How much is too much and how much is too little?
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6-12 feels right to me. Basically two families with offspring maybe an odd man out. Any more than that it gets hard to follow or some fluffy characters fade into the background.
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Headcanon
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10 is my magic number, but I’ve seen two breeding pairs working together refer to themselves as a “herd”.
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If I were to imagine a functional herd, I’d expect at least 4 fluffies, mainly covering the core functions of leader (Smarty or Smarty Friend), enforcer (Toughie), scout/forager (Nummie Finder) and either a mare for herd expansion or a decoy fluffy (weird food tester, explorer of unknown neighborhoods).
Beyond that, I figure any number between 3 and 30. More than that and you risk having a megaherd, which, realistically speaking, is rather unlikely to survive long enough to be recognized as such. Less than that and it’s just a couple/family.
Ultimately, I agree with @Mr_Owl and will proceed to tap @Oculusfluffy 's thicc ass bus driver sign, and also second @Scum 's suggestion regarding having too many characters, unless you use most of them as redshirts or background chatter.
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in my head cannon its usually 5-30+
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There is no standard size.
Its based on environmental factors, and the variables of your headcanon such as how aggressively they purge natural colors, Smarty aggression, Feral vs Domestic, intelligence of Herd leaders and members, if they mate when horny or have estrus cycles, if they have a goal or a niche, how aggressive the local humans are, how destructive they end up, and so on. Herds can also come in smaller clans if there is organization, or just mix in blobs as Smarties forget who belongs to who in small, contested areas where Herds are in constant contact.
I use all of the above, so “Herd” only means a group either pursuing one goal, traveling together, or under a single Smarty or Oversmarty.
Hugbox place that sterilizes them and puts them back in the street? Based on the size of the town, maybe two Fluffies for every resident split into subHerds that mix members.
Deep woods? If Feral survivalist lineage, 6-18. If Domestic, 4-10 adults with 16 babies and dwindling fast.
Agricultural areas with soft plants they can damage? 16-20.
Agricultural areas where they are not a threat to plants and are used to cheaply fallow fields and kill weeds? 40-100
Suburban yard invaders, Feral/Domestic mix? 4-8 plus three babies per female.
Hugboxer who adopts invaders after shaming the Smarties? 8-18.
Wetlands? 2-6.
Desert? 10-20.
Cliffs, rocky hills, and mountain summits? 4-10.
Fluffies in search of something due to a religious movement akin to Cleveland? 60-1,400,000.
Plains and valleys? 60-400,000.
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Not counting foals, usually 5 to 12 adults. While more are possible, most successful herds stay small to avoid attracting human attention. What with it being illegal in my head canon to let an “intact” feral go free.
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In a fluffy’s mind two to ~
People’s generally, anything over four adults.
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This exactly.
The herd size is very much a plot device for the story being told. It’s also easily explained by how lucky they are, how smart they are(n’t), time of year, abundance of food, survivability, are they more toy or animal like, where they are and more.
Then you get into the personality of the herd.
Vary the numbers and composition based on what you want or feel you need to tell the story you want. You’ve got lots of tools to explain it away as needed.
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Depends on locale.
Rural herds easily number in the dozens, maxing out at probably 60. Lots of space and abundant food make for large numbers, which attracts predators, which reduces numbers. You could have here’s up to 100 including foals but a massive death rate among foals is to be expected with only 1 in 3 reaching reproductive age. Here loyalty and cooperation is paramount, with a strong leader being the life or death of the herd.
Suburban herds are no more than a dozen, as suburbanites aren’t going to put up with huge herds of fluffiest running around. They tend to be spoiled, stupid run aways les by Smarties that get their herds killed. See any yard invasion story for details.
Urban herds are tiny, no more than 5-7 and primarily of a single family. Their short, sad lives leave little permanence and no loyalty to herd.
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Are there different types of herds?
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a herd that lives in a forest and is ruled by a good smarty is a different beast from a herd that lives in suburbs with a bad smarty in charge and a giant mega herd with no defined leader at all
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I haven’t seen them referenced by name. Its usually “herd of [subspecies or unique characteristics]”.
But Megaherds are the giant ones. I only see them in reference to Fall Of Cleveland and the racist reservation drives, but I’d assume they still form and exist in most canons. Its likely the issue of not wanting to write about it.
I did the math on how many Fluffies could likely gather for my unfinished Cleveland rewrite based on populations of various animals, my estimates for Fluffy food consumption, and how long it takes a predator population to explode and I think I found like two million to be an easily plausible number for Fluffies gathering on the plains where people just don’t live. Predator territoriality means that once the population increases beyond a certain size the foxes and wolves ad hawks and yadda yadda don’t factor in much anymore as population control, and figured general human apathy means unless economic interests are threatened nobody will do shit about it.
Though my headcanon relies on Fluffies being perfectly healthy thriugh feral age range on a diet composed in large part of shit and their own kind, the way basically anything but humans can. I also tried to use agricultural interests, pushing Fluffies onto federal lands or that of competitive interests to force open their own expansion opportunities.
But yeah, other than Megaherds I don’t think there are other terms. Though if you invent them someone will surely reference them, the writing side of Fluffies is highly derivative and incestuous.
1x Smarty
2x Toughy
2x Broodmare
2x Nummy Finder
1x Poopie Nummer
I think they mostly feel comfortable and secure once they’ve established a fluffy hierarchy, which is 5 minimum and 8 ideally, plus however many babbehs. After that, the sky is the limit, but I think they’re constantly trying to recruit/expand until they’re sure they have all the basics covered.
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Another question: Are smarty friends similar to smarties or are they the same?
smarty friend is a good smarty
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I direct you to the last two pieces of March of the Fluffies for more information.
Widely regarded by many (1) to be the seminal work on fluffy pony biology and herd dynamics, March of the Fluffies explores how herds, subspecies, and individuals interact.
(1) No one.
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I don’t know where the term came from since it isn’t from MLP, and I’m not familiar enough with the series as a whole to know if it came from a single episode or an old concept under a different name.
Originally Smarty and Smarty-friend was the same. There were no wicked Fluffies, they were all sweet and innocent.
Then the term split and “justified Abuse” got popular, leading to Hellgremlin Fluffies becoming a thing. Smarties are Hellgremlins, Smarty-friends are good leaders that are just either smart Fluffies or the only one to take up the leadership role.
As a result of Hellgremlins often involving rape and some egregious sexism from some of the community, Smarties are almost exclusively males from this point on. Its rare when a creator uses a female Smarty now, or gives females agency at all.
Now its sometimes Smarty is used interchangeably with Smarty-friend since in a lot of newer headcanons a smart or leader Fluffy is always a Hellgremlin, either permanently from birth or because they were shown kindness which means they think their life has value which makes them evil.
None of this is hard rules. Smarties are subject to a lot of interpretation, especially in written work. Visual works tend to use literary convenience to just default to Hellgremlin Smarties, with Smarty-friends only when the Smarty is the protagonist.
An author here actually changed their story partway through chapters when they found out about Smarty- friends, switching to the idea of teaching a Hellgremlin Smarty from birth to be a decent leader and trustworthy for the owner to leave vulnerable ones in his care.
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