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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I’d say that a smarty can be good or bad, while a smarty friend is always good. I tend to call both types “smarties”, but if I were to call one a smarty friend, it would be someone that’s smarter than the average fluffy and has a lot of knowledge of local flora/fauna so he can keep his herd out of trouble.
In terms of herd size, yeah I’d say when there’s two fluffies more than the base family, it becomes a herd - a minimum of four, not counting foals. However, for a fluffy the minimum size for a herd is one, because a single smarty claiming to be a herd is just funny to me.
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more than 1
Vetriverse fluffies form the biggest groups possible given the circumstance, and loosely define a “herd” as a group of families. If everyone is related to a single breeding pair by blood, adoption, or “special friending” existing members then its a family. If you’ve got multiple unrelated breeding pairs its a herd.
Circumstances, however, tend to drive those numbers down a lot. Something like a fairly well protected city park with a town council that likes the idea of community accessible wildlife (and considers fluffies as such) could get up to 60-100, but predation, shelter dropoffs, and environmental hazards would keep most herds under 20 when they do form. Usually you’re only going to see families.
Given a situation of excessively available protected space and food resources, though, the breeding rate can skyrocket and generate a megaherd of (generally defined as 200+ but the number can get into the thousands.)
Megaherds are ecological disasters waiting to happen. As the herd moves farther and farther out of equilibrium with its actual environment, it incurs a “debt,” as eventually the safe, abundant food runs out and suddenly there’s a massive number of animals leaving safety in desperate search of more food than the environment can lose at once. Generally followed by rivers of fluffy blood.
And then for an added frustration, in wilderness, rural, and semi-rural environments all that fluffy flesh provides a spike in safe, easy calories for prey species that results in a spike in their populations that will also be unsustainable. Which can then crash the pred population and cause havoc with existing prey populations…
Yeah. Megaherd events are bad.
Two mates+
Depends how they act or what they do
As many as the toughies can manage or the Smarty can bellow at.
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For me I will have a small feral herd, thinking about the food situation mostly for the size. If you find a feral with a few herd members, the food situation is plentiful and the herd is compatible with a domestic herd.
Domestic fluffies are going to be a mix bag. A common herd:
Daddah Leader, Mummah Leader
Four pairs of Mummah’s and Daddahs with each having a role: dad’s often are the tuffies while the Mummah’s handle the feeding of the offspring.
Each pair often has between 2-4 foals and are at various stages of life. With the herd at this size, the humans only have one 50 pound kibble bag to worry about feeding the herd, with a little support of Skettis once a week so the herd stays loyal to the humans, and not run away. With a herd this size, a couple can handle them and not suffer financially. If they get too many foals, most people have sold bundles of foals to research facilities and product testing facilities for a great price: 40,000 for 10 weaned foals is a common transaction.
As few or many as you need, the rules of logic and nature apply selectively to fluffies
I think it would depend on a few factors, namely the weather and the location of the herd. It would be easier to navigate a city in a small herd while a larger herd could survive better in a park, forest, or countryside. Summer months will bring more food, good weather and more fluffies while winter and fall would kill off the vegetation and the cold alone could kill a large number of fluffies.
And there is a difference between a family group and a herd. Family groups led by a mated pair or a single mother/single father, along with any number of foals of different ages. A herd led by a single Smarty (either an arrogant hellish tool who rules through fear and aggression or on occasion a dependable, intelligent (for a fluffy), and ambitious Smarty Friend. Fluffies in a Smarty led herd are more likely to die because of the regime of their leader or leave because they don’t like how the Smarty is leading.
While family groups are small between 2-4 adults with any number of young foals. Herds themselves are larger, could be a Smarty and his/her chosen special friend. An appointed head toughie and toughies. Then are pregnant mares and/or their mates. I also like to think that fluffies are both monogamous and polyamorous, occasionally bonding as Special Friends or a stallion might have multiple mares and mares might have sex with multiple stallions without forming emotional connections- it depends on the fluffy.
After that in the hierarchy would be nummie finders, this could overlap with the pregnant mares/mates, and after that are poopie fluffies/nest attendents. Depends on the herd those fluffies could be relegated as the worst of the worst in charge of taking the brunt of the herd’s scraps and shit. They also could be fluffies in charge of cleaning up the nest and making it habitable for the herd itself.
So in a city scape a herd could be (1) Smarty Leader, (2-3) toughies, (0-3) pregnant mares, (1-2) nummie finders, (1-2) poopie fluffies/nest attendants. Evening out at between 5-11 adult fluffies and between 4-6 foals per mother on average, though it could be more or less depending on nutrition, the age of the mare, stress, illness, etc…
In the countryside a herd could be (1) Smarty Leader, (2-7) toughies, (12-25) pregnant mares, (5-9) nummie finders, (5-8) poopie fluffes/nest attendants. Evening out at between 25-50 adult fluffies and same difference for the foals.