her muzzle. There is going to be some screaming. Next, a strap secures her belly down. She wriggles, but the strap is strong. She’s going nowhere. Next come the tourniquets. You carefully buzz her rear legs almost bare and fasten the tourniquets as high as they can go on her stubby little legs. Then comes the cleaver. At least this is way easier with the fragile bones of fluffies, a person would take a saw for this work. You position the cleaver and give it a quick push. The blade passes thru flesh and bone with little effort. Lemon’s back arches convulsively and you clamp the leg and out comes a cautery iron to close the bleeding vessels and burn the wound closed. Your dust mask does nothing for the burning flesh smell and you wrinkle your nose at the unpleasant odor.
“Mwrglble! Pfpppssss!” Lemon screams around the mouth band. Her fur is matted with tears and her snout dribbles snot and spittle. Then, her haunches begin to strain. Fuck. This is familiar, minus the strapped down dam. You undo the strap and massage her belly. Out plops a foal, then another. You continue to massage, and two more foals come into the world. They are sticky with amniotic fluid and you carefully rinse them in the sink. There are two yellows, one light green, one red, and a single light pink filly with bright yellow mane. The red and one of the yellows, another filly, simply aren’t moving. Both are cold and dead. You toss them in the trash. The other yellow, a colt, and the pink filly chirp fitfully, seeking the warmth of their mother, followed shortly by the light green colt. They will have to wait for a moment, you have more pressing business with their mother. You leave them wrapped in a warm towel in front of their mother, where they mewl with the vigor of new life. The other leg is easier, with Lemon exhausted from childbirth, she barely squirms when the knife severs her flesh. Once she is cauterized, you loosen the straps and remove her snout-band.
“Huu huuuuuu! Why take weggies?” She whines incessantly as you wipe the snot and blood from her as best you can. Her stumps wiggle ceaselessly. Then she remembers her babies.
“Gib babbehs! Need wuv, huggies and mummah-miwkies!” She crawls along the table towards the rag and plucks her babies up and licks them carefully, clean though they are. One by one she hugs them tightly as they chirp against her fluff. The first two are pressed against her swollen teats and begin to suck. She nestles the third deeply in her fluff and coos to it.
“Babbehs am bestest babbehs! Mummah am bestest mummah! Gib babbeh wub and miwkies!” You carefully pick her up and carry her and her nursing foals to a vacant cage, being sure to fill her water and kibble before you return to the workbench. Only a few more tasks to go. First, the grown fluffies and weaned foals you intend to breed in the future get transported to the appropriate pens. Your current mares and stallions are happy for the new friends, and the trauma of their capture soon fades in a pile of hugs and singing. Then come the marketable foals. You quickly fix and rinse around a dozen of the squirming little creatures, crushing testicles and scarring cervixes. They complain, of course. The foals could never understand that nobody wants to buy an unfixed fluffy these days, what with the required licensing and liability. No, anybody wanting a fluffy for a pet is going to buy one that has been neutered. Bemoaning their “wumps,” you take them a few at a time to the foal pens, where they too soon forget their troubles, running and playing with the bountiful toys and new friends, not to mention as much kibble as they can eat.
Your last task is…unpleasant. The fact of the manner is that there is simply no percentage in unmarketable foals or fluffies. You carry the bulging garbage bag full of rejects out to the garage. In one corner is a strange plexiglass cabinet with a control panel attached, several hoses connecting the panel and cabinet to a large metal tank.
As you pour the wriggling foals and discarded fluffys into the cabinet, the floor of the enclosure depresses, and you read the weight of the pile from a small LCD. Sealing the cabinet carefully, you do some quick math in your head and turn a dial on the control panel, and then press a big red button. There is a hissing noise as the cabinet seals, and more noise as gas begins to flow into the enclosed space.
“Fwuffy feww suu sweepy.” One of the foals chirps, his shit-brown eyelids fluttering. There is a flurry of agreement as the discarded foals doze off, one by one. You step outside and spark up a Marlboro. When the cigarette is done, you walk back inside and vent the cabinet by pressing a yellow button. All of the fluffys inside have died, overcome by the CO2 from the tank. You hate to do this, but honestly its the least painful, stressful death a feral could ever hope for, and it’s far less work for you than killing them by hand.
Donning some heavy rubber gloves and a respirator, you retrieve several industrial-sized wire baskets from a shelf and fill them with fluffies. Turning on a ventilation fan overhead, you unseal a 50 gallon drum and dip the baskets in. In minutes, the soft fur of the fluffies has dissolved into a gross gray goo, leaving the baskets full of corpses stripped of their precious fluff, and looking decidedly like naked mole rats. These go into a tank out back, filled with more decomposing fluffies and brown goop. This digester is a recent acquisition. The slurry inside is full of genetically engineered microbes that will break down the carcasses into organic waste, generating methane in the process. This methane is collected in a series of tanks, and saved to run the backup generator for your barn. When the holding tank gets full, a super-efficient Honda generator kicks on and burns the excess, feeding it into your power system and decreasing your energy bills, which are already low due to your solar panels. Even the waste product from the digester is useful: A nearby nursery uses it in their potting soil, and it appears to have greatly improved the health and vitality of their plants.
Here at Greg’s farm, nothing goes to waste if it can be of use.
