First of all, fluffies aren’t just biological automatons. They aren’t anywhere near as clever as humans, but they are capable of learning from experience and, to a degree, of drawing intellectual conclusions.
Alicorn-phobia is a real thing, although alicorns are not inherently stronger, cleverer or nicer than other types of fluffy. Color prejudice against “poopeh” fluffies, on the other hand, is only really found among impressionable domestic fluffies who have picked up on their human breeder’s attitude to less-valuable colorations. It’s very uncommon among ferals. (Before anyone complains, this is how Crambone in my story “Wespeck yuu daddeh” became a smarty despite being dark green and, in some people’s headcanons, lower-caste.)
Many humans have an unduly negative idea about fluffy social behavior for similar reasons to the development of the discredited “alpha wolf” model of lupine behavior, which was based on behavior among wolf groups in zoos. (Turns out, if you round up a bunch of wolves who’ve never met before and shove them in a paddock together, they act like stereotypical gangbangers in prison gen-pop.) The dysfunctional, self-destructive and abusive behavior popularly associated with feral fluffies gets observed in urban and suburban feral herds where random lost or dumped fluffies band together for safety or get rounded up by a smarty-syndrome case who thinks they’re entitled to a herd.
By contrast, in rural areas fluffy herds are mainly made up of feral-born fluffies who often all have wider kin loyalties to each other, and due to the rigors of survival have lost some of their instinctive deference to authority. As a result, serious smarteh-do-wot-smarteh-wan behaviors like demanding to have all the best nummies, enf all the mares, and/or brutally assault any fluffy who momentarily annoys them tend to result in the smarty getting stomped to death in short order.
Born-feral fluffies are also much less naive in their attitude to predators or strange humans. However, they retain their in-built friendliness to humans, and rural residents who show some kindness or tolerance to fluffies can often negotiate some form of co-existence. Due to a lack of over-confident smarties, the stereotypical dis-am-smarteh-wand-naow confrontation between fluffy herds and residents is practically non-existent in rural areas.
Despite the basic good sense and intentions of most rural feral smarties, many of them do tend to rule with a heavy hoof, given the tendency of the average fluffy to stupidity and flakiness.
The dark side of rural feral fluffies lies in the main reason why their population remains stable, after predators and foul weather. Fluffies are not really capable of sexual restraint for long periods of time, meaning that there is a LOT of foal-cannibalism. If there aren’t enough nummies for a mare to provide milkies for all her babbehs, the weaker or less attractive foals are definitely going to become emergency rations. This is also the usual fate for foals whose mothers die before they are weaned. Cannibalism of adult fluffies is much less common, although if a herd is in truly desperate straits, anything goes. This almost always occurs after a fluffy has died from accidents, exposure or starvation, actually killing fellow fluffies for food is very rare indeed.
(Although almost all rural ferals will have engaged in cannibalism at least once in their lives, the idea of “cannibal fluffies” who are stronger, faster, and sneakier obligate carnivores with big sharp teeth is a baseless urban legend among both humans and fluffies, created by a mixture of the usual human paranoia about wild or feral animals in cities with garbled memories of Hasbio’s disastrous and short-lived “fuzzy pony” experiment in biological control.)
The prevalence of cannibalism in rural feral herds has led to the emergence and endemic status of the prion disease Fluffy Spongiform Encephalopathy, or as ferals themselves call it “da dummeh fwopsehs”. The long incubation period and short lives of fluffies mean that it has not made much difference to the feral population, although it is now the main natural cause of death for adult ferals. Observation by conservationists has revealed that, at present, there is no sign of the disease jumping species to predators, although it is the justification for official advice against human consumption of feral fluffy meat (not that many people want to do that anyway).